Published: November 01, 2009 03:35 pm      

White House: Afghan troop decision within weeks

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is still weeks away from deciding whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, the White House said Sunday amid pressure from lawmakers to settle on a war strategy despite muddled politics and concerns of corruption in Kabul.

Top White House advisers said Obama's painstaking review, ongoing since early September, would not be hampered by Sunday's announcement from the top challenger in the Afghan presidential runoff election that he would withdraw from a race he was likely to lose.

"I expect the president will make a decision within weeks," senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said. "As you know, he has gone through a very rigorous process because the goal here is not just to make an arithmetic judgment about the number of troops, but to make sure that we have the right strategy."

Axelrod said former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah's decision to withdraw means that Afghan President Hamid Karzai all but certainly will remain in power.

"We are going to deal with the government that is there," Axelrod said. "And obviously there are issues we need to discuss, such as reducing the high level of corruption. These are issues we'll take up with President Karzai."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, traveling in Morocco, said the U.S. will support the next president and the people of Afghanistan, "who seek and deserve a better future."