Washington, June 25: US President Barack Obama today categorically ruled out immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan from July 2011, the date he had earlier set for drawdown of troops from the war torn country.
“We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us. We said we’d begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility,” Obama said at a White House joint press briefing with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.
“Here’s what we did not say last year. We did not say that, starting July 2011, suddenly there would be no troops from the US or allied countries in Afghanistan,” Obama said in response to a question.
That is the tragedy that was put forward and what we’ve also said is, is that, in December of this year, a year after this strategy has been put in place, at a time when the additional troops have been in place and have begun implementing strategy, that we’ll conduct a review and we’ll make an assessment, he said.
“So we are in the midpoint of implementing the strategy that we came up with last year. We’ll do a review at the end of this year,” he said.
Defending his decision to nominate General David Petraeus as his new war commander in Afghanistan, Obama said Petraeus understands the Afghan strategy because he helped shape it.
“My expectation is that he will be outstanding in implementing it, and we will not miss a beat because of the change in command in the Afghan theater,” he said.
  Keep in mind that, during this entire time, General Petraeus has been the CENTCOM commander, which means he’s had responsibility in part for overseeing what happened in Afghanistan, and that is part of the reason why I think he’s going to do such a capable job, Obama said.
“Not only does he have extraordinary experience in Iraq, not only did he help write the manual for dealing with insurgencies, but he also is intimately familiar with the players. He knows President Karzai. He knows the other personnel who are already on the ground,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
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