WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan on an accelerated timetable that will have the first Marines there as early as Christmas and all forces in place by summer.
But he'll also declare tonight that troops will begin leaving in 19 months.
In a prime-time speech to the nation from West Point, N.Y., that ends a 92-day review, Obama will seek to sell his much bigger, costlier plan for the 8-year-old stalemated war to a skeptical public in part by twinning it with some specifics about an exit strategy, said two senior administration officials.
He will tell the American people that U.S. troops will start leaving Afghanistan in July 2011, one official said.
He will tell the American people that U.S. troops will start leaving Afghanistan “well before” the end of his first term, with the aim of ending the main U.S. military mission there, one official said. However, Obama will not lay out precisely when he believes the war will end, the official said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to not upstage the president's speech.
With U.S. casualties in Afghanistan sharply increasing and little sign of progress from the war's beginning in 2001, the war Obama has called one “of necessity,” not choice, has grown less popular with the public and within his own Democratic Party. In recent days, leading Democrats have talked of setting tough conditions on deeper U.S. involvement, or even staging outright opposition.
Obama is acknowledging the divided public opinion with his emphasis on an exit, as well as on stepped-up training to help Afghan forces take over and a series of specific demands for other governments, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO allies, to contribute more.
Unease with Obama's approach to the war is sure to be on display on Capitol Hill when congressional hearings begin this week.
With the full complement of new troops expected to be in Afghanistan by next summer, the heightened pace of Obama's military deployment appears to mimic the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, a 20,000-strong force addition under President George W. Bush. Similar in strategy to that mission, Obama's Afghan surge aims to reverse gains by Taliban insurgents and to secure population centers in the volatile south and east parts of the country.
In his speech and in meetings overseas in the coming days, Obama also will ask NATO allies to contribute more — between 5,000 and 10,000 new troops — to the separate international force in Afghanistan, diplomats said.
The 30,000 new U.S. troops will bring the total in Afghanistan to more than 100,000.
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