Obama announces Afghanistan troop withdrawal plan.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW : President Obama announces all 33,000 "surge" troops will withdraw by September 2012 NEW: The withdrawal will begin next month, with 10,000 troops leaving Afghanistan this year NEW: After the withdrawal, almost 70,000 U.S. forces will still be in Afghanistan NEW: Senior administration officials say the surge's success allows the withdrawal to begin Check out the Afghanistan Crossroads blog for more on the Afghan conflict. Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama announced Wednesday night that all of the 33,000 additional U.S. forces he ordered to Afghanistan in December 2009 would be home within the next 15 months. In a nationally televised address from the East Room of the White House, Obama said 10,000 of the so-called "surge" forces would withdraw by the end of this year, and the other 23,000 would leave Afghanistan by September 2012. The troop withdrawals will begin next month, as promised when Obama ordered the surge...