U.S. WILL KEEP ALMOST 10,000 TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN IN 2015

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

Obama: U.S. to Keep Nearly 10,000 Troops in Afghanistan in 2015

By Nick Simeone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 27, 2014 – President Barack Obama today announced the United States plans to keep nearly 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan next year -- a level largely in line with what U.S. commanders had requested -- and that nearly all U.S. forces will leave the country by the end of 2016, bringing to an end a U.S. military mission that began in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“The bottom line is it’s time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Obama said in a televised address from the White House Rose Garden.
In laying out his military plan for Afghanistan once the U.S.-led NATO mission there ends in December, Obama said keeping 9,800 American troops in the country to train Afghan forces and to support counterterrorism operations will be contingent upon Afghanistan’s next president signing a bilateral security agreement with the United States, something outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to do.

“The two final Afghan candidates in the runoff election for president have each indicated they would sign this agreement promptly after taking office, so I’m hopeful we can get this done,” Obama said, emphasizing the growing and increasing competence of the Afghan security forces as well as the success of April’s first round of presidential elections -- despite threats by the Taliban to disrupt them -- as key to the timing of today’s announcement.

“This transition has allowed us to steadily draw down our own forces from a peak of 100,000 U.S. troops to roughly 32,000 today,” the president said. “Together with our allies and the Afghan government, we have agreed this is the year we will conclude our combat mission in Afghanistan.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he strongly supports Obama’s decision. In a statement issued after the president spoke, Hagel said the proposed U.S. troop presence “will help us sustain the significant progress we have made in training and equipping the Afghan national security forces.”

As the nation brings an end to its longest war, “all Americans are grateful for the sacrifice and service of the men and women who deployed there over the past 13 years,” the secretary said.

For months, U.S. officials have been deliberating over post-2014 U.S. troop levels and had even raised the prospect of a complete pullout of all U.S. forces if the Afghan government refused to sign the bilateral security agreement, a move that would have triggered an end to billions of dollars in foreign aid, upon which the government in Kabul relies heavily.

The post-2014 U.S. troop levels would be in addition to contributions from NATO countries, and a senior administration official said discussion about NATO commitments will continue during an alliance defense ministers conference in Brussels next week. But in his address today, Obama made clear that beginning next year, Afghanistan’s security will be fully in the hands of Afghans while U.S. troop levels in the country will continue to be reduced, with those remaining consolidated at Kabul and at Bagram Airfield.

“We have to recognize Afghanistan will not be a perfect place, and it is not America’s responsibility to make it one,” he said. “The future of Afghanistan must be decided by Afghans.”

By the end of 2016, Obama said, the U.S. military presence in the country will be pared back even further, to a level required to maintain security at the U.S. embassy, along with a security assistance component, similar to current U.S. force levels in Iraq.

Obama’s announcement about the way forward in Afghanistan comes two days after he made a brief, unannounced visit to U.S. commanders and troops in the country but did not meet with Karzai, whose relations with the United States have grown increasingly tense. White House officials told reporters the trip was meant to be a visit with troops. Obama and Karzai did speak by phone.

And today’s address comes a day before Obama is set to deliver the commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., during which he will outline his foreign policy and national security agenda for the remainder of his second term, including redirecting some of the resources saved by ending the war to “respond more nimbly to the changing threat of terrorism while addressing a broader set of priorities.”

“I’m confident that if we carry out this approach, we can not only responsibly end our war in Afghanistan and achieve the objectives that took us to war in the first place, we’ll also be able to begin a new chapter in the story of American leadership around the world,” he said.

GEN. DEMPSEY SAYS MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN DETERMINES TROOP NUMBERS

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Afghan Mission Will Determine Troop Numbers, Dempsey Says
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany, Feb. 9, 2013 - The mission in Afghanistan will determine the number of American troops who will still be deployed there after 2014, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here today.

Military leaders are confident that the number will match the mission. "I will not at any point ask 10,000 troops to do 20,000 troops work," Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey told reporters.

Dempsey is flying to Afghanistan for the change of command ceremony from Marine Corps Gen. John Allen to Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford.

Dunford will be the last commander in Afghanistan of NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the last commander of Operation Enduring Freedom when the mission ends in December 2014. He will preside as the Afghan forces take the lead for security and will command as U.S. forces draw down in the country. There are currently 66,000 American service members in Afghanistan.

As Dunford takescommand, he has to keep three things in careful equilibrium, the chairman said. These are keeping the pressure on al-Qaida and other transnational terror groups seeking to operate in Afghanistan, training Afghan security forces, and redeploying U.S. and NATO forces out of the country.

NATO and partner forces – including U.S. service members – will be leaving the country through the end of 2014 in a steady and gradual manner. This spring Afghan forces will be in the lead for security throughout the country. "As that occurs, there will be some force structure changes that grow from that decision," Dempsey said.

But it is more complicated than simply loading personnel on planes and flying them back to the United States. "There's never a flip of a switch," the chairman said.

Not all Afghan forces have the same capability. In some areas kandaks – Afghan battalions – may need help. Elsewhere, kandaks may be trained, but the higher headquarters may need assistance. "You may be training a kandak in one part of the country and brigades and corps in another, just because the developmental model is different," he said.

The enemy has a say in Afghan plans. The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, has decreed that he wants the Taliban to make 2013 an intense year, the chairman said. "But here's what's different, the situation this summer – the first summer where Afghan security forces are in the lead – that intensity will be directed principally at them," the chairman said.

The Taliban taking on Afghan forces rather than Western personnel changes the political, internal discourse in Afghanistan. "We'll have to see how it changes it," he said.

This shift to Afghan control is already happening. Afghan security forces are in the lead in protecting more than 75 percent of the population. And there are results from that, Dempsey said. "One vignette: Every Sunday, John Allen has a memorial service outside his headquarters to remember the soldiers who were lost in the past week," the chairman said. "This past Sunday was the first service he held since he was commander where there wasn't a single ISAF ... soldier killed in action. First week in 19 months. However, there were 25 Afghan soldiers killed."

This summer the Taliban will test the Afghan soldiers and police. U.S. service members will help the Afghan forces in the summer fighting season. They will not only provide their Afghan brethren physical support, but psychological support as well, and this will build the Afghan's self-esteem. "What really hangs in the balance now is the confidence level of the Afghan security forces and its people," he said. "We have to continue building their confidence, because they are capable fighters."

Defense leaders have matched the number of troops to the mission. Dempsey called this a collaborative and thorough effort. "We didn't start talking numbers until we had a clear understanding of missions," he said. The missions for the post-2014 period are: some continued counter terror effort against transnational global threats; to train, advise and assist Afghan troops; and to provide support to other U.S. government agencies working in the country.

"Once we settled in on the missions, then we were able to provide options on how to accomplish them," he said. For example, it requires a different number of personnel to train an Afghan kandak than an Afghan brigade. Figuring out what units need what help "illuminates what the numbers should be," the chairman said. "So we're not going from number to mission, we're going from mission to number."

Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan remains crucial to any solution in the region, and Dempsey said he has "seen a degree of interest and cooperation on the part of our Pakistani military counterparts that is actually quite encouraging," he said. "They finally believe we are not going to shut out the lights and leave at the end of '14. They see a viable partnership among them, us and the Afghans."

Cooperation, which was always good at the tactical level, has climbed a notch to the operational level. It also helps that Pakistani leaders now assess the terrorist threat to the nation closer to the American view.

Dempsey is optimistic that the Bilateral Security Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States will be in place this year. Protections for U.S. troops under the agreement do not seem to be the same showstopper that they were in Iraq, he said.

Reporters asked about the "zero option" for U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014. "I have said publically no one has ever mentioned zero to me, and I would never recommend zero," Dempsey said.

Ultimately political reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghan government will be what ends the war in Afghanistan. While there are no active negotiations now, the Taliban are talking among themselves about this, the chairman said. "As they talk among themselves, their behavior appears to be migrating toward being a political factor in Afghanistan's future and less a internal security threat," he said.

This does not mean peace will suddenly break out in the nation. "There will be irreconcilable parts of the Taliban that are just so ideologically skewed that the idea of any concessions is just anathema to them," he said. "On the other hand, I think there will be portions that will be willing to be part of the political landscape and not part of the security landscape."