Report today: Afghanistan pullout on target

President Obama's review of the Afghanistan war to be made public today will conclude that progress from the troop surge means U.S. forces will 
begin withdrawing as planned in July and security will shift to the Afghans by the end of 2014.
Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Mills is among those who agreed that progress is being made against the Taliban.
"It's an insurgency that is running out of money, running out of ideas, running out of support and, I believe, running out of time," Mills, commander 
of forces in Helmand province, said recently.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the report will highlight key battlefield successes as well as formidable challenges to success.
In a speech set for today, Obama will announce no major changes to his strategy announced a year ago when he ordered 30,000 more troops be 


sent to Afghanistan to halt Taliban gains made during the final years of the Bush administration.


"The view is that our transition can and should begin a conditions-based transition of our added forces in July 2011," Gibbs said Tuesday. "We're 


making progress and we still have many challenges."


More than 680 foreign troops, including more than 470 Americans, have been killed in 2010, making it the deadliest year of the 9-year-old war. 


Hundreds of Afghan civilians also have been killed, most in Taliban attacks.


For much of this fall, NATO troops have been focusing on securing southern Afghanistan, the traditional homeland of the Taliban clerical movement 


that was ousted from power by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.


The Taliban had been sheltering Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaeda, the Islamist terror group behind the 9/11 terror attacks that killed 


nearly 3,000 Americans.


Obama met with members of his National Security Council on Tuesday for nearly two hours to review the draft findings of the report, Gibbs said. He 


said there would be no major changes.


One modification that has already occurred, though, is the emphasis on looking more toward 2014 than 2011 as a pullout deadline, "a huge 


change," said David Barno, a retired lieutenant general who commanded coalition forces in Afghanistan and is now at the Center for a New 


American Security.


Barno said the White House's focus on four years rather than six months from now sends the message that the United States and its allies are in 


Afghanistan for the long haul.


Insurgents had used the date to emphasize America had one foot out the door, he said. "Now the football game has three more quarters in it," 


Barno said.


That new perspective is not a good development, war opponents say.


"What I would like to see in an exit strategy is an admission that the same old same old is not working," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "I'm 


concerned the current strategy is unsustainable and just wrong."


Today's review will be the first major examination of the strategy unveiled last December, when Obama announced the surge that brought the total 


number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000.


In a semiannual report on Afghanistan issued in November, the Pentagon stated that the surge has led to increased security in key areas, but that 


additional improvement in governance and the economy is required to make those improvements lasting. "Overall governance and development 


progress continues to lag security gains," the report stated.


After sometimes intense fighting, U.S. Marines and Afghan forces have secured key areas in Helmand, a southern province where most of the 


country's opium is grown.


"Helmand province is coming along, and I'm encouraged by that," Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, said.


Coalition and Afghan forces are in the midst of securing Kandahar, a major city in the south and homeland of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed 


Omar, likely hiding in Pakistan.


Problems Obama may need to address in his strategy include whether the political leaders of Afghanistan are hindering progress and Pakistan's 


reluctance to go after Taliban leaders on its side of the border, analysts say.


Afghan government corruption and insurgent sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan remain obstacles to success, said Lisa Curtis, a former CIA 


analyst and State Department official now at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has become a "liability in many ways," Curtis said.
U.S. officials have been encouraging Pakistan to send its military into sanctuaries where insurgents can rest and train before crossing into 
Afghanistan."The No. 1 challenge is with Pakistan," Curtis said.