the war he inherited was a publicly and admittedly drawn out process. that culminated on december 1st, 2009, at a speech in west point where mr. obama an nowed he would be spending more troops. more troops to afghanistan but with a deadline. counter insurgents to get 18 months, defined as defeating al qaeda. >> i set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling and defeating al qaeda and its extremist allies. as commander in chief i have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 u.s. troops to afghanistan. after 18 months our troops will begin to come home. >> so in 18 months was up, the surge would be, too. today late in the day with nothing like the weeks and months of advance warning we had in 2009 we got word that the