Illinois congressman back from Afghanistan, lauds U.S. successes --- WASHINGTON— — After a visit to Afghanistan, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he supports the drawdown of U.S. forces at the end of 2014 but believes 9,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops will be needed on the ground afterward. -- Kinzinger, who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he visited Kabul, Bagram Air Field and Mazar-e-Sharif and left with a sense of optimism. He said Afghan forces were improving, the so-called green-on-blue killings of U.S. troops by Afghan infiltrators had been sharply cut, and the U.S. was no longer conducting unilateral missions except for counterterrorism operations. -- He said Americans have the mistaken idea that the U.S. has 100,000 troops in the country and they are "getting shot up over the mountainsides and the Afghans aren't doing anything. And actually, it's just the opposite." -- Kinzinger said he doesn't want another Iraq, where, he believes, defeat was snatched "from the jaws of victory" with a "precipitous" U.S. pullout that has allowed ongoing waves of bombings. - More, latimes