Obama to announce Afghan surge drawdown timetable Wednesday

afghanarmyPresident Barack Obama will announce in a speech on Wednesday evening his plans for drawing down the additional 30,000 U.S. troops "surged" to Afghanistan last year, U.S. officials said.

The president has kept his decision on the matter under close advisement. Some members of his cabinet, including Vice President Joe Biden, have urged a swifter drawdown of surged forces in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden last month. Lawmakers from both parties have voiced growing frustration over the $2 billion a week the United States now spends on the war in Afghanistan.

However, defense officials, including outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have argued for a modest initial U.S. drawdown in order to maintain a robust U.S. fighting presence over the next two fighting seasons. Gates and other advocates of maintaining a larger troop presence say that it can keep delivering blows to the Taliban as the U.S. and Afghan governments open up negotiations to try to persuade insurgents to switch sides.

That policy debate has led to reports suggesting that Obama is weighing two possible options in framing future U.S. commitments.

One option, which has won support from key Defense officials, would involve an "initial reduction of 5,000 troops would take place this year, followed by another 5,000 soldiers next spring, with the remainder expected to come out by December 2012," McClatchy's Jonathan Landay and Nancy Youssef reported, citing a person with knowledge of the plan who declined to be identified. "The drawdown's pace would be dictated by the rate at which Afghan security forces could replace the American units."

Another option, which is said to be favored by the State Department, would follow a more flexible timeline, the New York Times reported,: "Mr. Obama would announce a final date for the withdrawal of all the surge forces sometime in 2012, but leave the timetable for incremental reductions up to commanders in the field--much as he did in drawing down troops after the surge in Iraq."

Obama may not announce actual numbers of troops to be drawn down in his Wednesday address, the New York Times reported.

Even as the surged 30,000 U.S. forces would leave Afghanistan by the end of 2012, some 67,000 U.S. forces would remain until 2014. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said he thinks Afghan security forces can take the lead in securing their country by 2014.

While the White House insisted Monday that Obama had not yet finalized his decision, Obama is scheduled to visit Ft. Drum, New York, on Thursday, one of the bases with the heaviest rotation of U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to testify on Afghanistan before the Senate foreign relations panel Thursday. Obama's nominee to be the next Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is expected to be confirmed for the job by the Senate on Tuesday.

(Newly trained soldiers of Afghan army looks on during a send-off ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, June 8, 2011: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP Photo.)