Obama in Dec. 2014: ‘Next Week We’ll Be Ending Our Combat Mission in Afghanistan’

Obama: We’re ‘Ending Combat Mission in Afghanistan’--But Troops Will Remain There to Combat al Qaeda (CNSNews)

In a pair of statements made on Christmas Day and Dec. 28, President Obama said that the U.S. is “ending our combat mission in Afghanistan” but that U.S. forces will remain there “to conduct counterterrorism operations” against what he called the “remnants of al Qaeda.”

The president also said of Afghanistan on Christmas Day: “It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again.”

Three years ago, on Dec. 14, 2011, President Obama traveled to Fort Bragg in North Carolina to announce that he was removing the last U.S. troops from Iraq and that the U.S. was “leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government.”

In contrast to Iraq, the administration did negotiate an agreement with the government of Afghanistan to keep troops in the country—and, according to the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. will be keeping 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2015.

“This is an important year,” Obama said at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Dec. 25.

“We’ve been in continuous war now for almost thirteen years—over 13 years,” Obama said. “And next week we will be ending our combat mission in Afghanistan.

“Obviously, because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the American armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country,” Obama continued. “We are safer. It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again.