The TicketThe slaying of two U.S. officers in Afghanistan won’t affect the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 2014, says White House
The White House on Monday deplored the killings of two U.S. officers inside a supposedly secure Afghan government buildings as "tragic, and horrific, and indefensible," but said the slayings would not affect the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by 2014.
"No, I don't think it will," spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, when asked whether the recent violence sparked by the burning of Qurans, the Muslim holy book, on a U.S. military base would affect the drawdown. "These are isolated incidents."
And U.S. and NATO-led forces are still fighting to "disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat al-Qaida" in Afghanistan, while giving the government in Kabul "the space and time" to take over responsibility for security in the war-torn country, he said.
"No one associated with the president either here in the administration or on the campaign would suggest that al-Qaida has been finally defeated, because it has not," Carney said.
(Estimates of how many al-Qaida fighters remain in Afghanistan have varied, with then-CIA director Leon Panetta, who is now serving as Defense Secretary, telling ABC News in June 2010 that they number 50-100 "at most." Pakistan, where U.S. forces found and killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, is the group's "main location," said Panetta.)
"It is important to remember that 95 to 97 percent of the missions the U.S. forces embark on in Afghanistan, they do so with their Afghan partners," Carney said at his daily briefing. "We're talking about thousands and thousands of operations that proceed successfully with Afghan partners, without anything like this happening."
The recent wave of violence could put pressure on Obama to revise his withdrawal timetable — which has drawn fire from Congressional Republicans — and Carney indicated that a May 20-21 NATO summit in Chicago could shape how quickly U.S. and allied troops leave.
"The pace of that drawdown will obviously depend on discussions with our NATO allies and with commanders on the ground about how the mission is being implemented and how the drawdown should be implemented," he said.
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