U.S. Afghan exit strategy based on uncertain 'conditions'

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U.S. Afghan exit strategy based on uncertain 'conditions'
Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

KABUL, Afghanistan – The good news is there is finally a framework, a blueprint, to end the nine-year combat mission in Afghanistan. The bad news is that it’s scheduled for a long time off (2014) and that, to use a military phrase for uncertainty, it’s “conditions based.”

According to senior U.S. military officials in Afghanistan, the American blueprint is to wind up combat operations sometime in 2014. That means the fighting phase of the war, codenamed Operation Enduring Freedom, the large scale U.S. military operation that entails moving heavy weapons and vehicles, surrounding cities and clearing them of militants and their weapons, is supposed to end in three to four years, depending on when in 2014 combat operations finally stop.

After that, some American troops would remain, similar to the 50,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq assisting and training Iraqi security forces.

By 2014, U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan should be over, if the plan holds, and a new non-combat mission would begin.

But there are a number of uncertain conditions – and Afghan President Hamid Karzai may be chief among them.