NATO ministers consider plan to lessen Afghan role

BRUSSELS – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that NATO allies have agreed broadly to step back from the lead combat role in Afghanistan and let local forces take their place as early as next year, a shortened timetable that startled officials and members of Congress.

Obama administration officials scrambled with varying degrees of clarity to explain that Panetta’s announcement en route to the NATO defense ministers’ meeting here that he hoped combat troops would move into a training and assistance role beginning in 2013 was not a policy change, but an optimistic look at the already-established timetable.

Panetta said he told a meeting of his 27 NATO counterparts that he hoped Afghan forces would be ready to take the combat lead countrywide sometime in 2013, with international troops shifting to a support role after a decade of inconclusive combat. That means Afghans would bear the main burden of offensive action, with U.S. and other foreign troops assisting, he said.