Washington: President Barack Obama’s troop withdrawal plan from Afghanistan has come under harsh criticism of Congressional Democrats, as they say the timeline for bringing 33,000 U.S. troops home by next summer isn’t fast enough.
Democrats said that wasn’t adequate.
“It has been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of U.S. forces would happen sooner than the president laid out — and we will continue to press for a better outcome,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., leading a chorus of disgruntled Democrats who took the president to task, albeit politely.
From across the aisle, the Republican response to Obama’s timeline for withdrawing tens of thousands of troops was measured. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, warned Obama not to sacrifice the gains the U.S. has made in Afghanistan, while Arizona Sen. John McCain said the drawdown was too rash.
“This is not the `modest’ withdrawal that I and others had hoped for and advocated,” McCain said in a statement following Obama’s prime-time address to the nation Wednesday night.
“It seems the president is trying to find a political solution with a military component to it, when it needs to be the other way around,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said.
John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee objected to that argument. “Everybody has consistently said there is … no military solution,” he said. “If there is no military solution, then you better go hunt for the political one.”
Kerry, D-Mass., added that Obama’s plan will allow the Afghans to “begin to make the accommodations and the choices about their own future.”
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