President Obama is not prepared to end the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan just because the Taliban has captured Kunduz, the country’s sixth-largest city, a White House spokesman said on Wednesday.
“[W]e have always warned against the inclination to essentially make snap decisions on policy almost literally overnight,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said when asked if Obama would heed requests to leave a larger force in place in Afghanistan longer that scheduled.
“And so that’s why we’re going to continue to monitor the efforts by the Afghan government and Afghan security forces to retake Kunduz, and that will factor into a longer-term assessment of the conditions on the ground, which will influence longer-term policy decisions that the president will have to make,” Earnest said.
“[W]hen accounting these decisions in the past, when it comes to our military commitment to Afghanistan, [Obama] has routinely noted that the conditions on the ground influence that policy process,” Earnest added.
There are approximately 6,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but Obama has promised to reduce the force to just a small presence at the U.S. embassy in Kabul by the time he leaves office.
Earnest would not say whether U.S. commanders have formally recommended leaving behind a large troop contingent.
U.S.-led forces have conducted airstrikes “primarily for the purposes of force protection” in Kunduz and “are providing advisory support” to Afghan forces trying to retake the city, Earnest said.
