Top general declines to endorse Trump’s Afghan withdrawal timeline
WASHINGTON
The nation’s top general declined over the weekend to endorse either of the sudden announcements on Afghan troop withdrawals that came out of the White House last week.
In an interview with NPR on Sunday, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the agreement reached with Afghan and Taliban officials to leave Afghanistan was “conditions based,” adding that the United States would “responsibly” end the war.
His comments came after the White House tripped over itself on the issue of Afghanistan troop levels in recent days.
Milley was aware before the interview that he would be asked about the comments by President Donald Trump and his nationalsecurity adviser, Robert O’Brien, a senior U.S. official said. And, in his comments, Milley sought to distance himself from embracing any strict timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan but phrased his remarks in a way that did not directly contradict Trump, with whom he has a good oneon-one working relationship.
With no warning to the Pentagon, O’Brien told an audience in Las Vegas on Wednesday that the United States would cut its troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 by early next year. That, by itself, surprised the Defense Department, where officials said they were still operating under orders to reduce troop levels to 4,500.
But the president himself added to the confusion when he contradicted O’Brien hours later and suggested — via Twitter — a timeline as early as Christmas to bring all troops home.
“We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas!” Trump wrote.
Defense Department officials were caught by surprise and, in his interview, Milley appeared to give voice to the frustration with both the accelerated timeline and the conflicting messages.
Milley, along with close to all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been quarantining at home after the coronavirus outbreak that began at the White House two weeks ago.