Top U.S. Military Officer: Afghan Drawdown Carries Risks
U.S. President Barack Obama's Afghan withdrawal plans "are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept," the top U.S. military officer told lawmakers Thursday.
"More force for more time is, without a doubt, the safer course. But that does not necessarily make it the best course," U.S. Joints Chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told the House Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony.
"Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take. I believe he has done so," he said a day after Obama said he would bring 33,000 U.S. surge troops home from Afghanistan by next summer.
Mullen said he did not wish to discuss his "private advice" in the matter, but told lawmakers "the president's decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept."
Source: Agence France Presse
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