WH: Afghan Pullout on Schedule
USA Today reports:
President Obama's review of the Afghanistan war to be made public today will conclude that progress from the troop surge means U.S. forces will begin withdrawing as planned in July and security will shift to the Afghans by the end of 2014.
Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Mills is among those who agreed that progress is being made against the Taliban.
"It's an insurgency that is running out of money, running out of ideas, running out of support and, I believe, running out of time," Mills, commander of forces in Helmand province, said recently.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the report will highlight key battlefield successes as well as formidable challenges to success.
In a speech set for today, Obama will announce no major changes to his strategy announced a year ago when he ordered 30,000 more troops be sent to Afghanistan to halt Taliban gains made during the final years of the Bush administration.
"The view is that our transition can and should begin a conditions-based transition of our added forces in July 2011," Gibbs said Tuesday. "We're making progress and we still have many challenges."
More than 680 foreign troops, including more than 470 Americans, have been killed in 2010, making it the deadliest year of the 9-year-old war. Hundreds of Afghan civilians also have been killed, most in Taliban attacks.
For much of this fall, NATO troops have been focusing on securing southern Afghanistan, the traditional homeland of the Taliban clerical movement that was ousted from power by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The Taliban had been sheltering Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaeda, the Islamist terror group behind the 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.
Obama met with members of his National Security Council on Tuesday for nearly two hours to review the draft findings of the report, Gibbs said. He said there would be no major changes.
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