Acting Defence Chief: No orders to withdraw US troops
On his first trip to Afghanistan
KABUL - Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan met with Afghan leaders in Kabul on Monday as the Trump administration makes an intensified diplomatic push to end the United States’ longest war.
Shanahan, a former Boeing executive who has served in a senior Defence Department role since 2017, made his first visit to Afghanistan six weeks after he became Pentagon chief following the resignation of retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis.
Shanahan is under consideration to be nominated as Trump’s second Defence Secretary at a moment when the president is taking steps to end the counter-terrorism wars that have dominated Pentagon activities since the 9/11 attacks.
While military leaders are proceeding with a plan to pull American troops out of Syria, ending a ground mission against the Islamic State, officials say a decision has not been reached to withdraw from Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces support local forces battling the Taliban and other militants.
Confusion has surrounded what appeared to be a decision in December to withdraw as many as half the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, an indication of the contradictory messages that have often characterized Trump’s foreign policy and internal debates about a war that even military leaders characterize as a stalemate.
Speaking to reporters ahead of his arrival, Shanahan said he had not received orders to withdraw. “I think the presence we want in Afghanistan is what assures our homeland defense, and supports regional stability and that any type of sizing is done in a co-ordinated and disciplined manner,” he said.
Shanahan’s inaugural overseas trip as acting Defence Secretary comes as he seeks to prove his foreign policy credentials and establish a more public profile after 1 1/2 years as deputy defence secretary under Mattis.
Talk of any substantial troop reduction appears to be on hold for now as the White House tries to give diplomats a chance to foster peace talks. In recent weeks, Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, announced that his team of negotiators had reached agreement in principle on core issues between the United States and the Taliban, a step diplomats hope will set the stage for broader peace discussions that include the Afghan government.
In Kabul, Shanahan held talks at the presidential compound with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib and other officials. Earlier in the day, he visited an Afghan commando training site and received an update on the war from Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Miller, who previously commanded the elite Joint Special Operations Command, has overseen an increase in the pace of strikes and raids against militant targets, which officials hope will give diplomats leverage in their effort to establish negotiations. So far the Taliban has refused to hold direct negotiations with the Afghan government, which it considers illegitimate.
At the same time, U.S. and NATO forces continue their effort to ensure that Afghanistan’s military, which has taken heavy casualties and remains reliant on its small cadre of elite commandos for offensive operations, can fend off Taliban attacks.