With Osama dead, we'll be leaving Afghanistan soon...huh say what?

Don't act surprised they aren't leaving. It would have been much more shocking if they'd kept their word...

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates appealed for patience with an unpopular war and said Saturday that only modest U.S. troop reductions would make sense this summer in a still unstable Afghanistan.

On his 12th and final visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief, Gates held out the possibility of a turning point in the war by year's end. But Gates, who's retiring June 30, said much depends on whether the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden creates a new opening for peace negotiations with leaders of the Taliban insurgency.

This and other aspects of the war, now in its 10th year, were on the agenda for Gates' meetings Saturday with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander here, and with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry. A decision on U.S. troop reductions is expected in the next couple of weeks.

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