NATO officials are gathering in Portugal on Friday to discuss their strategy in Afghanistan and establish a timetable for withdrawal.  U.S. President Barack Obama plans to announce that troop withdrawal will begin in July 2011 and be completed by the end of 2014.

However, even the Pentagon has called the 2014 full withdrawal date "aspirational."

"Although the hope is, the goal is, to have Afghan security forces in the lead over the preponderance of the country by then, it does not necessarily mean that ... everywhere in the country they will necessarily be in the lead," said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also said that full withdrawal was to be a goal, not a firm deadline.  "We'll announce that the transition to Afghan responsibility is about to start, in 2011. We hope this process will be completed by 2014," he said on Friday as leaders arrived at the summit.

Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police forces have been criticized as poorly trained, under-equiped, and suffering from low retention rates.  Many commenters are skeptical that they will be ready to take over the massive counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban anytime soon.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was touting a hard line on their preparedness, however.  "Let me tell you, we're going to start -- Daddy is going to start to take the training wheels off ... next July, so you'd better practice riding," Biden said during an appearance on CNN Thursday.

The United States provides two-thirds of the troops in NATO's operations in Afghanistan.  The American forces have increased the use of aggressive tactics in the past months, including night raids, air attacks, and increased use of high-powered explosives.  The measures "over the past two months have been more intense and have had a harder edge than at any point since the initial 2001 drive to oust the Taliban government," according to the Washington Post.

The U.S. military announced Friday that they will be deploying the M1 Abrams armored battletank to Afghanistan, which will add an additional level of tough, intense ground support.

Despite the meeting of NATO leaders in Lisbon, the Taliban seems unfazed by the talk of deadlines.

A Taliban spokesman told Reuters by phone that "basically we have no expectation that (foreign troops) will leave without any pressure."

"They should learn from our history, but it seems they do not. Whatever strategy or timetable they adopt, it will not have an impact on our pressure."

With the United States presence in Afghanistan about to surpass the length of that by the Soviets in a few weeks, NATO leaders are hoping that their withdrawal will be more triumphant than that of the previous foreign troops present in Afghanistan.

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