Obama says 2011, Gates says longer

Not that this necessarily signals a rift in the administration, but it's interesting that within days of President Obama's speech about the surge in Afghanistan, Secretary Gates is already laying the groundwork for troops to stay much longer than people thought the President intimated.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Americans should expect a significant U.S. military presence in Afghanistan for two years to four years more.
Just as in Iraq, the U.S. eventually will turn over provinces to local security forces, allowing the United States to bring the number of troops down steadily, according to Gates, who appeared on three Sunday talk shows with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss President Barack Obama's new Afghan war plan.
That plan includes an increase of 30,000 U.S. troops, followed by a scheduled transition to a greater role for Afghan forces that would start in July 2011. Obama's plan would increase to 100,000 the number of U.S. troops there, marking the largest expansion of the war since it began eight years ago.
Gates acknowledged that the additional U.S. forces will mean more casualties at first. He also said he's happy with the results of an offensive in Helmand province.
"I think one of the reasons that our military leaders are pretty confident is that they have already begun to see changes where the Marines are present in southern Helmand," Gates said.
The Pentagon chief said the initial U.S. troop withdrawal in July 2011 might involve only a small number of troops. He rejected suggestions that setting a transition date would embolden the Taliban. They read newspapers and are able to determine public opinion in the United States and Europe, he said.
Gates said he doesn't believe the Taliban will get more aggressive, and would welcome it if they lay low until the target date in 2011 because that would give coalition troops opportunities to make great progress in stabilizing Afghanistan.

Truth be told, the President said we'd begin withdrawing by 2011, not that everyone comes home in a week. He had to say it, to placate the boisterous half of the Democratic Party who paid lip service to the idea that Afghanistan was the "right" war (in contrast to Iraq) so they wouldn't be painted as soft on terrorists. In truth, though, they didn't want any wars to continue, so now that they've won the election, they're leaning on President Obama to backpedal from campaign pledges to finish the war in Afghanistan. He threw them a bone in the West Point speech, but he's now got his administration painting the real picture, and they're not necessarily the same.

By: Brant