Petraeus: Tide is turning in Afghan war

WASHINGTON -- Amid signs of deepening war weariness among Americans, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said yesterday he will soon recommend a plan for beginning troop reductions, while embracing President Barack Obama's goal of pursuing a long-term military partnership with the Afghan government.

In a four-hour Senate hearing that was his first since taking command in Kabul last summer, Army Gen. David Petraeus said the tide is turning in the war despite persistent questions about the durability of the Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai and the commitment of neighboring Pakistan to keep militants at bay.

Several Republicans said they worry that the Obama administration is sending mixed signals about when the United States will leave Afghanistan. Several cited a new Washington Post-ABC poll that said nearly two-thirds of Americans consider the war no longer worth fighting.

In his assessment, Petraeus said that much of the Taliban's battlefield momentum has been halted, putting the United States on course to begin pulling out troops in July and shifting security responsibility to the Afghans.

Petraeus cautioned that security progress is still "fragile and reversible," with much difficult work ahead with an expected spring offensive by the Taliban. With tougher fighting ahead, it seems likely that the first troops to be withdrawn in July will be support forces like cooks and clerks, not combat troops.

Petraeus said he has not yet decided how many troops he will recommend to Obama for withdrawal in July. The United States has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and its international partners about 40,000.

At the end of the hearing, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) announced in a telephone conference call that she was introducing a bill to require the administration to begin withdrawing combat troops on July 1, a goal Obama has pledged to meet and that Petraeus said is possible.

But Gillibrand said her bill would require Obama to send a plan for removing all combat troops by the end of July.

And she said she alsois formally requesting that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates negotiate a redeployment agreement for Afghanistan similar to the agreement one then-President George W. Bush reached to withdraw troopsfrom Iraq.

"America cannot afford an endless war in Afghanistan," she said. "After nearly a decade at war, with still no equal commitment from the Karzai government, and after all the lives we've sacrificed and the billions we've spent on this war, it's time to start bringing our troops home."

With Tom Brune