WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama will lay out a plan for U.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan on Wednesday in the face of growing pressure from Congress and the U.S. public for an endgame in the costly, 10-year-old war.
Obama will present a blueprint for bringing home thousands of troops in the initial phase of a military drawdown starting in July and also unveil a broader withdrawal strategy for the remainder of the 30,000 extra "surge" troops he ordered deployed in late 2009, a U.S. official said.
But the president was still finalizing the exact numbers and pace of the troop cuts as he sought to balance the arguments of military leaders pressing for a slow drawdown and White House advisers advocating a more rapid pullout.
Obama's decision comes at a critical juncture as he eyes his 2012 re-election prospects and lawmakers from both parties, looking to slash federal spending, are anxious to curtail what has become a costly and unpopular U.S. military intervention.
His decision could have broad implications not only for future U.S. involvement in Afghanistan but for the NATO alliance's commitment there and Washington's troubled relationship with neighboring Pakistan.
"He is finalizing his decision. He is reviewing the options and the assessments," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
Administration officials later disclosed that Obama would make his announcement in Washington on Wednesday. He will then fly to the Fort Drum army base in upstate New York on Thursday to visit troops who have been among the most frequently deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama's challenge is to strike a balance between commanders worried that rapid withdrawal will endanger gains against the Taliban insurgency and White House advisers pressing for a drawdown large enough to placate his own Democratic Party's anti-war wing as well as a growing number of Republicans.
The killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid last month has helped buttress the argument within the administration that there has been enough progress against al Qaeda to justify scaling back the war effort faster than expected.
OBAMA VOWS 'SIGNIFICANT' DRAWDOWN
Obama's announcement is shaping up as more than just a decision on the size of the first contingent being sent home.
He may also set a timetable of 12 to 18 months to pull out all of the 30,000 extra troops he sent to Afghanistan, following a review of U.S. war strategy in late 2009, to break the momentum of the Taliban, former U.S. officials say.
Obama has only said the initial withdrawal will be "significant." Some U.S. officials have privately estimated that could mean 3,000 to 5,000 troops initially and an equal number by the end of the year.
But Defense Secretary Robert Gates, backed by the Pentagon brass, has urged a more modest drawdown out of the 100,000 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan to avoid undercutting progress on the ground he has warned is fragile and reversible.
The National Journal reported on Monday that Gen. David Petraeus, Obama's top commander for Afghanistan, would back a decision -- if the president opted for it -- to bring all of the 30,000 surge troops home by the end of 2012.
Petraeus wants to bring home one brigade combat team of 5,000 troops by the end of this year, and another by next spring. But he is mindful of the political pressures Obama faces and recognizes the remaining surge troops cannot stay through 2014, when the lead in the country's security is due to be turned over to Afghan forces, the National Journal said.
Since Obama took office, U.S. public sentiment has turned decidedly sour on U.S. participation in foreign conflicts, including the three-month-old NATO-led air war in Libya.
Almost a decade after the September 11, 2001, attacks that triggered the war, the Taliban has come under intense allied pressure in strategic areas of southern Afghanistan. But insurgents have fanned out across the country and violence has surged along the Pakistan border.
The war costs the United States more than $110 billion a year, and billions of dollars in Western aid to the government of President Hamid Karzai have had only mixed results.
Corruption remains rampant in the war-ravaged country, and Karzai's increasingly strident criticism of coalition forces has escalated tensions with Washington.
(Editing by Christopher Wilson and Todd Eastham)
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