Once confirmed by the United States Senate, Gen Nicholson who is now the US Army commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation land forces, would replace Gen John Campbell, who has been leading the Afghan operations for almost 18 months.
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Nicholson said he expected to re-evaluate the size of the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan within 90 days of assuming command.
“Sir we’d need to prevent Kandahar from falling into the hands of the Taliban”, replied Nicholson.
“However, we are waiting for the security forces to clear the area of Taliban before we can do that”, he said. Pakistan’s military and especially intelligence services, which are more powerful than the civilian government, support terrorists in Afghanistan to counteract Indian influence.
Carter said Campbell has not recommended any increase in troop levels to him. They are not going to be ready in three or five years.
Nicholson’s testimony comes amid vast uncertainty over the course of the war.
The Taliban seized the northern city of Kunduz a year ago before being driven out by the Army. The new US war in Libya “could easily spread to other countries on the continent”, the Times admitted, before calling for the US Congress to pass a new authorization to use military force.
Our involvement in Afghanistan should serve as a cautionary tale about the perils of military adventurism, just as the Iraq War did, but it’s striking how differently those lessons have been absorbed by the presidential contenders in the two parties. Nicholson’s now with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Turkey, but he’s served several years in Afghanistan.
A blunt Pentagon report released last month said the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in the second half of 2015, with Taliban militants staging more attacks and inflicting far more casualties on Afghan forces.
The nomination and Nicholson’s accompanying promotion to four-star rank require Senate confirmation.
Obama had originally pledged to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, except for a small presence of advisers and attaches at the embassy in Kabul.
“Conditions on the ground in Afghanistan today clearly demand an immediate re-evaluation of scheduled American troop withdrawals”, said McCain, the committee’s chairman.
The Taliban now control significant parts of Afghanistan, and American Special Operations forces and Afghan troops have been battling the group’s fighters in the southern part of the country.
Campbell has been in command in Afghanistan since August 2014.
Senior U.S. military officials say American troops may remain stationed in Afghanistan for “decades” longer than originally planned, according to The Washington Post.
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“Because of that, we did not make the advances we projected we thought we would make”, he said.
