The President’s nominee to take the reins as the next commander in Afghanistan said Thursday that the security situation there has deteriorated and promised to have a detailed assessment of the number of troops he would like to see stay in the nation after evaluating the battlefield over 90 days on the job.
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Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, nominated to be the new commander in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.
McCain said he hopes to have a full Senate confirmation vote on Nicholson sometime next week.
Pending confirmation from the Senate, Nicholson will take over command of Operation Resolute Support, the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission to provide “training, advice and assistance” in Afghanistan.
At Campbell’s urging, Obama last October abandoned his plan to reduce troop levels to near zero by the end of 2016.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said 5,500 American troops would not be enough to train and advise the Afghan forces and conduct counterterrorism operations against the remnants of Al-Qaida and the growing threat of the Islamic State group in the country’s east.
Senior U.S. military officials say American troops may remain stationed in Afghanistan for “decades” longer than originally planned, according to The Washington Post.
McCain, a fierce critic of Obama’s foreign policy, opened the hearing with a scathing review of the President’s “calendar-based withdrawal”.
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. Most recently, he served from December 2010 through January 2012 as the chief deputy to the commander of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces.
Nicholson said the Taliban came at the Afghan forces “more intensely than perhaps we anticipated”.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said too-fast drawdowns could cost American lives.
Responding to the question, Nicholson said it is hard to defeat the Taliban and Haqqani network when they enjoy terrorist safe haven, and as such, it is important to “enlist” Pakistan. The South Carolina Republican asked Nicholson on whether the US would lift its restrictions against direct combat in Afghanistan if, for example, the Taliban marched on its traditional heartland of Kandahar.
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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. He said American troops will not be in Afghanistan in an “endless sense”.
