Trump affirms U.S.' role in Afghan fight

President Donald Trump speaks at a base in Arlington, Va., on Monday during a presidential address to the nation about a strategy he believes will best position the U.S. to eventually declare victory in Afghanistan.
President Donald Trump speaks at a base in Arlington, Va., on Monday during a presidential address to the nation about a strategy he believes will best position the U.S. to eventually declare victory in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON -- Declaring the U.S. will win "in the end," President Donald Trump vowed Monday night to keep American troops in Afghanistan despite his earlier inclination to withdraw. But he insisted the U.S. would not offer "a blank check" after 16 years of war, and he pointedly declined to say whether or when more troops might be sent.

In a prime-time address billed as the unveiling of his new strategy for Afghanistan, Trump said the U.S. would shift away from a "time-based" approach, instead linking its assistance to results and to cooperation from the beleaguered Afghan government, Pakistan and others.

Still, he offered few details about how that approach would differ substantively from what the U.S. has already tried unsuccessfully under the past two presidents.

"We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities," Trump said. "Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on."

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Ahead of his speech, U.S. officials said they expected the president to go along with a Pentagon recommendation to send nearly 4,000 troops, adding to the 8,400 in Afghanistan now. At its peak, the U.S. had roughly 100,000 there, under President Barack Obama's administration in 2010-11.

Trump said his "original instinct was to pull out," alluding to his long-expressed view before becoming president that Afghanistan was an unsolvable quagmire requiring a fast U.S. withdrawal. Since taking office, Trump said, he's determined that approach could create a vacuum that terrorists including al-Qaida and the Islamic State could "instantly fill."

Trump said the American people are "weary of war without victory."

"I share the American people's frustration," Trump said at the Army's Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from the White House. Still, he insisted that "in the end, we will win."

Trump's speech concluded a monthslong debate within his administration over whether to pull back from the Afghanistan conflict, as he and a few advisers were inclined to do, or to embroil the U.S. further in a war that has eluded American solutions for the past 16 years. Several times, officials predicted he was nearing a decision to adopt his commanders' recommendations, only to see the final judgment delayed.

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is a proponent of the U.S. continuing its Afghan mission.

"I think that our primary mission should be to ensure that Afghanistan cannot be what it once was, which was a safe haven for terrorist groups like al-Qaida and now the Islamic State," Cotton said after an event Monday at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson. "That is a goal we can accomplish. That requires a much more aggressive approach than what we had under President Obama, taking the fight more aggressively to al-Qaida, the Islamic State and the Taliban."

Fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky disagreed, saying the mission in Afghanistan "has lost its purpose."

Paul also wants Congress to more aggressively assert its warmaking powers. He is planning to propose an amendment next month to the annual defense policy bill that would repeal the war authorizations that Congress granted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Paul said that if the White House and Congress "want to continue the war in Afghanistan, then at the very least Congress should vote on it."

The Pentagon has argued the U.S. must stay engaged to ensure terrorists can't again use the territory to threaten America. Afghan military commanders have agreed, making clear they want and expect continued U.S. military help. But elected officials in the U.S. have been mixed, with many advocating against sending more troops.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the president needs to start conducting himself as a "wartime commander in chief."

McCain said in a statement that while the plan is long overdue, it moves the United States well past the Obama administration's "failed strategy of merely postponing defeat" in Afghanistan.

McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is urging Trump to speak regularly "to the American people, and to those waging this war on their behalf, about why we are fighting, why the additional sacrifices are worth it, and how we will succeed."

As a candidate, Trump criticized the war and said the U.S. should quickly pull out, but he also campaigned on a vow to start winning wars. Exiting now, with the Taliban resurgent, would be impossible to sell as victory.

"I think there's a relative certainty that the Afghan government would eventually fall," said Mark Jacobson, an Army veteran and NATO's former deputy representative in Kabul.

Trump will leave decisions about troop size to Defense Secretary James Mattis, who said he has directed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare to carry out Trump's plans.

Mattis said he'll consult with NATO and U.S. allies, "several of which have also committed to increasing their troop numbers."

"Together, we will assist the Afghan Security forces to destroy the terrorist hub," Mattis said.

Trump also said the U.S. "can no longer be silent" about terrorist havens in Pakistan.

He said Pakistan often gives sanctuary to "agents of chaos, violence and terror," and that the Taliban and other groups there pose a threat to the region and beyond.

He added that Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with the U.S. and much to lose from harboring terrorists.

For years, Washington has criticized Pakistan's tolerance of Taliban militants who launch attacks in Afghanistan. During the Obama administration, restrictions were imposed on military aid to Islamabad because of those concerns.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to the Pakistani prime minister and the Indian and Afghan foreign ministers on Monday. The State Department said they discussed how the U.S. can work with the countries on a new regional strategy to stabilize South Asia.

And while Trump has pledged to put "America first," keeping U.S. interests above any others, his national security advisers have warned that the Afghan forces are still far too weak to succeed without help. That is especially important as the Taliban advance and as a squeezed Islamic State looks for new havens beyond Syria and Iraq. Even now, the Afghan government controls just half the country.

As officers advocated for the troop increase, the Pentagon did not claim it would end the conflict. But military officials maintained it could help stabilize the Afghan government and break an impasse with the Taliban.

A Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, dismissed Trump's remarks as "old" and "unclear."

"The whole speech was old," spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said. He said the Taliban will come out with a more detailed response but that he is initially calling Trump's policy outline "unclear."

Last week, the Taliban issued a 1,600-word open letter to Trump warning against a troop surge, saying it would prolong what is already the United States' longest war.

The Taliban have also said they aren't ready for any peace talks, at least not until the U.S. and NATO give a time frame for withdrawal -- something Trump says isn't going to happen.

HELPING AFGHANISTAN

In the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, U.S. military commanders say they need more forces to better train Afghan soldiers to combat the escalating threats from the Taliban and Islamic State fighters.

At Tactical Base Gamberi, the Americans helping Afghan army units try to quell the insurgent stronghold of Nangarhar province want to put more advisory teams into the field. They believe expanding the training can make the Afghans more capable of taking on the enemy alone.

"We need guardian angels," said Lt. Col. John Sandor, deputy senior adviser for the Afghan army's 201st Corps, referring to security forces who would protect U.S. training teams so they can work alongside Afghan brigades.

Senior military officials have been discussing such deficiencies for months. In February, the top U.S. commander in the country told Congress that he needs "a few thousand" more troops. The Pentagon has asked for Trump's approval of the nearly 4,000-troop increase as part of the broader new strategy.

Trump has given his military leaders greater authority to manage America's military efforts.

At the Gamberi training base, Sandor and others outlined the training restrictions they currently face. In two nearby provinces, for example, Afghan units were conducting training without American advisers to oversee the instruction and make sure they were learning the best combat tactics.

But in other cases, the lack of American support means Afghan units are reluctant to go out on their own.

Sometimes, said Maj. Richard Anderson, operations adviser for the 201st Corps, the Afghan answer is: "Let the Americans do it."

Without the enhanced training that additional forces would make possible, Sandor said, "It's hard to turn the corner and make them better."

The advisers, however, also point to progress.

In January, Afghan forces trying to resupply troops to the north would only go out with U.S. aircraft and escorts. A month later, with training and encouragement, the Afghans were using their own gunships and artillery support on the supply runs, with no U.S. assistance.

"We took them from 'We can help, but if we do it, you'll never figure it out,'" Anderson said. "At times it seems like a drag is there, but once you get them to the point ... they can do it."

The top Afghan commander at Gamberi credits the advisers with increasing his forces' readiness.

"I want to have enough equipment and advisers to keep my troops equipped and help against the enemy," said Lt. Gen. Mohammad Zaman Waziri, 201st Corps commander.

photo

AP/RAHMAT GUL

Afghan National soldiers search a car at a checkpoint Monday on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Information for this article was contributed by Josh Lederman, Robert Burns, Kathy Gannon, Jill Colvin, Ken Thomas and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press; and by Jeannie Roberts of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 08/22/2017

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