Obama Tells Pentagon to Plan for Afghan Pullout

President Barack Obama has asked the Pentagon to make plans to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year in case the U.S. and Afghanistan cannot complete a bilateral security agreement.

Obama discussed the plans Tuesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has so far refused to sign the security agreement. The White House says Obama told Karzai that he was open to the possibility of finalizing the agreement later this year, likely after the Afghan elections this spring.

If an agreement is signed later this year, Obama told Karzai the U.S. could keep a limited troop presence. But he says the longer it takes to reach a security accord, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 troop presence is "smaller in scale and ambition."