US troops in Afghanistan dwindle to 2,500 in violation of defence act

The US military has met a Trump administration goal of reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan to about 2,500, a drawdown that appears to violate a last-minute congressional prohibition.

President Donald Trump, who ordered the reduction in November, said on Thursday that troop levels in Afghanistan had reached a 19-year low, although he did not mention a troop number. 

Last February his administration struck a deal with the Taliban to reduce American troop levels in phases and to go to zero by May 2021, although it is unclear how the incoming Biden administration will proceed.

President-elect Joe Biden, who has advocated keeping a small counterterrorism force in Afghanistan as a way to ensure that militant groups like Al Qaeda are unable to launch attacks on the United States, faces a number of questions on Afghanistan. One is how and whether to proceed with further troop cuts.

Trump in his brief statement alluded to his longstanding desire to get out of Afghanistan entirely.

“I will always be committed to stopping the endless wars,” he said, referring to US wars that have dragged on in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq for much of the period since 2003.

Although senior military officials had cautioned against speedy troop reductions in Afghanistan, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced on November17 that he was implementing Trump's order. 

As a result, military commanders scrambled to pull more than 1,500 troops out of the country in the last few weeks. At Trump's order, commanders also cut US troop levels in Iraq to 2,500 from about 3,000 in the same period.

READ MORE: US withdrawal from Afghanistan needs further consideration

No Congressional authorisation

Under the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress two weeks ago, the Pentagon was explicitly forbidden to use money from this year’s or last year’s budget on reducing the number of troops below 4,000 – or below the number that was in the country the day the bill was finalised, which was January 1. Trump vetoed the measure, but both the House and Senate voted to override his veto.

The Pentagon has not yet fully explained how it squares its continued drawdown with the legal prohibition.

The defence legislation provides two conditions under which the Pentagon could get around the prohibition – a presidential waiver or a report to Congress assessing the effect of a further drawdown on the US counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan and the risk to US troops there. As of Thursday the Pentagon had met neither of those conditions.

The prohibition on completing the drawdown put the Pentagon in a bind, coming weeks after it had begun the drawdown, which involved a large logistical effort to remove equipment as well as troops. Because of less-than-transparent military procedures for counting troops in Afghanistan, it is possible that the 2,500 figure may be fudged.

READ MORE: US Senate passes defence bill despite Trump's veto threat

The main reason for concern about a too-quick troop withdrawal is what the Pentagon sees as continued high levels of Taliban violence against the Afghan government. Some US officials have questioned he wisdom of fully withdrawing, in accordance with the February 2020 agreement with the Taliban, if violence remains high.

But halting the drawdown could jeopardise the US-backed Afghanistan peace process as a February 2019 agreement with the Taliban calls for a complete US troop withdrawal by May in return for the insurgents fulfilling security guarantees.

The US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was aimed at overthrowing the Taliban regime, running Al Qaeda out of the country and laying the groundwork for a global “war on terrorism.” 

During Biden's time as vice president, the US pushed troop totals in Afghanistan to 100,000 in a failed bid to compel the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. When Trump took office four years ago there were about 8,500 troops in the country, and he raised it to about 13,000 that summer.

READ MORE: Taliban says differences on US troop withdrawal resolved