What's going on: Petraeus casts doubt on Afghan pullout deadline

Also: Pakistan flooding affects 20 million people.

Dusan Vranic / The Associated PressGen. David Petraeus, seen here on July 4, said Sunday that progress in Afghanistan only began this spring and needs time to take root. He described an "up and down process" of seizing Taliban-controlled territory and creating "small pockets of progress" that he hoped will expand.

From The New York Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of American and NATO forces, began a campaign on Sunday to convince an increasingly skeptical public that the American-led coalition can still succeed here despite months of setbacks, saying he had not come to Afghanistan to preside over a “graceful exit.”

In an hourlong interview with The New York Times, the general argued against any precipitous withdrawal of forces in July 2011, the date set by President Obama to begin at least a gradual reduction of the 100,000 troops on the ground. General Petraeus said that it was only in the last few weeks that the war plan had been fine-tuned and given the resources that it required. “For the first time,” he said, “we will have what we have been working to put in place for the last year and a half.”

In another in a series of interviews, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” General Petraeus even appeared to leave open the possibility that he would recommend against any withdrawal of American forces next summer.

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