The U.S. will maintain 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through the end of the year as President Barack Obama agreed Tuesday to slow the pace of withdrawal and give the war-torn country more time to secure itself.
Obama, who had hoped to bring the numbers to 5,000 by the close of the year, said after meetings with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the elevated troop levels would give the country and its new democratic government more time to defend itself and prevent it from being used to launch terrorist attacks.
“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to help Afghan security forces succeed so we don’t have to go back,” Obama said, standing next to Ghani in the ornate East Room at the White House after a day of meetings. Those forces, Obama said, are “fighting with courage and tenacity and they’re getting better month by month.”
Ghani, who was meeting with Obama at the White House for the first time since the Afghan presidential election last year, had asked U.S. officials to slow the pace of the troop withdrawal and give Afghan security officials more time to prepare to defend their country.
“The 2,215 Americans that have died must not die in vain,” said Ghani, who visited Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday to pay his respects to U.S. service members. “They must leave behind a legacy of a stable Afghanistan.”
Ghani opened his remarks by paying tribute to U.S. service members whom he said had made the “ultimate sacrifice” in Afghanistan, as well as U.S. taxpayers who have paid for years of conflict and reconstruction in the country.
He pledged that the additional time would be used to accelerate reform and to ensure that Afghan national security forces are “much better led, equipped, trained, and are focused on the fundamental mission.”
Obama acknowledged that the country is still dangerous and that his decision may mean more time in Afghanistan for some service members. But he noted U.S. causalities have dropped as the U.S. has ended its combat role in the country.
“As we’ve drawn down, they’ve stood up and they’re fighting,” Obama said of Afghan security forces.
His decision drew rare bipartisan support from Capitol Hill.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Obama made the correct move.
“I appreciate President Obama’s announcement today that the United States will fulfill President Ghani’s request for maintaining a stronger U.S. counterterror and security presence in Afghanistan,” Corker said. “It 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.”
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Obama’s decision would help build stability in Afghanistan.
“We cannot afford to see Afghanistan spiral back into lawlessness and re-emerge as a terrorist safe haven,” he said. “With this modest U.S. troop presence, we can also maintain the intelligence capabilities we need to keep our country safe from plots originating in the region.”
Obama noted the U.S. had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at the peak four years ago. He said it would remain on track to have most U.S. troops out by the end of 2016.
Obama had long said that he planned to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan from about 9,800 to about 5,500 by the end of 2015. He wants most troops out by the time he leaves office in January 2017, except for a presence at the U.S. Embassy and facilities.
He said that would still happen, but that the U.S. would continue to help Afghanistan recover.
“We intend to be working with the Afghan government and the Afghan people for a long time,” he said.
Ghani, who met with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry at Camp David on Monday, will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday and will meet with other world leaders at the United Nations later in the week.
Obama also said at the press conference that he remains unconvinced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports a two-state solution for solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict, despite Netanyahu’s post-election attempts to walk back remarks made before his election.
“I took him at his word that that’s what he meant,” the president said. “And I think a lot of voters inside of Israel understood him to be saying that fairly unequivocally.”
He said Netanyahu’s most recent statements that he’d support a Palestinian state included so many conditions “that they would be impossible to meet any time soon.”
Obama wouldn’t rule out that the U.S. would change its support for Israel at the United Nations, saying the U.S. planned to evaluate its stance.
He also cautioned against attributing his differences with Netanyahu to a testy relationship between the two, saying rather that they have “substantive” differences over how to handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“This can’t be reduced to a matter of somehow let’s all, you know, hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya,’” Obama said.
Obama declined to discuss a Wall Street Journal report that Israel had spied on the Iran nuclear negotiations, saying that “as a general rule I don’t comment on intelligence matters in a big room full of reporters.”
But he said that his administration had briefed Congress and the Israelis and pledged that any agreement with Iran would be transparent. “It’s going to be there for everybody to see,” Obama said. “And people are going to be able to lift up the hood and see what’s in there.”