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Congresswoman Chellie Pingree calls on Obama to lay out exit strategy for Afghanistan
Says Congress shouldn’t even consider funding without clear plan for withdrawal

June 28, 2010
For immediate release

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, a member of the House Armed Servcies Committee, is leading an effort to ask President Obama to produce a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. She says the Administration has sent mixed messages about ending the war there and that Congress should not even consider voting on additional funding without a clear exit strategy from the president.

“We need to know how and when we are going to end that war,” Pingree said. “We need to know when a withdrawal will begin and when it will end. Without that, the President shouldn’t be asking Congress to vote for more war spending.”

Congress may soon be asked to vote on a $33 billion supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pingree has opposed such emergency spending in the past and doesn’t think there should be another vote without a clear plan to end U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

“Last year at West Point the President promised to start withdrawing troops, but now we hear talk of a second surge,” Pingree said. “The Administration has failed to come up with a concrete plan to end the war in Afghanistan and is sending mixed messages about the path forward in that country. We need some clarification from the President.”

Pingree is joining Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California in asking their colleagues to join them in a letter to the President calling for a clear exit strategy for Afghanistan before a vote on more war funding.

“We believe that clarity on this vital point is a prerequisite… for Congress to responsibly consider further funding requests for the war,” the letter says.

(Full text of the letter below)

June 24, 2010

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
White House
Washington DC

Dear Mr. President,

We fully agree with your admonition that a “unity of effort” is necessary to pursue US policy in Afghanistan. We support your decisive action in accepting the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal to advance this goal. But, we believe that achieving unity of effort also requires a clear commitment, time-frame and plan for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

The lack of clarity on when and how the US will end its military commitment to Afghanistan has created confusion amongst U.S. service members and the public. The controversial article in Rolling Stone Magazine that led you to accept the resignation of General McChrystal, for example, also reports that a senior military official stationed in Afghanistan believes that military success could actually lead to an escalation of forces, not a withdrawal: “There’s a possibility we could ask for another surge of U.S. forces next summer if we see success here.”

This view reflects the ambiguous and tentative positions that Secretary Gates and General Petraeus continue to articulate about a date certain for the withdrawal of US forces. On the ABC news program “This Week”, Secretary Gates said: “We will have 100,000 troops there and they are not leaving in July of 2011. Some handful, or some small number, or whatever conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.” General Petraeus is described in today’s Washington Post as “a commander who may become a formidable advocate for slowing, or arresting outright, the pace of troop reductions next summer.”

Mr. President, we believe that it is imperative for you to provide Congress and the American people with a clear commitment and plan to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. This should include not only a date certain for the initiation of this withdrawal but a date for its completion and a strategy to achieve it. We believe that clarity on this vital point is a prerequisite for the unity of effort that you rightly seek in the implementation of your Afghanistan policy and for Congress to responsibly consider further funding requests for the war.

Sincerely,