US Troop Draw Down in Afghanistan by 2021

Weapons biz bankrolls experts pushing to extend Afghan War

Earlier this month, a study group established by Congress recommended that President Joe Biden extend the May 1 deadline for withdrawing troops from America’s longest war. It’s a strategy that many experts say runs the risk of abrogating the U.S.-Taliban agreement and potentially setting back the potential peace process in Afghanistan — or even dooming it to failure.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a striking similarity in the backgrounds of the individuals involved in these critical recommendations, which are likely to influence whether Biden maintains a “conditions based” U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan. Two of the group’s three co-chairs and nine of the group’s 12 plenary members, comprised of what the group refers to as “members,” have current or recent financial ties to major defense contractors, an industry that soaks up more than half of the $740 billion defense budget, and stands to gain from protracted U.S. military involvement overseas.

There was more diversity in views and financial interests among the 26 “senior advisers” that the group consulted. At least three of these advisers have warned publicly that the suggested troop withdrawal extension may pose significant risks. But the study group’s plenary is deeply intertwined with the military industrial base, with nearly $4 million the group’s co-chairs and plenary have received in compensation for their work on the boards of defense contractors...

U.S. envoy visits Kabul looking for ways to speed up Afghan peace process

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad held discussions on Monday with a senior Afghan official in Kabul over ways to accelerate the peace process, before heading to Qatar, where negotiations with Taliban representatives are ongoing...

President Joe Biden’s administration is conducting a review of a February 2020 deal struck between the Trump administration and the Taliban to determine whether to stick by a deadline to withdraw the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and end America’s longest war.

The Taliban’s deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani made a speech on Friday, broadcast on the group’s media channel with excerpts posted on Twitter, warning the United States against going back on a commitment to withdraw...

U.S. and European officials have said the Taliban has not fulfilled commitments it made in an accord reached with the United States in Doha a year ago, that set up the move towards peace talks involving the Afghan government...

Corruption in Afghanistan as ‘Big a Threat’ as Taliban

It only cost U.S. taxpayers over half a billion dollars, but to be fair, they got back almost $41,000 for all the trouble.

A pair of damning new U.S. government watchdog reports shed light on the industrial-scale waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan. And it’s a sign of how inured Washington is to mismanagement in the Afghan War that the matter barely made a dent in the Washington news cycle. But one key U.S. lawmaker is speaking out.

Grounded. The U.S. Air Force wasted $549 million on purchasing Italian-made cargo planes for the Afghan government that didn’t work back in 2008, and now the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said no one involved in the deal will be held to account. SIGAR is the U.S. government watchdog monitoring how the government carries out stability and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

It said that after a rushed acquisition process that skirted federal guidelines, the Air Force eventually sold 16 faulty planes for scrap metal for $40,257.

Unaccountability. SIGAR coordinated an investigation with the Defense Department and FBI, and referred the matter to the Justice Department for potential prosecution. The Justice Department has declined to prosecute anyone involved, according to the SIGAR report, saying it would be too difficult a case.

But wait, there’s more. A second SIGAR report released this week that takes a wider look at U.S. reconstruction projects found that Washington spent billions of dollars on projects that were either unnecessary or unwanted by the Afghan government. The agency assessed $7.8 billion spent since 2008, finding that $2.4 billion in assets were unused, abandoned, deteriorated, or destroyed. Only $1.2 billion worth were being used “as intended,” and only $343.2 million of the assets—or just over 4 percent of the total—were maintained in good condition...

U.S. proposes interim government could run Afghanistan until new polls

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S.-drafted peace plan for Afghanistan, reviewed by Reuters on Monday, calls for the current government to be replaced with an interim administration until a new constitution is agreed and elections held, while a joint commission monitors a ceasefire...

The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, shared the “Transitional Peace Government” proposal last week with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, opposition and civil society leaders, and Taliban negotiators.

Under the interim government, the national parliament could either be expanded to include Taliban members or suspended until after the election, the plan suggests. It also says that Afghanistan could “not host terrorists or permit terrorist-related activity on its soil” that threatens other countries, and that the Taliban would have to abandon safe havens and military ties “in neighboring countries...”

Key U.S. lawmaker questions May deadline for troop pullout from Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said on Tuesday a May 1 deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan may have to be reconsidered because the Taliban are not meeting their commitments under a 2020 peace deal.

“I’m very concerned about the viability of the peace process in Afghanistan,” Menendez said on a call with reporters, adding that he believes the Taliban is “clearly not abiding” by all of the commitments it made...