Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in his first overseas trip on Saturday suggested that the United States is “rethinking” the pace of the drawdown of troops from Afghanistan.
The newly confirmed Pentagon chief said that President Obama is exploring whether to leave a greater number of troops in Afghanistan this year and in 2016.
In recent weeks, the White House pointed to a possible new strategy for Afghanistan, but Carter’s comments Saturday were the clearest indication of the ongoing deliberations.
There are now 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Obama has pledged to remove the remaining U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016 — Carter did not say whether the president is rethinking that timeline.
“Our priority now is to make sure this progress sticks. That is why President Obama is considering a number of options to reinforce our support for [Afghan] President Ghani’s security strategy, including possible changes to the time line for our drawdown of U.S. troops,” Carter said.
“That could mean taking another look at the timing and sequencing of base closures to ensure we have the right array of coalition capabilities to support our Afghan partners,” he added.
The White House has cited productive talks with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani as the reason for re-examining it troop withdrawal strategy. Obama had a frosty relationship with former President Hamid Karzai, which prompted the U.S. to pull more troops from Afghanistan.
Pointing to gains made by the Taliban, Ghani has called Obama to slow the pace of the troop withdrawal.
