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Petraeus: Afghan withdrawal date not locked in

President Obama’s announced date for the start of U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan has confused some friends, allies and enemies alike, according to lawmakers.

And during a Senate hearing Wednesday, questions kept coming — mostly from Republicans — about whether the date is the start of a mass exodus.

Gen. David Petraeus, the chief of U.S. Central Command, tried to allay those concerns.

“It is important that July 2011 be seen for what it is: The date when a process begins, based on conditions — not the date when the U.S. heads for the exits,” Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Michèle Flournoy, the Pentagon policy chief who testified alongside Petraeus, said the July 2011 date “is an inflection point … at which the end of the surge will be marked, and a process of transition that is conditions-based will begin.”

It seemed clear enough when Obama announced in December during a West Point speech that he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, but that troops would “begin to come home” 18 months later as Afghan security forces gained the capability to defend their country.

The idea was to calm Democrats who want the troops home, and simultaneously light a fire under the Afghan government. But while Petraeus took great pains to set the record straight, senators pointed to two other problems with announcing the date: It can be perceived as the start of wholesale withdrawal, regardless of Afghanistan’s state of affairs at that point; and Obama has not publicly refuted that misperception often enough to reverse it.

“We are sounding an uncertain trumpet to our friends and our enemies,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the committee’s top Republican. “They believe that we are leaving as of July 2011. … If we sound an uncertain trumpet, not many will follow. And that’s what’s being sounded now.”

Flournoy argued that Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, seemed to harbor no such concerns following recent meetings in Washington.

McCain retorted: “I’ve had conversations with leaders throughout Afghanistan and the region, and that’s not what they’re telling me.”

Petraeus acknowledged the concern over signals. “There is an awareness of the July 2011 date” among insurgents, he said.

“Their strategy, certainly, is to do what they have done in the past, which is to outlast whoever it is that is confronting them,” Petraeus said.

But he defended Obama’s speech, saying it was “a message of urgency that complimented the enormous commitment” of U.S. resources.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., agreed with Petraeus’s characterization of Obama’s intent. But he also said Obama needs to make clear that July 2011 is only a starting point and that he understands the counterinsurgency effort will take time.

“It’s important for the president to make that clear at some point soon because, notwithstanding all the clarifications that followed … in our conversations with people in the region, that date is being read as a date at which the United States is going to begin to pull out regardless of what’s happening on the ground,” Lieberman said.

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