Trump's plans to pull out all US troops from Afghanistan by January 20

SIXTY-FOUR DAYS TO GO: A fuller version of the story I wrote for The Times today: President Trump is expected to order the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq before he leaves office in January. In a move to honour his longstanding pledge to bring all troops home and to stop American involvement in “endless wars”, his dramatic shake-up at the top echelons of the Pentagon is believed to be part of the plan to bring forward the military pull-out timetable. Christopher Miller, parachuted in a week ago by the president as the acting US defence secretary, was a special forces officer in the first phase of the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. He has given the strongest indication that total troop withdrawals are his top priority. “Now it’s time to come home,” he wrote in a memo to all Pentagon staff over the weekend. “This fight has been long, our sacrifices have been enormous and many are weary of war. I’m one of them,” he wrote. Former US national security and defence officials are expressing concern that, with a new team in the Pentagon, Mr Miller will be under pressure to wrap up Afghanistan and Iraq before Joe Biden becomes president on January 20. There are currently 4,500 US troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq. Under White House plans revealed last month by Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, the 4,500 troops in Afghanistan were set to be reduced to 2,500 by early 2021. The February 29 peace deal between the US and the Taliban in Qatar stipulated that all American and coalition troops would be withdrawn “within fourteen months following announcement of this agreement “, a timetable that underwrote a May 1, 2021 deadline. However, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has pushed against the 2,500 figure even though it was thought to be one of the options offered by the Pentagon earlier this year. He said that the timing of further cuts in the American troop presence between now and May 1 had to be based on conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. Mark Esper who was sacked by Mr Trump as defence secretary a week ago, supported the cautious approach towards further cuts in Afghanistan. He believed that Afghanistan was the prime cause of his firing. Before he was sacked, Mr Esper wrote a memo outlining half a dozen reasons why a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a bad idea. He included the importance of coordinating with allies, a former senior US defence official told The Times. Mr Trump had made clear to Mr Esper, through his national security adviser, that he intended to move ahead with withdrawal before January 20. But Mr Esper resisted saying that he and General Milley and the department of defence were "institutionally not on board" because the Taliban had failed to meet the conditions that US officials had agreed would be necessary to enable American troops to be withdrawn, the former official said. Acting defence secretary Christopher Miller has been warned by Senator Mitch McConnel, Republican majority leader of the Senate, and by Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, that there would be considerable opposition to "an ill-considered" withdrawal among Congressional Rebublicans. "But Miller appears to be on board with merely doing Trump's bidding and is surrounded by a praetorian guard of Trumpists (Anthony Tata, Kash Patel, Douglas McGregor - all swept into influential Pentagon positions in the last week), who undoubtedly will be trying to pull this off", the former official said. There will be significant push back from General Milley and General Frank McKenzie, commander of Central Command. There would also be serious logistical obstacles to being able to accomplish a withdrawal in the timeframe the White House is talking about. There has been similar caution over Iraq. The 5,200 American troops in Iraq were reduced to 3,000 in September, reflecting growing US military confidence in the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces. However, there are concerns that the military presence in Iraq could also be up for grabs in the remaining nine weeks of Mr Trump’s presidency as a way of ensuring his foreign policy legacy. ReplyReply to allForward More metroops1 Sun, 15 Nov, 18:47 (22 hours ago) Before he was fired, Mr Esper wrote a memo to the White House outlining half a dozen reasons why a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a bad idea. He included the importance of coordinating with allies, a former senior US defence official told The Times. Mr Trump had made clear to Mr Esper that he intended to move ahead with withdrawal before January 20. But the Pentagon was "institutionally not on board", the former official said. Acting defence secretary Christopher Miller has been warned by Senator Mitch McConnell. Republican majority leader of the Senate, and by Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, that there would be opposition to "an ill-considered" withdrawal. "But Miller appears to be on board with merely doing Trump's bidding," the former official said. to me