Jules Witcover
President Obama has now completed his year-end review of the American involvement in the Afghan war, declaring yesterday (Thursday) that the strategy launched a year ago with a 30,000 troop surge has set "the conditions to begin responsible reduction of U.S. forces in
He did not, however, provide any indication of the size of the initial drawdown by that date.
Gibbs' emphasis on "condition-based" is an obvious nod to the continuing insistence of Secretary of Defense
Obama and Gibbs also referred to the agreement with other
While the Pentagon has labored to emphasize the stretched-out nature of any U.S. troop withdrawal, Obama made clear he remains firm about starting to withdraw U.S. combat troops in six months, but with the size yet undetermined based on the situation on the ground in July.
The president declared specifically that "we are on track to achieve our goal" of destroying al-Qaida, which he said "is hunkered down" now. But while
Gibbs the previous day took pains to emphasize that the progress of the strategy rather than the strategy itself was the subject of the review, evaluating "the continued challenges that we have in that region ... (and) the ongoing challenge and threat of safe havens in
It is no secret that the generals directing the war in
In Gates, they had a strong ally for not signaling to the Taliban insurgency that they could simply wait out the U.S. departure. He has continually emphasized, as has Gen.
So Gibbs reported that while Gates, Petraeus other brass took part in the just-concluded national security review, they did not reopen the debate on the surge of a year ago and the intensified focus on al-Qaida. Rather, they concentrated on how the strategy was working. And the review, Gibbs said, was a continuing one throughout the last year.
"Nobody expected that we would come out at a year into this and say, 'Good news, all is well, and we can pack up,' " he said. And later: "Lord knows if somebody had said in February of last year, this thing is way off the rails, we wouldn't have continued until the process started in October to evaluate.
"We've dedicated the hard work and the effort and in ... all too many tragic ways, the full devotion of men and women in our armed forces, not to take an honest and clear-eyed look at this approach every single day that we've had it."
While the year-end review was marked by lively discussion as was the one a year before, Gibbs said, "I think the president is and the team are comfortable with the strategy that we've picked, and now we're implementing that strategy."
In all this year-later review of the Afghan strategy, Vice President
Jules Witcover's latest book is Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption (William Morrow).
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