Panetta: No decision on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

By Marc Heller

TIMES WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has made no plans for further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan next year, once a surge of 33,000 troops is drawn down, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told a Senate committee this morning.

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Panetta was unable to say when or how the Pentagon will shrink U.S. forces in Afghanistan after the surge is finished this summer. Total force levels are projected to decline to 68,000.

The defense secretary’s comments came in response to questions from Sen. Carl M. Levin, D-Mich., the committee’s chairman, who wondered why the Pentagon’s proposed budget assumes that 68,000 soldiers will remain in Afghanistan through fiscal 2013, even though President Barack Obama has said troops will continue to come home at a “steady pace” once the surge force is withdrawn.

He said the budget number is a target and that a decision on further withdrawals will come after a review of the situation on the ground, probably later this year.

Forces have already been reduced by 10,000, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.

Mr. Levin asked if reductions beyond the 68,000 troop level would yield budget savings.

“Will there be some savings?” Mr. Panetta said. “Of course, whatever we decide to do, there will be savings,” Mr. Panetta said.