U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks with Department of Defense staff during a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia on February 10, 2021.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that the Biden administration had not yet decided whether the United States would withdraw its troops before the May 1 deadline.
Last February, the United States negotiated an agreement with the Taliban that would initiate a permanent ceasefire and further reduce the U.S. military’s footprint from about 13,000 troops to 8,600 by mid-July. past.
By May 2021, according to the agreement, all foreign forces would leave the war-weary country. There are currently about 2,500 American troops in the country.
“I urge all parties to choose the path to peace. Violence must be reduced now,” Austin said in his first press conference with reporters.
“I told our allies that regardless of the outcome of our review, the United States will not carry out a hasty or disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan,” he said in reference to this week’s NATO virtual meetings. .
“There will be no surprises. We will consult, we will consult together and we will decide together and we will act together,” Austin said of the NATO-led mission.
A day earlier, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would continue to assess the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. NATO joined the international security effort in Afghanistan in 2003 and currently has more than 7,000 troops in the country.
“Our goal is to ensure that we have a lasting political agreement that will allow us to move in a way that does not undermine our main goal and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven again. [for terrorists]Stoltenberg said.
“Most of the troops are from European allies and partner countries. We will do whatever it takes to make sure our troops are safe,” he said when asked if the alliance was prepared for violence if the agreement with the Taliban is broken.
Members of the Kandahar Province Reconstruction Team are leaving to conduct a team survey at a Department of Public Works facility on August 8 in Afghanistan.
Photo: Photo of the United States Air Force by Sergeant Major. Timothy Chacon | Flickr CC
At Capitol Hill, bipartisan lawmakers on Friday lobbied a group of experts urging the United States not to reduce its military presence in Afghanistan.
“Since the U.S. war in Afghanistan began nearly 20 years ago, more than 775,000 of our brave men and women in uniform have been deployed to Afghanistan. More than 2,400 have made the final sacrifice and another 20,000 have been injured, “Rep. Stephen Lynch said in his opening statement the chairman of the national security oversight and reform subcommittee.
“Nearly 20 years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan could very well be defined in the next three or six months. Probably with profound consequences for U.S. national security and the future stability of the region,” he added. .
The group wrote in a report released earlier this month that U.S. troops should keep troops in the war-torn country “in order to give the peace process enough time to produce an acceptable outcome.”
Read more: Biden is expected to keep US troops in Afghanistan past the May deadline, according to the study group
The recommendations of the Afghanistan Study Group, a bipartisan group mandated by a congress under the U.S. Peace Institute, come to light when the Biden administration conducts a review of its stance in the region.
“At what point is it enough, enough for American participation in this region?” asked Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana. “If a U.S. military force presence is needed, why include real boots on the ground?”
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, who co-chairs the Afghanistan study group, said U.S. intelligence would deteriorate if the military withdrew from the country.
“To be effective in the fight against terrorism, you have to create an intelligence ecosystem, if you want, and we would not have the networks available from an intelligence perspective, we would not have the availability of the platform, that is, systems that allow us to gather that intelligence and we would not be able to attack quickly with the resources needed to destroy terrorists once the intelligence develops its location, ”Dunford told lawmakers, a retired four-star naval general.
“So if we did it from outside Afghanistan, you would only have a geometry and response problem, it wouldn’t be as effective,” he added.
The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $ 1.57 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Department of Defense report. The war in Afghanistan, now America’s longest-running conflict, began 19 years ago and has cost U.S. taxpayers $ 193 billion, according to the Pentagon.