The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is expected to face tough questioning this week after the Taliban’s capture of a provincial capital and the tragic deaths of 22 people in a U.S. airstrike that hit a hospital.
Gen. John Campbell appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday and the House Armed Services Committee two days later. The Republican chairmen of both panels, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, have been pushing President Obama for months to back off his plan to pull all U.S. troops in Afghanistan out by the end of 2016.
Campbell will not only have to defend the administration’s policy, he’ll have to do it under the shadow of the fight for the northern provincial capital of Kunduz. Taliban forces attacked the city Sept. 28 and seized control. On Saturday, as Afghan forces advised by U.S. and NATO troops fought to regain control of the city, a U.S. AC-130 gunship attacked a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, killing 22, after Afghan troops requested air support.
The White House quickly promised that the incident, which the international aid group suggested was a war crime, would be thoroughly investigated, and officials noted that three separate probes had been launched — one by the U.S. military, one by NATO and a third by the Afghan government.
“We have confidence that in the context of conducting these three different investigations that full accounting will be reached,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.
But the circumstances of the strike reinforced concerns that had been raised by the fall of Kunduz about whether Afghan troops would be ready to confront the Taliban on their own when NATO troops withdraw.
“I’m back here in Washington to testify to Congress. I’ll take those questions from Congress,” Campbell told reporters at the Pentagon when asked about those concerns Monday morning.
The U.S. has 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, of which 6,800 are part of the 13,000-strong NATO mission to train and advise Afghan forces. The others are focused on counterterrorism.
The administration has resisted calls by Republican lawmakers to slow or halt its withdrawal plan, but the Washington Post reported Monday that Obama is seriously considering a recommendation by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, to keep up to 5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016.
Earnest would not confirm the report when asked about it or say when a decision would be announced. But Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a news conference in Madrid with Spanish Defense Minister Pedro Morenes, said he expected Obama to decide this fall.
“I don’t know what the president’s final decisions will be, what decisions he’ll make in that regard, but we continue to give him options,” Carter said. “But I think the fundamental thing I want to stress is that there will be a U.S. presence and there will be a NATO presence in Afghanistan after 2016, no doubt about that. And there will be support to Afghan security forces as well.”
