White House Defends Afghan War Strategy and July 2011 Drawdown Date

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2009— -- Today, the Pentagon announced it has given orders to 16,000 troops to deploy to Afghanistan, as part of President Obama's new Afghan War strategy decision to send an additional 30,000 troops.

Yet, as the troop surge gets underway, the president's advisers are still answering doubts about the White House's new strategy of sending additional troops, while at the same time announcing a July 2011 date when the U.S. would begin withdrawing its troops.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday that the coupling of a troop surge and a July 2011 troop drawdown date was purposely designed to send a signal.

"I believe that there is an important element here of balancing, sending a signal of resolve, but also giving the Afghan government a sense of urgency that they need to get their young men recruited, trained and into the field, partnering with our forces and then on their own," Gates said.

Yet, ever since the president announced his decision last week, there has been much debate over what signals the 2011 drawdown date is really sending.

Critics of the plan say it encourages members of al Qaeda and the Taliban to wait out U.S. forces. They also argue setting a date for withdrawal sends a message to the Afghan and Pakistani leaders that the U.S. is not a reliable, long-term partner against al Qaeda and the Taliban. In addition, they say, setting a withdrawal date plays into the enemies' assertions that America and its Western allies are weak-willed war opponents.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a POW during the Vietnam War, said he supported the president's new strategy, but thought setting an "arbitrary" withdrawal date is a bad idea.

"To send the message that you are going to leave at a certain date is not the way to convince the enemy that you're there to beat them," McCain said Sunday.

But Gates said setting a date of July 2011 for U.S. troops to begin withdrawing was not an exit strategy.

"It's the beginning of a process. In July 2011, our generals are confident that they will know whether our strategy is working, and the plan is to begin transferring areas of responsibility for security over to the Afghan security forces with us remaining in a tactical and then strategic overwatch position, sort of the cavalry over the hill," Gates said.

"But we will begin to thin our forces and begin to bring them home. But the pace of that, of bringing them home, and where we will bring them home from will depend on the circumstances on the ground, and those judgments will be made by our commanders in the field."