Lindsey Graham: Real Target For Afghanistan Withdrawal Is 2014

This morning on ABC’s This Week, Senator Lindsey Graham told host Christiane Amanpour that he viewed 2014, not 2011, as the real target for the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Amanpour began discussing the well-known deadline of summer 2011, which is when the administration intends to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. She asked Senator Graham if he believed troops would stay beyond then, to which he responded:

“Yes, I do. I think in summer of 2011, we can bring some troops home, but we’re going to need a substantial number of troops in Afghanistan past that.

2014 is the right date to talk about. That’s when Karzai suggests that Afghans will be in the lead, and I’m very pleased to hear President Obama talk about 2014.

What I want to talk about is winning, having the ability to stabilize Afghanistan and be a good partner with the United States forever. That means we’re going to need military force for quite a while. Post-2014, when the Afghans hopefully get in the lead, it will be great to have a couple of air bases there in perpetuity to help the Afghans to send the right signal to the regions, but none of this is possible unless you have a reliable partner in the Afghan government, so they need to do more quickly on corruption.”

Watch the video below:

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