Nicholson, a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a career infantry officer, is now commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation s Allied Land Command, headquartered at Izmir, Turkey.
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Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, nominated to be the new commander in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday. “For almost 18 months General Campbell has given his all to the mission as our top commander in Afghanistan, and his personal sacrifices on behalf of his troops and the Afghan people will be remembered by us all”. Instead, he said they would shrink to 5,500 by the end of the year.
Nicholson said the Taliban came at the Afghan forces “more intensely than perhaps we anticipated”.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, who last month ended his White House bid, pressed the general about how the USA could help avoid “another Mosul”, referencing the key Iraqi city that fell to the Islamic State group’s advances in 2014 in the face of an unprepared and under-trained local army.
Further complicating the fragile security situation is the emergence of Islamic State jihadists in parts of the country.
Nicholson said that, if confirmed, he would review US troop levels during his first 90 days in command and make an appropriate recommendation, warning he saw the need for a long-term commitment.
He also signaled that United States combat airpower might be necessary to fill a “gap” faced by an Afghan military whose air force and combat helicopter capabilities would remain immature for “years”. “An argument for (troop) capacity in Afghanistan would be simply the fact that there are many more al Qaida, Pakistan, Taliban, Haqqani in your area of operations”. Current war commander Army Gen. John Campbell has said he would like for all of those forces to remain.
“It would be definitely higher, sir”, said Nicholson.
“They view it as a matter of pride to defend themselves”, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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Although Nicholson’s nomination was only announced on Wednesday, the unusually rapid hearing, sources said, was unrelated to either Campbell’s contradiction of Obama or the October US airstrike on a Médécins Sans Frontiers hospital in Kunduz that the organization has called tantamount to a war crime. “This administration’s continued adherence to a calendar-based withdrawal, rather than a conditions-based withdrawal, which some of us have been urging for many years … will be adequate for one or the other of these critical tasks, but not both”. “And he understands the importance and complexity of our mission in Afghanistan”.
