Panetta’s comments come as opposition to the war in Afghanistan remains high. DOD: U.S.-Afghan combat ends in '13

The Obama administration is accelerating the timetable for winding down the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta indicated to reporters on Wednesday.

More than a year ago, President Barack Obama announced a plan for U.S. and allied foreign troops to hand over the lead for security in Afghanistan to local forces through a province-by-province process that would be complete by the end of 2014.


However, Panetta said Wednesday that he hopes the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan will end in 2013 while U.S. troops will remain in the country in a support role through the end of the following year, The Associated Press reported.

“Hopefully by the mid to latter part of 2013, we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role,” Panetta said as he traveled to Brussels for a NATO meeting, according to the AP.

The defense secretary’s comments about speeding up the transition were surprising because U.S. intelligence analysts are reported to be increasingly gloomy about the prospects for Afghan troops and police to take over without a significant deterioration in security and, likely, a resurgence by the Taliban.

However, the U.S. and other NATO allies have come under pressure in recent weeks from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has announced plans to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2013. NATO officials said this week that the alliance planned to stand by the original timetable, but Panetta’s comments signal some effort to accommodate Sarkozy, who has a strong relationship with Obama.

Obama, U.S. allies and Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly agreed to the 2014 date during a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugual, in November 2010.

“Here in Lisbon, we agreed that early 2011 will mark the beginning of a transition to Afghan responsibility, and we adopted the goal of Afghan forces taking the lead for security across the country by the end of 2014,” Obama said then. “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 that we’re involved with now.”

The White House had no official comment on Panetta’s remarks, but one administration official said they were consistent with the vision Obama laid out in 2010.

“As Panetta said, Lisbon remains the program of record and we are committed to the Lisbon framework of a transition that concludes in 2014,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity. “Consultations are ongoing about how to implement that transition. That’s the whole point of Panetta’s trip. And so it’s natural that we’d have consultations with our allies about the steps between now and moving into full Afghan security lead.”

A Pentagon spokesman also issued a statement that stressed continuity in U.S. policy but did not deny that the secretary’s comments broke new ground.

“Nothing has changed about our commitments to the decisions of the Lisbon Summit. We will transition to Afghan lead by the end of 2014,” Navy Capt. John Kirby said. “Nothing has changed about the strategy our troops are executing. We are working to prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda and its allies. Nothing has changed about the goal of developing strong and capable Afghan security forces. We remain dedicated today to the training mission.”

In his comments to reporters accompanying him on a military aircraft, Panetta stressed that whatever U.S. forces remain in Afghanistan will be prepared and equipped to defend themselves. This “doesn’t mean we’re not going to be combat-ready,” the AP quoted the defense secretary as saying.

Panetta noted that no decision has been made about how many U.S. troops would stay in Afghanistan in the post-combat stage but did suggest that large reductions will occur in the months following the switch, the wire service said.

Sen. John McCain was among those blasted the announcement.

“This decision reflects domestic politics in the United States, not conditions on the ground in Afghanistan,” said the Republican senator from Arizona.

“Today’s comments by Secretary Panetta that the Administration is planning to announce an end to combat operations in Afghanistan in 2013 sends exactly the wrong signal to our friends and enemies in this conflict. It continues the Administration’s misguided policy of publicly forecasting its plans to withdraw from Afghanistan,” McCain said.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) reacted skeptically to Panetta’s statement.

“Announcing a change in mission in Afghanistan — before we have even validated that the Afghan Security Forces can maintain stability in the areas we have already transitioned and ahead of the fighting season — is premature,” McKeon said. “While there have certainly been improvements in the Afghan Security Forces’ capabilities, the Committee has not seen a single assessment by our commanders that indicates they have any confidence in such a swift transition.”

McKeon said an accelerated withdrawal risks repeating what happened in Iraq in 2006 when the U.S moved to pull out before Iraqi institutions were strong enough to take over.

“It is incumbent upon DoD to justify this change in strategy [in Afghanistan] to Congress before announcing it publicly,” McKeon said.

In Obama’s State of the Union address last week, he spoke generally about winding down the war in Afghanistan, saying that in addition to the 10,000 troops who have already come home, 23,000 more will have left by the end of this summer.

“This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan so that it is never again a source of attacks against America,” he said.

Earlier this week, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance was planning on sticking to the 2014 target date. “There is nothing new in the fact that from mid-2013, there will be a gradual change of the role of our forces in Afghanistan,” he said at a news conference Monday. “The fact is that by mid-2013, we will start the final transition of provinces and districts to lead Afghan responsibility.”

Panetta’s comments come as opposition to the war in Afghanistan remains high — more than six in 10 Americans said they oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released last month. In the survey, 56 percent of people said they believe that things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan.