Mr. Gates made clear that the initial American troop withdrawals ordered for July by President Obama would be limited, perhaps to no more than several thousand troops.
The government issued 63 such "withdrawal" orders in 2009 and 2010, according to the safety agency.
The appeals judges said they would decide later whether to remove him from a fourth case involving Armstrong World, which had asked to be included in any withdrawal order.
Reuters reported on Sunday that €1bn worth of withdrawal orders had been lodged with Greek banks over the weekend – on top of the €4bn that left the country's banking system last week.
Transition, then, is the linchpin of our strategy, not merely the 'way out.' " The possibility of an accelerated withdrawal order by Mr. Obama has angered senior Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee.
A further complication: Under state law, any election authority in Missouri can oppose a withdrawal order, down to the county and city level, and there are Democrats aplenty in Missouri.
The bulk of the German armoured forces and many infantry divisions were thrown into the Normandy battle and kept there by Hitler's "no withdrawal" orders until they collapsed and a large part of them were trapped.
Even with the withdrawal order, Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a "residual force" of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down foreign terrorist cells and guard American institutions, as he said he would during last year's campaign.
Even as the number of American troops will be cut in half from 68,000 by next February under President Obama's withdrawal orders, the number of Special Operations forces will remain the same through the Afghan presidential election, which is scheduled for next spring, but could be delayed until closer to December 2014.
Now a withdrawal order has come from the Kremlin again.
