Obama to reveal Afghan troop decision Wednesday

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will announce the size of his drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan on Wednesday, mapping out an endgame for a 10-year war that has exacted a fearsome human and financial toll.Two administration officials said Obama would reveal the fruit of his deliberations on a pullback due to begin next month, in a pivotal moment for US war strategy and his own political prospects ahead of his reelection bid."The Afghanistan speech will be on Wednesday," one official said, on condition of anonymity, as Obama moved closer to a final decision on the size of the withdrawals and the future US footprint on Afghan soil.The president must decide the pace and size of reductions to a 30,000-strong troop escalation which he ordered surged into the conflict in December 2009, a deployment which brought the US garrison to 100,000 soldiers.Some analysts also expect him to chart a clear glidepath of withdrawals which will lead up to the planned assumption of security control of Afghanistan by the country's nascent defense forces in 2014.Obama will also be expected to explain to Americans that his surge has wrought slow, but significant progress, particularly in southern Afghanistan against the Taliban and foreshadow operations in key eastern districts.White House officials also say that since Obama came to office, and poured new resources into a war that they say was neglected by the George W. Bush administration, there has been significant progress against Al-Qaeda.In December 2009, Obama laid out a new war strategy designed to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda, break the momentum of the Taliban and to offer the Afghan government space to move towards a security takeover."We have made significant progress towards achieving those goals," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday."Obviously, the most sensational and significant data point in that progress, of that progress, is the elimination of Osama bin Laden," he said."But there has been enormous progress in disrupting and dismantling a

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