US officials downplay withdrawal deadline from Afghanistan

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected suggestions Sunday that US forces will move out of Afghanistan in large numbers in July of next year under a deadline set by President Barack Obama.

"That absolutely has not been decided," Gates said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.

His comment was the latest indication that the magnitude of the drawdown, if not the deadline itself, is the subject of an intensifying internal debate at a time when a NATO-led campaign against the Taliban is going slower than expected.

Vice President Joe Biden, an early skeptic of the US military buildup in Afghanistan, was quoted as telling author Jonathan Alter recently, "In July of 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it."

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel did not deny the Biden quote when asked about it, but he said that the size of the drawdown would depend on conditions on the ground.

"Everybody knows there's a firm date. And that firm date is a date (that) deals with the troops that are part of the surge, the additional 30,000," he told ABC news.

"What will be determined at that date or going into that date will be the scale and scope of that reduction," he said.

General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, said last week that in setting the deadline for the surge last year, Obama's message was "one of urgency - not that July 2011 is when we race for the exits, reach for the light switch and flip it off."

Just last week, Afghanistan's minister for mines said the country's mineral deposits may be worth $3 trillion.

In other news, bomb attacks and a helicopter crash killed six NATO soldiers Monday in southern Afghanistan, where US-led troops are sharpening an ambitious campaign to flush out Taliban militants.

Agencies