US President Barack Obama recently said Washington will keep “approximately 9,800” troops in Afghanistan for two more years after 2014 but a report says an “invisible army” of US officials and intelligence personnel will remain in the country well in the future.
“Together with our allies and the Afghan government, we have agreed that this is the year we will conclude our combat mission in Afghanistan,” Obama said Tuesday during an appearance in the White House Rose Garden, referring to America’s 13-year war in Afghanistan, which is the longest war in US history.
“At the beginning of 2015, we will have approximately 9,800 US servicemembers in different parts of the country,” he added.
Writing for Foreign Policy magazine, however, Phillip Carter said on Wednesday that the “dirty secret about Obama’s Afghan plan is that tens of thousands of American civilians will be on the ground long after the troops have left.”
The “invisible army” of US civilians who will remain in Afghanistan for an unknown duration include intelligence agents, contractors, diplomats, and civilian government officials.
While Obama said on Tuesday that “by the end of 2016, our military will draw down to a normal embassy presence in Kabul,” what remains unclear is the extent of US operations under the auspices of agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was recently in the headlines for the covert creation of a text-based social network to stir political unrest in Cuba.
US foreign service officers in Afghanistan will work “alongside scores more from USAID, the Justice Department, the Department of Agriculture” and “a clandestine force reportedly including hundreds of personnel from the CIA and other agencies,” wrote Carter.
During a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, on Wednesday, Obama made it clear that there are some differences between his foreign policy and that of his predecessor George W. Bush, saying he would rely on allied or indigenous troops more than on US forces.
He said his foreign policy strategy “expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military too thin.”
