WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will use a nationally televised address Monday night to outline the strategy he believes will best position the U.S. to eventually declare victory in Afghanistan after 16 years of combat and lives lost.
Trump tweeted Saturday that he had reached a decision on the way forward in Afghanistan, a day after he reviewed war options with his national security team at a meeting at Camp David, Md. The president offered no clues about whether he would send thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan or exercise his authority as commander in chief to order that they be withdrawn from America's longest war.
But signs pointed in the direction of Trump continuing the U.S. commitment there.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Sunday hailed the launch of the Afghan Army's new special operations corps and declared that "we are with you and we will stay with you."
Trump scheduled an 8 p.m. Monday address to the nation and U.S. troops stationed at the Army's Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. Next door to the base is Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place for many of the U.S. troops who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It will be Trump's first formal address to the nation outside of his late February speech to a joint session of Congress. And it follows one of the most trying weeks for the president, who generated a firestorm of criticism after he appeared to equate neo-Nazis and white supremacists with the counter-protesters who opposed them during a deadly clash, with racial overtones, two weekends ago in Charlottesville, Va.
Trump blamed "very fine people, on both sides" for the confrontation in which a woman was killed and more than a dozen people were injured. The comments triggered rebukes from elected and former elected leaders in both political parties, and corporate leaders signaled a lack of confidence in Trump by resigning from a pair of White House advisory boards, among other expressions of dissent over his comments.
In Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson's comments suggested the Pentagon may have won its argument that U.S. military must remain engaged to ensure that terrorists aren't again able to threaten the U.S. from havens inside of Afghanistan.
Nicholson, who spoke before the announcement about Trump's speech, said the commandos and a plan to double the size of the Afghan special operations forces are critical to winning the war.
"I assure you we are with you in this fight. We are with you and we will stay with you," Nicholson said during a ceremony at Camp Morehead, a training base for Afghan commandoes southeast of Kabul.
The Pentagon was awaiting a final announcement by Trump on a proposal to send in nearly 4,000 more U.S. troops. The added forces would increase training and advising of the Afghan forces and bolster counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate trying to gain a foothold in the country.
The administration had been at odds for months over how to craft a new Afghan war strategy amid frustrations that the conflict had stalemated some 16 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.