US says Afghan pullout date not fixed

WASHINGTON, Dec 3, 2009 (AFP) - Senior officials in President Barack Obama's administration have told US legislators that a July 2011 target date to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan was not set in stone.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and the top uniformed US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, trooped to Capitol Hill Wednesday and told members of Congress that any timetable for an eventual pullout was still flexible.


Their presentations came one day after Obama unveiled his new plan for turning around the war in Afghanistan with a surge of 30,000 more US soldiers.

During hours of questioning by two key committees, the senior officials made clear that Obama's target of starting a US troop withdrawal in 19 months -- a step some anti-escalation lawmakers, especially Democrats, had cheered -- could slip.

"I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving," said Clinton, who added the goal was "to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested in occupying Afghanistan."

Gates said the extra troops would be in place in July 2010, and that a December 2010 review could affect the target withdrawal date.

"I think the president, as commander in chief, always has the option to adjust his decisions," he told Republican Senator John McCain, Obama's defeated White House rival in 2008.

"Then it makes no sense for him to have announced the date," said McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Meanwhile, the White House warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to fight corruption or see Washington bypass his cabinet and seek out lower level officials to provide essential services to Afghans.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama talked "about the notion that it is time for a new chapter in Afghan governance" in conversations with Karzai, including a secure videoconference late Monday.

When he unveiled his new Afghan strategy in a speech on Tuesday, Obama made it clear he expected major improvements from the Karzai government.

"The days of providing a blank check are over," Obama said in the speech, noting that Karzai sent the "right message about moving in a new direction" when he was inaugurated last month as president for another term.

Gibbs on Wednesday took the warning a step further.

"If President Karzai is unable or unwilling to make changes in corruption or governance... we will identify people at a sub-cabinet level, at a district level that can implement the types of services and basic governance, without corruption, that Afghans need."

In her testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Clinton said the administration has "real concerns about the influence of corrupt officials in the Afghan government, and we will continue to pursue them."

She also recalled Karzai's remarks at his inauguration, which she attended in Kabul, following his victory in the fraud-marred August elections.

Karzai "pledged to combat corruption, improve governance, and deliver for the people of his country. His words were long in coming, but welcome. They must now be matched with action," Clinton said.

Gates also strove to reassure war-weary Americans that the US presence was "not open-ended."

"It is neither necessary, nor feasible, to create a modern, centralized, Western-style Afghan nation-state, the likes of which has never been seen in that country," Gates said.

He promised "a narrower focus" on routing Al-Qaeda, with "observable progress on clear objectives" but bluntly told lawmakers: "Quite frankly, I detest the phrase 'exit strategy.'"

"What is essential is -- for our national security -- is that we have two long-term partners in Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

On Thursday, Clinton, Mullen and Gates go before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, while Mullen and Gates were also due to appear before the House Armed Services Committee.

Gates said in an interview late Wednesday that he signed orders to deploy the 30,000 troops aboard the president's flight back to Washington from the West Point military academy, where Obama mapped out his war strategy.

In an interview with PBS television he said the first new units would likely begin arriving "within a couple of weeks," and the "overwhelming majority" of US forces would be in Afghanistan by the end of July, with all reinforcements in the country by the end of August or early September.

Gates acknowledged that there would be more casualties as more US forces battle insurgents, with the eight-year war already hitting record-high levels of violence.


by Lachlan Carmichael
(c) 2009 AFP