In a much-anticipated prime time address on Wednesday, President Barack Obama laid out the beginning of the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan, assuring the nation that 33,000 U.S. troops will be pulled out by the autumn of 2012. Five thousand troops will be pulled out immediately, with another 5,000 leaving at the end of 2011.
In a much-anticipated prime time address on Wednesday, President Barack Obama laid out the beginning of the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan, assuring the nation that 33,000 U.S. troops will be pulled out by the autumn of 2012. Five thousand troops will be pulled out immediately, with another 5,000 leaving at the end of 2011.
“My fellow Americans, this has been a difficult decade for our country,” he said, according to prepared remarks. “Yet tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.”
“Fewer of our sons and daughters are serving in harm’s way,” Obama added. “We have ended our combat mission in Iraq, with 100,000 American troops already out of that country. And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end.”
The 33,000 troops being withdrawn were part of the “surge” that Obama announced in his 2009 speech at West Point. That will leave approximately 68,000 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, which is still significantly higher than the amount that was in the country when Obama took office.
Administration officials sought to frame the drawdown as a positive result of the war effort, telling reporters in a conference call before the speech that the new strategy was coming “from a position of success and strength” — a similar phrase to what Obama used in his address.
“We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength,” the president said. “Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11. Together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of al Qaeda’s leadership. And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Osama bin Laden, the only leader that al Qaeda had ever known. This was a victory for all who have served since 9/11. One soldier summed it up well. ‘The message,’ he said, ‘is we don’t forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes.'”
What was missing from Obama’s speech was a timeline for the pace of the withdrawal. A senior administration official said that Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, who will be replacing Gen. David Petraeus in Afghanistan, will be given “some flexibility” with the drawdown, in terms of “exactly when he gets up to 10,000 this year, and how he fills in the rest of the reductions of the next 23,000 next year.”