LISBON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said for the first time on Saturday his goal was to end the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and to significantly reduce the number of U.S. troops deployed there by then.

His remarks, made at the end of a NATO summit in Lisbon, surprised, as earlier in the day top aides had told reporters that Washington was not yet ready to commit to such a target.

“My goal is to make sure that by 2014 we have transitioned, Afghans are in the lead, and it is a goal to make sure we are not still engaged in combat operations of the sort we are involved in now,” Obama told a news conference.

He said the United States endorsed NATO’s plan to transfer security responsibility to Afghan security forces by 2014, but stressed that counter-terrorism operations against al Qaeda in the region would likely continue after that date.

U.S. officials have in the past avoided linking the planned transition to Afghan control to the end of the U.S. combat mission in the unpopular nine-year-old war.

Obama was stung by criticism last year that he was jeopardizing the lives of U.S. soldiers by announcing that U.S. troops would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011. Critics said setting the date would embolden the Taliban.

As a result, the White House had been careful to refer to 2014 only as the date when Afghans would finally be taking the lead in security operations in their war-torn country.

LISBON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama used the international stage on Saturday to press his Republican opponents in Congress to ratify a new nuclear arms deal with Russia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also urged U.S. lawmakers to approve the START treaty swiftly, and six European foreign ministers echoed the appeal in a joint appearance at a NATO summit in Lisbon.

The treaty, signed by Obama and Medvedev in April, commits the United States and Russia to cutting deployed nuclear weapons by about 30 percent within seven years. It also includes verification measures.

Obama says the treaty is vital because it allows U.S. inspectors to gather accurate intelligence about the state of Russia’s nuclear stockpile.

“There is a time element to do this. We don’t have any mechanism to verify what is going on right now on the ground in Russia,” he told a news conference.

Republicans, led by Senator Jon Kyl, have stalled ratification of the treaty in the Senate, saying it needs more work. They say their concerns are unlikely to be resolved before the end of the year.

WASHINGTON A “PARTISAN PLACE”

LISBON (Reuters) – The United States said on Saturday it could not yet commit to the head of NATO’s aim of ending the foreign combat role in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 but would make its own decision based on security conditions.

“We’re the United States. We want to make our own decision based on our own read on the situation,” a senior U.S. official told reporters during a NATO summit in Lisbon.

The United States’ reluctance to endorse the date highlights the domestic pressures on President Barack Obama.

The Democratic president has been sharply criticized by Republicans for setting a July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. troops. Critics say the deadline emboldens the Taliban.

Leaders of NATO states in Europe, too, face their own domestic concerns — voters want them to wind down their involvement in the increasingly unpopular and expensive war.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference that the aim was to hand security responsibility to Afghan forces gradually between 2011 and 2014, and for foreign troops serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to cease combat before 2015.

“I don’t foresee ISAF troops in a combat role beyond 2014, provided of course that the security situation allows us to move into a more supportive role,” Rasmussen told reporters.

LISBON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama moved closer on Friday to a showdown with Republicans in Congress who have rebuffed his calls for the Senate to approve a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia by the end of the year.

Obama warned that failure to ratify the treaty would put at risk warming ties with Russia, which has helped impose tougher sanctions on Iran and allowed equipment destined for NATO forces in Afghanistan through its territory.

Speaking during a NATO summit, he showed no sign of backing down from his demand that the Senate move speedily to approve the treaty, despite Republicans saying they do not think there is enough time this year to resolve outstanding differences.

Obama has put the START treaty at the top of his foreign policy agenda, saying it is central to his efforts to “reset” U.S. relations with Russia and ensure there is proper monitoring of the former Cold War enemy’s nuclear arsenal.

“This is a national security imperative of the United States,” Obama said.

“We know that failure to ratify and move forward with new START will put at risk the substantial progress that has been made in advancing our nuclear security and our partnership with Russia on behalf of nuclear security.”

Obama’s statement appeared designed to keep up pressure on Republicans who have refused to endorse the treaty.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Tuesday interviewed investment banker Roger Altman, a former Treasury official, as a candidate to replace departing economic adviser Larry Summers, a White House official said.

Altman, 64, is a veteran of both Washington and Wall Street, steeped in the ways of politics and finance and potentially able to act as a bridge to the private sector that business observers say the Obama White House badly needs.

Summers’ replacement will also play an important role in helping Obama find new ways to stimulate a sluggish economy after voters punished the president’s fellow Democrats in November 2 congressional elections for stubbornly high unemployment and government deficits.

The process of picking a new National Economic Council director, who coordinates economic policy for the president, is in its early stages, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

“The president is considering a number of qualified candidates, but he has only begun the process and no decisions have been made,” Psaki said.

Another White House official said Obama appeared to be narrowing his choices for the job.

Consideration of Altman could signal a move to the center because he is closely associated with moderate economic policies of the Clinton administration.

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO leaders meet in Lisbon this week to sketch a roadmap that could pave the way for the alliance to wind down its involvement in the nine-year-old Afghan war.

HOW WILL SUMMIT ADDRESS SHORTFALL IN TRAINERS?

Building up Afghan security forces as quickly as possible is central to NATO’s withdrawal strategy. U.S. targets call for expanding the Afghan army and police to 306,000 by next October from more than 260,000 now.

The head of NATO’s training mission said last month the alliance was short of around 900 specialist instructors to train Afghan forces, but NATO officials say this may now have been filled.

Canada, which plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan next year, has said several hundred of its 2,900-strong contingent will stay behind as trainers. The Netherlands, which has already withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, also says it wants to set up a new training mission.

NATO members are unlikely to offer additional combat troops and Obama is not expected to ask for more, despite worsening violence and record civilian and military casualties.

WILL SUMMIT TALK ABOUT TRANSITION TO AFGHAN CONTROL?

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) – A White House review of the Afghan war will help President Barack Obama decide just how fast to withdraw U.S. troops and hand over responsibility to Afghan security forces, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The administration expects to unveil at least some findings of its review in the second half of December or possibly the first weeks of the new year, the senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The assessment of Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan will be closely watched at home, where it is deeply unpopular, and abroad, where European allies are looking for an exit strategy from the nine-year-old war.

U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed the review will not lead to any major changes in the way the war is being fought.

The senior Obama administration official said the review would look at recent “outreaches” to senior leaders of the Taliban but he downplayed reports of talks between the militant group and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“There are not active talks ongoing,” he said in a briefing call with reporters. “There are talks about talks, and there are potential outreaches to senior Taliban.”

There have been conflicting reports on the nature of the talks and U.S. officials have sometimes differed in their characterizations of the engagements.

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – A December review of the Afghanistan war is expected to say the U.S. strategy is working despite increased violence and record casualties, and that a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing can be met.

But General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, will say that since the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops was just completed in late summer, it will take more time to get a complete picture of how the strategy is working, analysts said. That could affect the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal.

“There will be progress but a lot of ambiguity about interpreting it because of the late start to a lot of these offensives and the seasonality of warfare in Afghanistan,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus in the past.

Ahead of the review, U.S. officials have been offering more upbeat assessments of a war widely perceived as going badly for the United States and its NATO allies nine years after U.S.-led forces invaded to topple the Taliban for sheltering al Qaeda.

Petraeus has ordered stepped-up operations — making greater use of elite special forces — that have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban militants in recent weeks.

In late October he said the Taliban’s momentum has “broadly been arrested.” But critics and security analysts say Petraeus is presenting an overly rosy picture.

“It is far from clear what impact these deaths, the rate of these deaths, and the prospect of more deaths are having on the calculus of the larger Taliban phenomenon and its senior decision-makers thinking,” said global intelligence company STRATFOR.

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – A December review of the Afghanistan war is expected to say the U.S. strategy is working despite increased violence and record casualties, and that a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing can be met.

But General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, will say that since the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops was just completed in late summer, it will take more time to get a complete picture of how the strategy is working, analysts said. That could affect the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal.

“There will be progress but a lot of ambiguity about interpreting it because of the late start to a lot of these offensives and the seasonality of warfare in Afghanistan,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus in the past.

Ahead of the review, U.S. officials have been offering more upbeat assessments of a war widely perceived as going badly for the United States and its NATO allies nine years after U.S.-led forces invaded to topple the Taliban for sheltering al Qaeda.

Petraeus has ordered stepped-up operations — making greater use of elite special forces — that have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban militants in recent weeks.

In late October he said the Taliban’s momentum has “broadly been arrested.” But critics and security analysts say Petraeus is presenting an overly rosy picture.

“It is far from clear what impact these deaths, the rate of these deaths, and the prospect of more deaths are having on the calculus of the larger Taliban phenomenon and its senior decision-makers thinking,” said global intelligence company

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he still hoped to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military, despite big electoral gains by Republicans, many of whom oppose repealing the restrictions.

Many gay voters were disappointed with Obama’s failure to overturn the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and pulled back on financial support for Democrats in the campaign for Tuesday’s congressional elections, in which Republicans won control of the House of Representatives.

Obama pledged at a White House news conference to deliver on a promise he first made when running for president in 2008.

“It’s time for us to move this policy forward,” Obama said, adding the rule could potentially be repealed in the short session of Congress after the elections, when fellow Democrats will still control both houses.

Since 1993, homosexuals have been allowed to serve in the U.S. military as long as they hide their sexual orientation. They are expelled if it becomes known. Polls have said most Americans support lifting the ban.

The House has voted to change the law but unless the Senate takes it up in the final weeks of the “lame-duck” legislative session, it will effectively die.

Democrats retained control of the Senate in Tuesday’s elections, but Obama will still have to work with resurgent Republicans who will be demanding a bigger voice in issues such as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”