U.S. force keeping 1,000 more to assist Afghans
KABUL, Afghanistan — The United States will keep about 1,000 more troops in Afghanistan than planned to fill a temporary NATO troop gap in the new mission to train and advise Afghan security forces, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday on his final visit to the country as Pentagon chief.
At a news conference with President Ashraf Ghani, Hagel said the original plan to cut U.S. troop levels to 9,800 by the end of 2014 had been abandoned, but not because of a recent surge in Taliban attacks.
Hagel said the U.S. will keep up to 10,800 troops for the first few months of 2015 and then restart the drawdown, which is scheduled to reach 5,500 troops by the end of next year.
Under the plan President Barack Obama announced in May, the American deployment will drop to about 1,000 by the beginning of 2017, when he leaves office.
The U.S. decided to keep additional forces in the country temporarily because troop commitments by U.S. allies for a NATO train-and-assist mission starting in
January have been slow to materialize.
European nations have been slow to commit the troops in part because of Afghanistan’s long delay in signing a long-term security agreement with allies.
Hamid Karzai, the former Afghan president, refused to sign the security deal a year ago, and it was further delayed by this year’s contentious presidential election. It was only after the Afghan parliament formally ratified those agreements, signed by Ghani, that some of the coalition nations felt comfortable with troop commitments.
Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told reporters later Saturday that he is confident NATO members will furnish the necessary number of troops for the new training mission, which begins Jan. 1. But it’s going to take a few extra weeks or months to get them in Afghanistan, he said.
In addition to that program, which will include more than 12,000 U.S. and NATO service members, some U.S. troops will take part in a separate counterterrorism mission focused on al-Qaida.
Campbell, who took over Aug. 26 and has served two previous tours in Afghanistan, spoke well of the new government led by Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
“It’s like night and day difference dealing with this government,” Campbell said, compared with the previous government led by Karzai, who was often publicly critical of U.S. military efforts against the Taliban insurgency.
U.S. officials say the new NATO support mission will ensure that Afghanistan doesn’t suffer the same military collapse that has occurred in Iraq over the past year.
Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert at Rand Corp., said the conflict in Afghanistan is far from over.
“The war’s not going to end,” Jones said. “The war is going to continue whether the United States is there or not. It’ll just transpire differently,” depending on the future of U.S. and NATO involvement.
At his news conference, Hagel said Obama agreed to allow Campbell the extra 1,000 troops “for a few months” only.
“But the president’s authorization will not change our troops’ missions or the longterm timeline for our drawdown,” Hagel said.
Hagel said the U.S. also will keep pursuing a “limited” counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
“We have not forgotten what brought America’s armed forces here over a decade ago,” he said. “We are committed to preventing al-Qaida from using Afghanistan as a safe haven to threaten the United States, our allies and partners, and the Afghan people. And we will take appropriate measures against Taliban members who directly threaten U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan or provide direct support to al-Qaida.”
Hagel said he believes that Afghans will successfully put down a surge in Taliban attacks in the capital and stabilize the nation.
“They’re not completely there yet, but they’ve come a long way,” he said. “That’s to the credit certainly of the United States.”
Even with the extra troops staying for several months, the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan is ending this month as planned, Hagel said, leaving a smaller force in the next two years to focus on counterterrorism and training Afghan troops. “Our combat role is over,” he said.
Obama has authorized a continuation of some offensive air and ground operations to support Afghan forces, which Hagel referred to Saturday as “limited combat-enabler support.”
Hagel arrived in Kabul one day after Obama said he would nominate one of Hagel’s former deputies, Ashton Carter, to succeed Hagel, who resigned under pressure Nov. 24. While Hagel issued a statement praising Carter, he scrapped plans to attend the White House nomination ceremony before taking off for Kabul.
Ghani also struck a positive note during the news conference, reinforcing the message that the fight was now in Afghans’ hands. “By end of the year, it will be the Afghan soldiers who will take complete responsibility for the country,” he said.
Across the country, the Taliban have undertaken a concerted campaign to undermine Afghan security forces. They have killed more people this year than any prior, a sign of Afghans’ failure to play a leading role in the fight and the increased bloodiness of the war.
With a Taliban offensive underway, Kabul has become the scene of daily bombings. At least 10 attacks late last month killed scores of victims and led to the resignation of the capital city’s police chief.
In comments to reporters on his plane en route to Kabul, Hagel dismissed the uptick in violence by the Taliban as “not unpredictable” and showed no sign of further reassessing the withdrawal timetable, as some former administration officials and military analysts have urged.
“I don’t see any strategic or major shift in policy,” Hagel said, though commanders have “wide flexibility and latitude” to adjust troop numbers and locations within the twoyear withdrawal framework.
Some U.S. military and intelligence officials have said that Afghan security forces, plagued by corruption and dependent on some U.S. assistance, can’t gain the upper hand over the Taliban and their allies, who maintain safe havens in neighboring Pakistan and increasingly in parts of Afghanistan.
U.S. officials say the new NATO support mission will ensure that Afghanistan doesn’t suffer the
same military collapse that has occurred in Iraq over the past year.
A U.S. defense official, who briefed reporters traveling with Hagel on condition of anonymity, said Afghan forces have been taking the lead in 99 percent of military operations. Even so, they need aviation and intelligence support that the U.S. will continue to provide next year, the official said.
Hagel, the first enlisted combat veteran to serve as defense secretary, also plans to visit U.S. troops.
“I want to thank our men and women who are serving there,” he said. “With the holidays closing in, it’s a tough time for people.”
More than 2,300 Americans have died in the 13-year Afghanistan war, which began as an effort to oust the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded.
The Taliban, which had ruled Afghanistan since 1996, were forced from power in late 2001 just weeks after a U.S.-led invasion. But they recovered gradually after the U.S. shifted its military focus to Iraq in 2003, and by 2008 the U.S. was conceding that the war in Afghanistan was at an impasse.
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Burns of The Associated Press, by Azam Ahmed of The New York Times, by David Lerman of Bloomberg News, and by Missy Ryan of The Washington Post.