Obama’s Afghan plan to start with 5,000-troop cut

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is expected to unveil plans to remove about 5,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July and up to 5,000 more by year-end as he lays out a broader withdrawal blueprint on Wednesday to Americans increasingly weary of the costly, decade-old war.

Obama will announce the first phase of a promised drawdown and could also commit to removing by the end of 2012 the remainder of the 30,000 extra “surge” troops he ordered deployed 18 months ago, according to a congressional source and U.S. official familiar with the deliberations.

The president made his final decision on Tuesday

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110621/ts_nm/us_afghanistan_usa_obama_9