(Photo: Javed Tanveer, AFP/Getty Images) Story Highlights Without a security agreement, all U.S. troops will be withdrawn by end of the year 
 
 Obama has instructed the Pentagon to make contingency plans 
 
 Karzai has said his successor should decide after spring elections 
 
 WASHINGTON — With no sign of a deal for a post-2014 security agreement with Afghanistan on the horizon, President Obama on Tuesday offered a blunt warning to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai that time is running out to forge a deal to keep U.S. troops beyond the end of the year. Obama told the Afghan president by phone, the White House said, that he has ordered the Pentagon preparations because Karzai has dragged his feet for too long in waiting to sign the bilateral security agreement he negotiated with Washington and earlier put before a traditional advisory council, which endorsed it. Text Size - 
 
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 “President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA, the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning,” the White House said in a readout of the conversation between the two leaders. “Should we have a BSA and a willing and committed partner in the Afghan government, a limited post-2014 mission focused on training, advising and assisting Afghan forces and going after the remnants of core Al Qaeda could be in the interests of the United States and Afghanistan,” the White House said. Staking out a new position, the White House statement said "we will leave open the possibility of concluding a BSA (bilateral security agreement) later this year. However, the longer we go without a BSA, the more challenging it will be to plan and execute any U.S. mission.” 
 
 Later, at the White House, press secretary Jay Carney told reporters definitively that no security agreement meant no U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan after Dec. 31. "It' a preposterous suggestion," Carney said. “Absent a BSA, there will not be any U.S. troops on the ground beyond the end of the year.” 
 
 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had previously said he wanted to have a signed security agreement in hand by the time he traveled to Brussels on Tuesday for a NATO defense ministers’ meeting. Hagel said Tuesday that the Pentagon has begun planning for a complete withdrawal of troops by year's end. "As the United States military continues to move people and equipment out of the Afghan theater, our force posture over the next several months will provide various options for political leaders in the United States and NATO," Hagel said in a statement. “And during this time, DOD will still continue planning for U.S. participation in a NATO-led mission focused on training, advising and assisting Afghan security forces, as well as a narrowly focused counterterrorism mission.” 
 
 Carney told reporters that Obama and Karzai had a “fairly substantive” call and that Obama was “explicit” in delivering his message. Carney also said Obama talked about the security agreement with House Speaker John Boehner in a meeting Tuesday after Boehner and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) had both slammed Obama for ignoring the war in Afghanistan, the nation’s longest at 13 years. “In order to sustain yourself over time, you have to have institutional systems that are in place where they can, in fact, replenish their forces, they can do personnel management, they can do budgeting, they can do intelligence operations, infuse all types of intelligence, where they can train pilots and conduct rotary-wing and fixed-wing operations.” 
 
 Milley also told reporters at the Pentagon last month that the Afghan army could conduct basic training and was good at small-unit actions but needed to establish the ability to remain a viable force over the long term.
– President Obama scolded Hamid Karzai by phone today and warned him that the US is preparing to bring home all its troops at the end of the year, instead of leaving a contingency force behind, reports Politico. Karzai refuses to sign a security deal that, among other things, would grant those troops immunity, reports USA Today. He's already blown by one US deadline to sign the accord, and Obama told him that American patience is running out. "We will leave open the possibility of concluding a BSA (bilateral security agreement) later this year," said a White House statement. "However, the longer we go without a BSA, the more challenging it will be to plan and execute any US mission." Up to 8,000 troops could be part of such a contingency force, reports Reuters. Its main duties would be to conduct counter-terror missions and train Afghan troops.