Obama To Announce Exit Of Troops In Afghanistan
DETROIT (WWJ) - President Barack Obama will move the United States a step closer to ending the war in Afghanistan when he announces plans to bring thousands of American troops home, beginning next month.
Obama will likely call for a phased pullout, sending 5,000 U.S. troops home this summer and another 5,000 by the winter or spring 2012.
Michigan U.S. Senator Carl Levin said he thinks the time has come for the withdrawal.
"This can be done. The Afghan Army is about 90,000 stronger than it was when this 30,000 surge was announced by the President a year-and-a-half ago. The Afghan Army is respected and they are fighters, willing to fight, able to fight," Levin said.
President Obama coupled his decision to send a "surge" of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009 with a promise to bring some of them home this summer. Read more at CBSNews.com.
Lynn, of Oakland County, has one son who just returned from Afghanistan and another who will be going there next year.
"I get a very brief reprieve from worrying with one just back and I have the six month break and then I'll go back to daily prayers for the other," Lynn said.
"I would just hope that whatever plans the president does have, relative to withdrawing down the troops, that it be done in a way that it wouldn't increase the risk to those that are gonna be left behind , especially knowing right now that one of mine will be one of the ones that's just deploying in the beginning of 2012," Lynn continued.
Senator Levin said he recommended the troop withdrawal total 15,000 by the year's end.
"The message has got to be, to the Afghan government, that they and their army need to take principal responsibility for the security of Afghanistan. And that's why it's important that the President keep his commitment that this would be a significant reduction, a statement he made a few months ago," the Senator said.
You can hear Mr. Obama's address Wednesday at 8:00 pm on WWJ Newsradio 950. Click here to Listen Live.
