Pace of long-term troop withdrawal murky

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WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- The "pace" of the long-term withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has not been decided, the White House said Tuesday.

But 2014 is still the end date, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

"As per the decision made by NATO ... the full transition to Afghan security lead will take place by the end of 2014," he said.

"Let's be clear. The president's policy is to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan as we transfer security responsibility to Afghan forces. That's the strategy he put into place and that's the strategy he has been implementing," Carney said.

"We are in the middle of the drawdown of the surge forces. As you know, by the end of this summer, those 33,000 troops will be home. And he has said that we will continue to remove U.S. forces through -- even beyond the drawdown of the surge forces. The pace of that withdrawal has not been decided."

He added: "This president is committed to ending the war in Afghanistan responsibly, in a way that ensures that we have successfully taken the fight to al-Qaida, which is the No. 1 primary objective of the strategy, and that we have stabilized Afghanistan so that Afghan security forces can be responsible for the security of their nation and that we can ensure that Afghanistan will not be host to al-Qaida in the future."

Carney said, "I think we've made clear for some time now that the pace of the withdrawal of the remaining 68,000 after the surge forces are withdrawn will be decided in consultation with NATO ministers and will have everything to do with the successful implementation of the strategy."

He said "contrary to reports that appeared today, there are no options being reviewed with specific troop numbers attached to them. There are no individuals promoting specific options over others. That's just simply false."