Rumsfeld To Cut Troops in Afghanistan Next Year: Report

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has signed an order to reduce U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan from 19,000 to 16,000 by next spring, The New York Times said Dec. 20, quoting a senior military officer.

The troop cut is the result of NATO’s decision to expand its peacekeeping force in southern Afghanistan next year.

The order Rumsfeld signed on Monday will reduce from 4,000 to 1,300 troops the portion of the Army’s Fourth Brigade that was scheduled to replace the 173rd Airborne Brigade in southern Afghanistan, a Pentagon spokesman told the daily.

The reduction will bring down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 16,000 by the end of March, said the senior military officer, who requested anonymity because the order had not been made public.

The decision, Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said, was based on recommendations from the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, and General John Abizaid, the overall U.S. commander in the Middle East and Central Asia.

”The overall level of security forces in the country, NATO’s role and the political developments are all moving in the right direction,” Di Rita told the daily in an interview.

A formal announcement on the troop cuts was expected later Tuesday, the daily said.