Afghan pullout to be slow process, warns US general: "A top US officer returning from commanding US Marines in Afghanistan's restive southwest emphasized Wednesday that the pullout of foreign troops from the country would be a slow, drawn-out process.
The withdrawal will be 'a slow transition, not a lot of bells and whistles, not a lot of parades, because we don't want to attract attention,' stressed Major General Richard Mills in remarks to reporters in Washington.
'It's not one morning people are going to wake up and all coalition forces will be gone -- it'll be a slowly thinning out process, so that hopefully one day people will wake up and look around and say 'hey didn't there used to be US Marines around here?''
Mills, who oversaw operations in the Afghan Helmand and Nimruz Provinces from April 2010 until earlier this month, said that in some areas foreign powers already have 'been able to thin out our forces significantly and turn over local responsibility both to the Afghan police and to the Afghan army.'"
