No Firm Plans for a U.S. Exit in Afghanistan - NYT

[Bozita]

Source: NYTimes

December 7, 2009
No Firm Plans for a U.S. Exit in Afghanistan

By MARK MAZZETTI


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sent a forceful public message Sunday that American military forces could remain in Afghanistan for a long time, seeking to blunt criticism that President Obama had sent the wrong signal in his war-strategy speech last week by projecting July 2011 as the start of a withdrawal.

In a flurry of coordinated television interviews, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top administration officials said that any troop pullout beginning in July 2011 would be slow and that the Americans would only then be starting to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces under Mr. Obama’s new plan.

The television appearances by the senior members of Mr. Obama’s war council seemed to be part of a focused and determined effort to ease concerns about the president’s emphasis on setting a date for reducing America’s presence in Afghanistan after more than eight years of war.

“We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times,” said Gen. James L. Jones, the president’s national security adviser, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/world/asia/07afghan.html?ref=global-home

[No Elephants]

1. No Shiite, Sherlock. At any time, the CIC can announce that the situation "on the ground"

was misdescribed to him, or has changed. Therefore, plans for the military are now different than previously announced. Is this a surprise to anyone?

[Vattel]

2. I guess the point

is that some took Obama to have asserted that, subject to conditions on the ground, our job in Afghanistan would be done in July of 2011 and so we could begin a withdrawal of our troops at that time. In fact, he was only indicating that, subject to conditions on the ground, July of 2011 is the date when we expect to hand over primary responsibility for security in certain (relatively safe) areas to Afghan troops. There is no plan to end the war in 2011.