Obama optimistic over end to Afghan war
Obama, under pressure to show results after criticising his predecessor George W Bush for neglecting the war, said the United States was on track to start pulling out troops next July as planned.
His defence secretary, Robert Gates, said it was too early to say how quickly troops would be withdrawn, but Washington hoped to accelerate the drawdown as more progress was made.
Obama wants to end the US combat mission in Afghanistan and transition to full Afghan security control by 2014.
A five-page unclassified summary of the White House review said US and Nato forces had made “notable operational gains,” halting the Taliban’s momentum in many areas and disrupting al-Qaida. But it said the gains were fragile and reversible and that major challenges remained.
It reported substantial but uneven progress in the US relationship with Pakistan, whose lawless tribal areas are widely seen as the main obstacle to Obama’s strategy succeeding because of the relatively free flow of militants across the border into Afghanistan.
“I want to be clear, this continues to be a very difficult endeavour,” Obama said at the White House yesterday, a year after he ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. But, he added, “We’re on track to achieve our goals.”
The review comes at the end of the bloodiest year since US-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taliban as the country’s rulers in 2001, with almost 700 foreign troops killed so far. At least 477 of them were Americans. Yet Afghan civilians bear the brunt of the conflict as insurgents expand from strongholds into once-peaceful areas in the north and west.
Yesterday, a roadside bomb killed 14 civilians in western Afghanistan and four Afghan soldiers died in a US air strike overnight.
There were no surprises in the summary, whose conclusions had been well-telegraphed by US officials.
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