Military did not support fixing Afghan exit date - U.S. commander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military officials would have preferred the United States not announce a date for ending its troop presence in Afghanistan, as the White House did in May, the outgoing commander of U.S. forces there said on Thursday.

General Joe Dunford, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, was asked at a Senate committee hearing whether President Barack Obama's announcement that almost all U.S. troops would be gone by 2017 had damaged morale among Afghan soldiers.