LISBON, Portugal – President Obama said Saturday for the first time he wants U.S. troops out of major combat in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the date he and other NATO leaders set for moving Afghans into the lead role in fighting the Taliban.
Allies had different interpretations about the meaning of that target.
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Capping a two-day summit of 28 NATO leaders, Obama said that after a series of public disputes with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the United States and its NATO partners have aligned their aims for stabilizing the country with Karzai’s eagerness to assume full control.
“My goal is to make sure that by 2014 we have transitioned, Afghans are in the lead and it is a goal to make sure that we are not still engaged in combat operations of the sort we’re involved in now,” Obama said.
For some U.S. allies, 2014 is more than a goal when it comes to shifting their troops from a combat role.
“There will not be British troops in large numbers and they won’t be in a combat role” by 2015, British Prime Minister David Cameron said. But he added that Britain has no intention of abandoning Afghanistan any time soon.
“We may be helping to train their army, we may still be delivering a lot of aid, in effect, because we don’t want this country to go back to being a lawless space where the terrorists can have bases,” Cameron told Sky News television.
Canada is ending its combat role in 2011.
If Obama’s expectation about ending the U.S. combat mission in 2014 holds, it would mark a turning point in a war now in its 10th year, a conflict that once appeared headed for success but that drifted into stalemate during George W. Bush’s second term in the White House.
Obama entered office in 2009 pledging to end the Iraq war, which he opposed from the outset, in order to shift forces, resources and attention to Afghanistan — a fight he says the United States cannot afford to lose.
It remains far from sure, however, that even an expanding and improving Afghan army will prevail without U.S. combat support.
Afghanistan and its struggle against the Taliban dominated the summit, which came just weeks before Obama is to receive an internal review of U.S. war strategy. The report is expected to conclude that despite slower-than-expected progress against the Taliban, the current approach is largely on track.
Last December, Obama ordered an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, hoping to regain momentum from a resurgent Taliban, the radical Islamist group that harbored Osama bin Laden.
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