Defense chief: Trump has new Afghan plan
Defense secretary says strategy encompasses South Asia in entirety.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that President Donald Trump, who had been accused by lawmakers of dragging his feet on Afghanistan, had settled on a new strategy after a “rigorous” review.
“The president has made a decision,” Mattis told reporters on an overnight flight that arrived in Amman, Jordan, on Sunday. “I am very comfortable that the strategic process was sufficiently rigorous.”
Mattis received the authority in June to send nearly 4,000 troops to Afghanistan so that the U.S. military could expand its efforts to advise Afghan forces and support them with U.S. artillery and air power. But Mattis had refrained from building up the U.S. force there until the Trump administration settled on a broader strategy.
Mattis declined to say what steps the president had ordered, including troop levels.
The White House announced that President Donald Trump would make a national address Monday at 8 p.m. CDT to update the path forward in Afghanistan and South Asia.
The decision to send troops is just one component of a strategy that is also expected to outline ways to pressure Pakistan to shut down the sanctuaries that the Taliban and other extremist groups have maintained on its territory.
“It is a South Asia strategy; it not just an Afghanistan strategy,”
Mattis said.
Steve Bannon, who was recently removed as a top Trump adviser, fought the military’s recommendation for more troops and backed a number of alternative options — including using contractors instead of U.S. forces. (Bannon did not attend the meeting Trump convened Friday at Camp David to discuss Afghan strategy.)
U.S. military commanders have argued that the additional troops would enable the U.S. to advise select Afghan brigades in the field and to reverse gains made by the Taliban. But after nearly 16 years of war, critics say, the Trump administration needs to detail ways to elicit more cooperation from Pakistan, improve governance in Afghanistan and make the battlefield gains durable.
Few people believe the war in Afghanistan has been going well. Gen. John W. Nicholson, the commander of the U.S.-led international force in Afghanistan, told Congress in February that the U.S. and its NATO allies were facing a “stalemate.”
The Pentagon later developed options to send between 3,000 and 5,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, including hundreds of Special Operations forces. The reinforcements would be augmented by troop contributions from NATO nations, which U.S. officials have already solicited.
An estimated 9,800 U.S. troops are deployed to Afghanistan, most of them assigned to an international force of about 13,000 that is training and advising the Afghan military. About 2,000 U.S. troops are assigned to fight al-Qaida and other militant groups.
Trump was initially skeptical about sending more troops, and his review of Afghan strategy dragged on for months. While Trump has vowed to defeat terrorist groups, sending more U.S. forces to Afghanistan could cost billions of dollars, and there is no assurance of producing a clear victory.
Several hard-line lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had complained that Trump was dragging his feet at a time when security in Afghanistan was eroding.
After meeting with his national security team on Friday, Trump tweeted on Saturday: “Many decisions made, including on Afghanistan.”