Publicly
state that your're withdrawing from Afghansitan while negotiating to
stay. Why am I not surprised?
State
Department official: Negotiations to extend U.S. troop presence in
Afghanistan starting soon
Despite
statements by Vice President Joe Biden, the State Department is about
to begin formal negotiations over the extension of U.S. troops past
2014, a top State Department official said Tuesday.
16
October, 2012
Last
week, U.S. and Afghan negotiators met in Kabul to talk about the
Bilateral Security Agreement that will govern the extension of U.S.
troops past 2014, when President Barack
Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end
and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to
Afghan government control.
Also
last week, Biden told Americans during his Oct. 11 debate with
Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul
Ryan that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan by
2014.
"We
are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process, we're going to be
saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion," Biden said.
"We've been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective
is almost completed. Now all we're doing is putting the Kabul
government in a position to be able to maintain their own security.
It's their responsibility, not America's."
Marc
Grossman, the State Department's special representative
for Afghanistan and Pakistan, explained today that's not the whole
story.
Grossman
said Tuesday that the point of the upcoming negotiations is to agree
on an extension of the U.S. troop presence well past 2014, for the
purposes of conducting counterterrorism operations and training and
advising the Afghan security forces.
In
May, Obama and Afghan President Hamid
Karzai signed
a Strategic
Partnership Agreementthat
promised an ongoing U.S. commitment to Afghanistan through 2024.
Secretary of StateHillary
Clinton announced
Oct. 3 that
Grossman's deputy, James
Warlick,
will be the lead U.S. negotiator for the Bilateral Security Agreement
that will follow. Karzai's Ambassador to WashingtonEklil
Hakimi will
lead the negotiations for the Afghan side.
Grossman
said that while meetings on "how we will manage our forces going
forward in Afghanistan," have already taken place, formal
negotiations have not yet begun. Once the negotiations formally
start, the Bilateral Security Agreement must be completed within one
year, according to the Strategic Partnership agreement, Grossman
explained.
Some
U.S. military officials have
said the plan is to
keep 25,000 American troops in Afghanistan past 2014, but Grossman
insisted that there is no number yet and the 25,000 figure quoted in
reports is speculative. NATO announced
Monday that
it will also keep international troops in Afghanistan past 2014
alongside U.S. troops, not for combat but strictly for the mission of
training and advising the Afghans.
Grossman
was speaking on a panel at the annual summit of the International
Stability Operations Association in Washington. Also on the panel was
Under Secretary of State for ManagementPatrick
Kennedy, who said that the State Department would need
U.S. military troops in Afghanistan to protect them and help them
well past 2014.
"Rather
than developing our own capabilities, we will be depending on DOD
support for functions such as a quick reaction force, personnel
recovery, fuel support, explosive ordinance disposal, and medical
assistance, by 2015," Kennedy said.
The
Cable also asked Kennedy why he testified in a
hearing last week that he was "inclined" to support the
requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attack in
Benghazi that killed Amb. Chris
Stevens and three other Americans. Kennedy declined
to comment.
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