US forces will leave Afghanistan gradually based on security in local areas, defence secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers as he sought to deflect Republican criticism of a target July 2011 troop-drawdown date.
The start of any withdrawal will be based on a review to be conducted in December 2010, and probably will occur district by district or province by province, as Afghan forces are ready to take over, Mr Gates told the Senate armed services committee in Washington.
"The end state in Afghanistan looks a lot like what we see in Iraq," Mr Gates said.
"This gradual transfer of security responsibility with a continuing role on our part as a partner for that country in the long-term is what I would call success in Afghanistan."
The setting of a target date for starting a pullout has divided members of Congress since President Barack Obama included the goal in a plan he announced December 1st to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan by 30,000, to almost 100,000.
Republicans including Senator John McCain, the senior member of his party on the armed services committee, told Mr Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that setting a withdrawal date was a mistake.
"Success is the real exit strategy," not "some arbitrary date in July 2011, which our enemies can exploit to weaken and intimidate our friends," Mr McCain told the officials.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama announced his decision to increase the number of troops next year and begin a pullout in 2011 in an address at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Bloomberg