The White House announced Tuesday that President Obama would keep the remaining 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan through the remainder of 2015, drawing down the pace of the American exit from the war-torn nation.
The Obama administration had originally planned to cut the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the end of 2015.
The change in policy comes after Obama met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the White House Tuesday.
“We will maintain our current posture of 9,800 troops through the end of this year,” Obama said in a joint news conference with the Afghan leader, adding that the U.S. still plans to remove most troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
“We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help Afghan security forces succeed, so we don’t have to go back.”
The shift by the White House was long expected, as senior administration officials for weeks have hinted they were sympathetic to Ghani’s request for a slower drawdown of troops.
Obama has repeatedly promised to end the lengthy war by the time he leaves office, and he attempted to address Tuesday concerns of mission creep in Afghanistan.
“A timeline for a withdrawal down to an embassy-centered presence remains the end of 2016,” the president insisted. “That hasn’t changed. Our transition out of a combat role has not changed.”
Republicans have long accused the president of putting political expediency above protecting U.S. gains in Afghanistan. However, conservatives welcomed the White House announcement Tuesday.
“The decision not to further reduce our troop numbers in Afghanistan this year is appropriate,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “Everyone looks forward to the day when Afghans can meet all of their own security needs, but Iraq has shown us the consequences of leaving a fragile ally too early. The bottom line is that our own security is at stake.”
“This is the right decision in the effort to improve stability in the region and should signal a continued flexibility based upon circumstances on the ground,” added Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Obama-Ghani press conference was a vivid reminder of how relations between the United States and Afghanistan have changed since Ghani took office. Obama had a notoriously strained relationship with Ghani’s predecessor, Hamid Karzai, who refused to sign an agreement keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Ghani started his remarks by offering his thanks to the “American taxpayer” for the sizable U.S. investment in his nation.
“Afghanistan is the frontline,” he said. “Because of American investment in Afghanistan, there have not been attacks.”
