Double Talk?

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama's Defense Secretary, Robert M.Gates, said that under the plan, 100,000 American troops would be in Afghanistan in July 2011, and “some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.” The intention, it now appears, is that the transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan forces would only be starting from that date.

This sounds, to me, like a different message than Obama's West Point address last Tuesday, when he said that his administration would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.”