A total of 10,000 troops will leave the war zone by the end of this year — fulfilling Obama’s promise for a withdrawal starting next month — and more than 20,000 additional forces will leave by the summer of 2012, shortly before the president will go before voters in search of a second term.
Still, almost 70,000 US troops will remain in an unstable country, fighting in a war bound to see more Americans killed. Obama said they will leave at a steady pace, but the US combat mission is not expected to end until December 2014 — and even then, a sizable and enduring contingent may remain in a different role.
Obama’s announcement from the White House came in a perilous political environment, with Americans soured on the war and the economy, many members of Congress pushing him to get troops home even faster, and his Republican presidential rivals taking shots at his leadership at every chance.
Disgruntled Democrats took Obama to task, however politely, for not withdrawing more troops more quickly.
“I am glad this war is ending, but it’s ending at far too slow a pace, “said Sen. Barbara Boxer. Added Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives: “We will continue to press for a better outcome.” At least 1,500 members of the US military have died and 12,000 have been wounded since the American invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The war’s financial cost has passed $440 billion and is on the rise, jumping to $120 billion a year, twice the total of two years ago. Those costs have risen in importance as a divided US government struggles to cut its budget deficits.
Conceding the economic strain of waging war at a time of rising debt and fiscal constraint, Obama said it was time for America “to focus on nation building here at home.” The president’s chances for re-election rest largely on his ability to show faster job growth in a time of deepening economic pessimism.
The withdrawal is supported by the bold bottom-line claims of his security team: Afghanistan, training ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, is no longer a launching pad for exporting terrorism and hasn’t been for years. But that could also fuel arguments for even greater withdrawals by voters wondering what the point of the war is after all these years, especially since the face of the enemy — Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden — was killed by American forces this spring during a raid in Pakistan.
Yet the White House insists the US must maintain a strong fighting force in Afghanistan for now to keep the country from slipping back into a haven for Al-Qaeda terrorists.
The initial withdrawal is expected to happen in two phases, with 5,000 troops coming home this summer and an additional 5,000 by the end of the year.
Obama said the materials recovered during the raid to get Bin Laden showed that the Al-Qaeda terror network was under deep strain. He said Bin Laden himself expressed concern that his organization would be unable to effectively replace senior leaders that had been killed.
The president declared, “We have put Al-Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done.” Even after the troops come home, the war will remain expanded on Obama’s watch. He approved 21,000 additional troops for Afghanistan shortly after taking office in 2009, bringing the total number to 68,000. That means he is likely to face re-election with more troops in Afghanistan than when he took office, although he has also dramatically reduced the US footprint in Iraq.
The president spoke for about 13 minutes from a silent East Room. It was a strategic moment for him to try to explain a turning point in the war effort without elevating it to a major Oval Office address — more of a stay-the-course case of progress and resilience.
“Of course, huge challenges remain,” the president said.
“This is the beginning — but not the end — of our effort to wind down this war. We will have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we have made while we draw down our forces and transition responsibility for security to the Afghan government.” Significant questions still loom, including whether Afghanistan’s government and security forces will be up to the enormous job ahead.
Yet Obama made clear the United States was ready to move on from a decade defined by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, at a cost at of thousands of lives lost and more than $1 trillion spent. “We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,” Obama said flatly.
Potential Republican presidential candidates were quick to weigh in with criticism of Obama’s plan — but they did not speak with one voice.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accused Obama of proposing an “arbitrary timetable” and said the decision on withdrawing troops “should not be based on politics or economics.” On the other hand, Jon Huntsman, Obama’s former ambassador to China, said the approach in Afghanistan should be focused on counterterrorism, “which requires significantly fewer boots on the ground than the president discussed tonight.”
