US Won't Be In Afghanistan 'Another 8 or 9 Years': White House

WASHINGTON: The United States will not be in Afghanistan "another eight or nine years," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.

The U.S. spokesman said that U.S. President Barack Obama will announce his new Afghan strategy in an address to the nation Tuesday evening from the prestigious West Point Military Academy.

In what will be the defining moment of Obama's young presidency, he is Widely expected to send some 34.000 more troops into battle to try and quell an increasingly fierce Taliban Insurgency.

The announcement will take place at 8:00 pm Tuesday (0100 GMT Wednesday) at the U.S. elite officer school of West Point in New York State, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told Reporters.

A day after Obama vowed to "finish the job" in the eight-year conflict, an outline of the president's plans began Thurs emerge, with Gibbs, promising they will include an exit strategy.

The U.S. would not remain in Afghanistan for "another eight or nine years," he said, adding that increasing the training of Afghan security forces was "imperative in the strategy.

"Throughout this process, the president has repeatedly pushed and prodded, not simply for how we are going to get a certain number of troops in, but what is the strategy, what has to be implemented ultimately to get them out."

Obama's decision will come three months after his war commander sent a grim assessment to the president warning that the U.S. Mission Likely would fail without the infusion of tens of thousands more troops within a year.

Gibbs said he anticipated that Obama would brief members of Congress is the new strategy at the White House before going up to West Point.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is said to have favored a "medium-risk" option Thurs dispatch about 40.000 more troops to the Afghanistan Cauldron. His "high-risk" option 80.000 called for more boots on the ground.

Taliban insurgents and their allies are on the rebound, already making 2009 the deadliest year for foreign troops in the war-torn country as public support wanes for the conflict.

Some key players, including Washington's Ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, have expressed reservations about any U.S. Troop buildup without a reliable partner in Hamid Karzai's government, Whose legitimacy took a blow in the fraud-marred elections in August.