General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command and the architect of the Iraq surge, acknowledges there are "some benefits" to a timeline as part of the President's Afghanistan plan. President Obama announced Tuesday he will send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan and begin the transfer of forces out of Afghanistan in July 2011. "I emphasized up front these twin messages which I don't see as being mutually exclusive at all, although there is undeniably some tension between them," said Petraeus, who as the former top ground commander in Iraq, previously argued against a timetable. "Our experience in Iraq has repeatedly shown that projecting too far into the future is not just difficult, it can be misleading and even hazardous," he said in congressional testimony in September 2007. The top general in charge of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars says the July 2011 date is not a date for withdrawal, but a date for transition and, even then, the transition will be conditions based. "This doesn't trigger a rush to the exits. It triggers a beginning of transition to Afghan security forces and, over time, a beginning of transition of tasks to Afghan governmental elements as well," Petraeus said on FOX News Sunday. The President, according to Petraeus, acknowledged the success of the Iraq surge, while the strategy for Afghanistan remains forward looking. "We have spent a lot of time taking the rearview mirrors off the bus and avoiding re-litigating, if you will, you know, past battles and all the rest of this, and focusing to the future," Petraeus said of the president's Afghanistan planning meetings. "He asked at various times to describe how did reconciliation work. As you know, that was a very important component of the surge," he added. Petraeus who has maintained a low political profile, agreed to speak at the American Enterprise Institute next May, where he will be awarded the annual Irving Kristol Award, a prestigious award in conservative circles. However, he admits he stopped voting back in 2002. "I have tried to serve the commander in chief, whatever party he was from, and to be an apolitical officer. At times that's difficult when you obviously become associated with a particular policy," he said.