Asserting that the country that served as a base for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States, Mr. Obama declared that the ?tide of war is receding.? And in a blunt recognition of domestic economic strains, he said, ?America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.?
Mr. Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. The remaining 20,000 troops from the 2009 ?surge? of forces would leave by next summer, amounting to about a third of the 100,000 troops now in the country. He said the drawdown would continue ?at a steady pace? until the United States handed over security to the Afghan authorities in 2014.
The troop reductions, which were decided after a short but fierce internal debate, will be both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama?s military commanders, and they will come as the president faces relentless budget pressures, an increasingly restive American public and a re-election campaign next year.
Mr. Obama, speaking in businesslike tones during a 15-minute address from the East Room of the White House, talked of ending America?s longest war and of the painful lessons he thought could be taken from it. While justifying the nation?s decade-long commitment, he talked of ?ending the war responsibly? and warned of the perils of overextending the military by sending large numbers of soldiers into combat. He acknowledged that huge challenges remained before an end to the conflict that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and 1,500 American lives.
The withdrawals would begin winding down the military?s counterinsurgency strategy, which Mr. Obama adopted 18 months ago. Administration officials indicated that they now planned to place more emphasis on focused clandestine counterterrorism operations of the kind that killed Osama bin Laden, which the president cited as Exhibit A in the case for a substantial American troop reduction.
?We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength,? Mr. Obama said. ?Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11.? He said that an intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan had crippled Al Qaeda?s original network in the region, leaving its leaders either dead or pinned down in the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Of 30 top Qaeda leaders identified by American intelligence, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, administration officials said.
But the withdrawal of the entire surge force by the end of next summer will significantly change the way that the United States wages war in Afghanistan, analysts said, suggesting that the administration may have concluded it can no longer achieve its loftiest ambitions there.
Mr. Obama acknowledged as much in his remarks. ?We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,? he said. ?We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government.?
Mr. Obama?s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the military operation in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama indicated a willingness to move toward more focused covert operations of the type that the United States is conducting in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. ?When threatened, we must respond with force,? he said. ?But when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.?