Security key to US exit from Afghanistan, says Defence Secretary

Any decision to drawdown international troops from Afghanistan should be based on security conditions on the ground, US Defence Secretary Lim Fox has said.

He said he was not worried that a political debate raging in the United States would influence President Barack Obama’s decision on the troop withdrawal starting next month.

There has been fresh congressional pressure on Obama to withdraw a significant number of US troops.

On a brief visit to Afghanistan, Fox said he was eagerly waiting to hear Obama’s announcement on the number of troops the United State would draw down.

He said the American administration wanted a positive result from its 10-year campaign in the Afghan conflict. He said Britain would not withdraw combat troops; rather, mostly support personnel.

“I have no doubt about the American commitment to Afghanistan,” Fox told a news conference in Kabul.

He said he was encouraged by recent statements made by Obama and outgoing Secretary of Defence Robert Gates “about how America was going to make its long term plans on the basis of the sovereignty of the government of Afghanistan and the security situation on the ground”.

“I think both President Obama and the military leadership have made it very clear that having invested so much in Afghanistan, America wants to see a successful outcome,” Fox said, standing next to the defence ministers of Denmark and Estonia – who also have troops in Afghanistan.

He said it was expected that the United States would begin withdrawing some of the 30,000 troops that were part of a surge of forces last summer, sent to help push insurgents back from territories they controlled in the southern parts of the country.

“It was always going to be the case that this would not be a permanent state of affairs,” Fox said of the surge.

British Prime Minister David Cameron recently said that Britain will pull out 450 troops from Afghanistan in the next year.

“They will be non-combat troops,” Fox said.