Karzai embraces Obama surge withdrawal plan as Obama aides hit Capitol Hill

President Barack Obama won strong support for his plan to withdraw 33,000 of the 100,000 U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan by next summer from one key figure today: Hamid Karzai.

It was a rare nod from the Afghan president, with whom the U.S. has often had tense relations.

"The number of troops that he has announced to be withdrawn is a sign that Afghanistan is taking over its own security and is trying to defend it territory by its own means," Karzai told CNN's Fareed Zakaria today in response to the plan Obama laid out in a televised speech last night (the full interview airs Sunday). "So we are happy about the announcement."

Karzai's endorsement came as Obama's national security team headed to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on what the surge withdrawal timetable would mean for achieving U.S. goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The top U.S. military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, acknowledged to lawmakers that in recent days he'd judged the aggressive surge withdrawal option, as announced by Obama last night, too risky. But Mullen said he has since become more comfortable with the plan.

"The president's decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept," he told the House Armed Services Committee, the New York Times' Tom Shanker reported.

"More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course," Mullen continued. "But that does not necessarily make it the best course. Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take. I believe he has done so."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified that the military surge President Obama ordered a year and a half ago has bolstered recent U.S. efforts to support Afghan negotiations aimed at persuading some Taliban insurgents to leave the battlefield.

"It is diplomatic efforts in support of an Afghan-led political process that aims to shatter the alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, end the insurgency, and help to produce more stability," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today.

While some Democratic lawmakers welcomed Obama's plans, others expressed disappointment that the president did not choose a more rapid withdrawal timeline.

"It has been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of U.S. forces would happen sooner than the President laid out--and we will continue to press for a better outcome," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) said.

"The president's decision represents a positive development, although in my view the conditions on the ground justify an even larger drawdown of U.S. troops this year than the president announced tonight," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a press statement following Obama's speech. He added that he will continue to advocate for an accelerated drawdown and for ramping up training of Afghan national security forces to take the lead in securing their country.

But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned the 2009 surge's successful reversal of Taliban gains in southern Afghanistan would be put at risk by the drawdown pace Obama announced. "We made great gains," McCain told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "They are fragile. And if we pull out too soon, then I think the consequences will be unfortunately, the unnecessary sacrifice of American blood in treasure."