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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums(Breaking) NYT: Panetta Says U.S. Plans To End Combat Role In Afghanistan In 2013 - updated
NYT: Panetta Says U.S. Plans To End Combat Role In Afghanistan In 2013
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the U.S. plans to end its combat role in Afghanistan in 2013, according to a New York Times breaking news alert.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/4994
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the U.S. plans to end its combat role in Afghanistan in 2013, according to a New York Times breaking news alert.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/4994
Panetta Sets End to Afghan Combat Role for U.S. in '13
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
BRUSSELS In a major milestone toward ending a decade of war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Wednesday that American forces would step back from a combat role there as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to come home.
Mr. Panetta cast the decision as an orderly step in a withdrawal process long planned by the United States and its allies, but his comments were the first time that the United States had put a date on stepping back from its central role in the war. The defense secretarys words reflected the Obama administrations eagerness to bring to a close the second of two grinding ground wars it inherited from the Bush administration.
Promising the end of the American combat mission in Afghanistan next year would also give Mr. Obama a certain applause line in his re-election stump speech this fall.
Mr. Panetta said no decisions had been made about the number of American troops to be withdrawn in 2013, and he made clear that substantial fighting lies ahead. It doesnt mean that were not going to be combat-ready; we will be, because we always have to be in order to defend ourselves, he told reporters on his plane on his way to a NATO meeting in Brussels, where Afghanistan is to be a central focus.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/asia/panetta-moves-up-end-to-us-combat-role-in-afghanistan.html
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
BRUSSELS In a major milestone toward ending a decade of war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Wednesday that American forces would step back from a combat role there as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to come home.
Mr. Panetta cast the decision as an orderly step in a withdrawal process long planned by the United States and its allies, but his comments were the first time that the United States had put a date on stepping back from its central role in the war. The defense secretarys words reflected the Obama administrations eagerness to bring to a close the second of two grinding ground wars it inherited from the Bush administration.
Promising the end of the American combat mission in Afghanistan next year would also give Mr. Obama a certain applause line in his re-election stump speech this fall.
Mr. Panetta said no decisions had been made about the number of American troops to be withdrawn in 2013, and he made clear that substantial fighting lies ahead. It doesnt mean that were not going to be combat-ready; we will be, because we always have to be in order to defend ourselves, he told reporters on his plane on his way to a NATO meeting in Brussels, where Afghanistan is to be a central focus.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/asia/panetta-moves-up-end-to-us-combat-role-in-afghanistan.html
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(Breaking) NYT: Panetta Says U.S. Plans To End Combat Role In Afghanistan In 2013 - updated (Original Post)
ProSense
Feb 2012
OP
ProSense
(116,464 posts)1. Kick! n/t
MineralMan
(146,309 posts)3. Excellent! I wish it were sooner, but
it will end. Iraq no longer has US troops. Once we're out of Afghanistan, the entire Bush war stupidity will finally be at an end. Thank you, Mr. President!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)8. Yup! n/t
Whisp
(24,096 posts)4. K&R • The oppositions list is getting shorter and shorter
to twitch and moan about -and I don't mean the Republicans.
bigtree
(85,996 posts)5. unhappycamper it nailed this Saturday
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)7. Don't think we need to worry about leaving behind any big ass embassy here
This exit is going to look a lot like the fall of Saigon.
Karzai and his brother will be on the first plane out.
Don
Yavapai
(825 posts)9. Probably because they will need those troops in Iran!
After all, isn't the Republican chant "four more wars, four more wars?"
"Probably because they will need those troops in Iran! After all, isn't the Republican chant 'four more wars, four more wars?'"
...envisioning a Repubican President?
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)12. If war with Iran breaks out, the troops in Afghanistan will be toast.
Landlocked, without supplies, and under attack.
They are what you call in the game of Go "dead stones".
malaise
(269,004 posts)11. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
Rec
jenmito
(37,326 posts)13. K&R! I just saw this story on CNN. n/t