Panetta: Combat role may end in ’ 13

Afghanistan focus won’t be combat

Defense secretary hopes coalition mission in Afghanistan will shift to training local forces next year, 6A

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday the coalition in Afghanistan hopes to have shifted its primary mission from combat to advising and training Afghan security forces next year.

“Hopefully by the mid- to latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role,” Panetta said.

The remarks do not signal a change in the coalition mission, which is to transfer security responsibility to Afghan security forces as U. S. troops withdraw. Military commanders have talked about the transition to an advisory role in the past. However, the remarks, made to reporters traveling with him to a NATO meeting in Brussels, appear to provide a rough timeline for achieving the transition.

Critics have accused the Obama administration of rushing to the exits, jeopardizing gains that have been made there.

Rep. Buck Mckeon, R- Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the shift was “premature.”

“While there have certainly been improvements in the Afghan security forces’ capabilities, the committee has not seen a single assessment by our commanders that indicates they have any confidence in such a swift transition,” Mckeon, a Republican, said in a statement.

U. S. forces in Iraq followed a similar track, shifting from a primarily combat role to one of advising local forces before withdrawing entirely.

Under a White House plan, 10,000 U. S. servicemembers were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2011 and 23,000 more are scheduled to come out by September. There are 91,000 U. S. troops now in Afghanistan. The coalition plans to remove most forces by the end of 2014.

The shift from a combat mission to an advisory role does not mean that U. S. forces will not be exposed to fighting.

Panetta said that U. S. forces would remain “combat ready.”

The change will likely mean an increase in operations led by Afghan forces as coalition forces increasingly play a supporting role. A Defense Department report last year said the number of partnered and Afghan- led operations had been increasing.

The pace of the transition is already well underway in the south, where coalition forces have pushed the Taliban from most parts of Helmand province, a former Taliban stronghold and poppy growing region.

“In Helmand province, it’s moving along quickly,” Marine Maj. Gen. John Toolan, commander of coalition forces in southwest Afghanistan, said in a recent interview. “The Afghan security forces are confident.”

By Win Mcnamee, Getty Images Panetta: U. S. forces would remain “combat ready.”