WASHINGTON: Leon Panetta, the nominee to be the next US defense secretary, said Thursday that he backed a significant troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in July, in an apparent break with outgoing Pentagon chief Robert Gates. “I agree with the president's statement,” Panetta told Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat who asked the departing CIA chief whether he backed President Barack Obama's call for a “significant” draw-down. While Panetta repeatedly praised Gates and sought to assure the panel that he would follow in his footsteps, the answer seemed to put the two at odds as Washington works to put Afghans in charge of their own security by 2014. “We ought to do nothing that jeopardizes that path,” said Panetta, who did not give a precise number of troops that should go and insisted troop levels would depend on the ebb and flow of a war now in its tenth year. “This has to be a conditions-based withdrawal,” he said. “I think based on what changes take place, then obviously the president and the secretary would have to make adjustments.” Panetta, 72, worked to reassure lawmakers worried a hasty pullout could spell defeat in Afghanistan and others exasperated by what Republican Senator Susan Collins called “a never-ending mission” to stabilize the strife-torn country.
