US President Barack Obama, declaring an end to America’s seven-year-long military mission in Iraq in a televised address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, said the focus would now shift to the AfPak region, where the Al Qaeda leadership “remains anchored”.
It was “time to turn the page”, Mr Obama said, add-ing that his most urgent task now was to restore the US economy and put millions of Americans who lost their jobs back to work.
While he declared he “would not waver” in the battle against Al Qaeda and that in fact the exit from Iraq would enable strengthening of American forces against Al Qaeda, he made it clear he intends to begin disengaging from the war in Afghanistan in July 2011. “An open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s,” he said.