Obama will announce the first phase of a promised drawdown and could also commit to removing by the end of 2012 the remainder of the 30,000 extra “surge” troops he ordered deployed in late 2009, according to a congressional source and and US official familiar with the deliberations.
The president made his final decision on Tuesday on the scale and pace of a US troop pullback in Afghanistan and will lay out his plan in a televised address from the White House at 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT) on Wednesday.
Obama’s announcement comes amid growing calls from an anxious Congress for an endgame in Afghanistan and appeals from the military not to tie its hands in the fight against a Taleban-led insurgency.
He has sought to balance arguments from military leaders pressing for a slow drawdown of the 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan and White House advisers advocating a more rapid pullout now that Osama Bin Laden is dead and a 2012 re-election campaign approaches.
But it remained unclear whether Obama’s decision would reconcile these conflicting pressures or satisfy any of the major players.
“He has been working through his decision over the course of the last several weeks and finalized that decision today,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Tuesday.
While Carney declined to provide details of the president’s plan, he said it was in line with NATO’s goal of turning over the lead for security throughout the country to Afghan forces by 2014. Even at that stage, some US troops might remain as trainers.
Obama intends to announce the withdrawal of roughly 5,000 surge troops, the equivalent of an army brigade, starting next month and up to an equal number more before the end of the year, with the final number determined by conditions on the ground, the sources said.
He could also offer a blueprint for removing what remains of the 30,000-strong surge contingent by the end of 2012, which would give commanders the firepower they say they need for this fighting season and the next one.
But the congressional source said that Obama might give the Pentagon some flexibility by stating that the remaining surge troops would leave at “a pace to be decided by the military.”
Obama’s decision comes at a critical juncture as lawmakers from both parties, looking to slash federal spending, are anxious to curtail what has become a costly and unpopular US military intervention.
A Pew Research poll released on Tuesday found a record 56 percent of Americans now favor bringing the 100,000 US forces currently stationed in Afghanistan home as quickly as possible.
The killing of Bin Laden in a US raid last month has helped buttress the argument within the administration that there has been enough progress against Al-Qaeda to justify scaling back the war effort faster than expected.
Pentagon officials have voiced concern that a rapid withdrawal would endanger gains against the Taleban insurgency while White House advisers have pressed for a drawdown large enough to placate his own Democratic Party’s anti-war wing as well as a growing number of Republicans.
Obama had been reviewing a range of options presented by General David Petraeus, his top commander in Afghanistan.
Among the ideas under consideration was to set a timetable of 12 to 18 months to pull out all of the 30,000 extra troops he sent to Afghanistan, following a review of US war strategy in late 2009, to break the momentum of the Taleban.
Obama has only said the initial withdrawal will be “significant.”
As news reports circulated about the extent of the drawdown Obama would announce, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin reiterated his view that there had been enough military progress in Afghanistan to withdraw 15,000 troops by the end of the year.
“The level of US troop reductions in Afghanistan needs to be significant to achieve its purpose — letting the Afghan government know we are determined to shift primary responsibility for their security to the Afghan security forces,” the Democratic lawmaker said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has urged a more modest drawdown out of the 100,000 US troops now in Afghanistan to avoid undercutting military gains on the ground.
