President Barack Obama has told the American people he is withdrawing 33,000 troops from Afghanistan, and he is sending the same message to U.S. soldiers themselves Thursday. The president told VOA in an interview broadcast worldwide, including in Afghanistan, that he and his top advisers feel “the tide of war is receding,” and he pledged the United States is not abandoning the Kabul government by withdrawing troops.

In the VOA interview, Mr. Obama said U.S. forces will have a “substantial presence” in Afghanistan even after withdrawing 10,000 troops by the end of this year and another 23,000 over the next 14 months. He noted Afghanistan will still be protected by 68,000 American soldiers plus other troops from NATO coalition, and that “Afghans are slowly taking more and more responsibility” for their security.

Mr. Obama is meeting Thursday with soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, one of the units most frequently deployed to Afghanistan.

In his speech from the White House late Wednesday, President Obama promised the American people that troop withdrawals should be complete by 2014. He said U.S. forces will continue their withdrawal at a “steady pace” as Afghan forces take on more and more security responsibilities.

The nearly decade-old Afghan war has become increasingly unpopular with the American public. With a trillion dollars spent on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last decade, President Obama acknowledged it was time to focus on “nation-building at home.”

The president's withdrawal plan is seen as more aggressive than a slower drawdown called for by some military commanders.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he supported the president's decision, but President Obama's 2008 presidential rival, Republican Senator John McCain, said the announcement is not the “modest” withdrawal that he and others had hoped for and advocated.

Former Massachusetts governor and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused Mr. Obama of creating an “arbitrary timetable” and said the decision on withdrawing troops should not be based on politics or economics. House Speaker John Boehner said the U.S. should retain the “flexibility” to reconsider troop levels and respond to changes on the ground.

Democrats, meanwhile, believe the withdrawal plan is not fast enough. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said many in Congress and across the country had hoped the full drawdown would happen sooner than the president laid out. She vowed to continue to press for a better outcome.

Some 100,000 American troops are currently serving in Afghanistan. In his 13-minute speech, President Obama said U.S. forces have inflicted losses on the Taliban and taken a number of the insurgent group's strongholds.

He expressed support for Afghan-led reconciliation talks with members of the Taliban who are willing to break from al-Qaida, abandon violence, and abide by the Afghan constitution.

The president said al-Qaida is under more pressure than at any time since the September 11 terrorist attacks and is on a “path to defeat.” U.S. special forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan's neighbor, Pakistan, on May 2.

The president acknowledged that U.S. efforts must also address terrorist safe havens in Pakistan.

At least 1,500 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001. The United States spends more than $110 billion a year on the conflict.