Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz blasted President Obama Monday night for his scheduled July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Mr. Shultz, 89, made the unusually blunt remarks at a packed dinner for the International Republican Institute -- the GOP-aligned counterpart to the National Democratic Institute -- where he was receiving the organization's 2010 Freedom Award.

"You're out of your mind," he said at a question-and-answer forum, when asked his opinion of the president's drawdown date. "How can you say that 'if I haven't won by six or nine months from now, I'm leaving?' "

Mr. Shultz -- who earlier served under President Nixon as Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor and director of the Office of Management and Budget -- called for a prompt extension of the Bush tax cuts and expressed theoretical support for President Obama's goal of a world without nuclear weapons.