US President Barack Obama announced plans on Tuesday to keep nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan after this year, but then to withdraw virtually all by the close of 2016 and the conclusion of his presidency, charting an end to the US’ longest war.
The drawdown would allow Obama to bring US military engagement in Afghanistan to an end, while seeking to protect the gains made in a war in which he significantly intensified US involvement.
“We have to recognize that Afghanistan will not be a perfect place and it is not America’s responsibility to make it one,” Obama said in an appearance in the White House Rose Garden.
He credited US forces, which were first deployed by former US president George W. Bush within a month of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with striking significant blows against al-Qaeda’s leadership, eliminating Osama bin Laden and preventing Afghanistan from being used as a base for strikes against the US.
“Now we’re finishing the job we’ve started,” Obama said.
The drawdown blueprint is contingent on the Afghan government signing a stalled bilateral security agreement. While current Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the accord, US officials say they are confident that either of the candidates running to replace him will finalize the deal.
In fact, both candidates who are on the ballot in next month’s runoff — former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai — welcomed Obama’s announcement on Tuesday.
The size and scope of the residual US force largely mirrors what Pentagon officials had sought, which appeared to give Obama cover with some Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, but some of president’s harshest critics on foreign policy — senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte — called the decision short-sighted and warned that it would embolden the nation’s enemies.
“The president’s decision to set an arbitrary date for the full withdrawal of US troops in Afghanistan is a monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over strategy,” the three Republicans said in a joint statement.
US forces had already been on track to stop combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of this year, more than 13 years after the US-led invasion, but Obama wants to keep some troops there to train Afghan security forces, launch counterterrorism missions and protect progress made in a war that has left at least 2,181 US troops dead and thousands more wounded.
There are currently about 32,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Under Obama’s plan, that number would be reduced to 9,800 by the start of next year, dispatched throughout Afghanistan.
Over the course of next year, the number would be cut in half and consolidated in the capital, Kabul, and at Bagram Air Field, the main US base. Those remaining forces would largely be withdrawn by the end of 2016, with fewer than 1,000 remaining to staff a security office in Kabul.
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