Jonathan Easley | The Hill | January 11, 2013
President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday announced that the U.S. military would begin a scaled-back role in Afghanistan in mid-2013, sooner than initially projected.
“Starting this spring our troops will have a different mission — training, advising and assisting Afghan forces,” Obama said in a joint press conference with Karzai in the East Room of the White House.
“By the end of next year — 2014 — the transition will be complete,” he continued. “This war will come to a responsible end.”
Obama said he’d be taking recommendations from commanders on the ground to determine how many — or if any — troops would stay in the country after 2014. In a statement released just moments before the press conference, the White House said the two governments hoped to soon finalize an agreement on residual U.S. troops.
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