Pentagon reducing troop levels to 2,500 in Afghanistan and Iraq on Trump’s orders
The Pentagon is cutting force levels to 2,500 troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a decision long-resisted by the military’s senior leaders, but enacted by acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller after a recent shake-up at the top.
Miller took over as the new defense secretary last week after President Donald Trump fired his predecessor Mark Esper by tweet.
“As a veteran whose life and family was irrevocably changed in the deserts, mountains and cities of Afghanistan along with the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops who have fought there and were forever transformed by their experiences, I celebrate this day,” said Miller, who served with the Army’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) through multiple deployments in both countries.
Trump made bringing forces home from Iraq and Afghanistan one of his early campaign pledges.
There are still about 4,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan and about 3,000 in Iraq, including soldiers from Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Division and personnel from the 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment at Fort Campbell, Ky.
A senior defense official told reporters the decision was made to keep some forces in both countries to support continued negotiations with the Taliban, a political settlement in Afghanistan and continued U.S. operations in Syria.
“At this point we are not going to zero,” the official said. Both force cut levels will be completed by January 15, the official said.
At the White House, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the remaining forces would be used to protect the embassies and ongoing U.S. military operations in both countries.
“Those troops will defend our embassies and the other agencies of the U.S. government doing important work for this country,” O’Brien said. “They’ll defend our diplomats and deter our foes. By May, it is President Trump’s hope that they will all come home safely and in their entirety.”
Bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and ending America’s 19-year-old “endless wars” has been a rare area where major veterans groups who supported Trump, such as the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), and those who supported President-elect Joe Biden, such as VoteVets, have joined forces to lobby on the issue.
Both groups voiced their support for the decision, with some reservations. CVA executive director Nate Anderson said the drawdown should include all the troops, not just some of them.
“This will be the twentieth holiday season U.S. forces have spent in Afghanistan away from their families,” Anderson said in a letter that CVA sent to the White House on Monday. “We urge you to fully withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by the end of January 2021.”
According to Defense Department casualty reports, as of November, 6,902 service members had been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria since 2001.
In addition, tens of thousands of veterans received life-long injuries while deployed, such as loss of limb, head injuries, cancers, respiratory illnesses and post-traumatic stress. Of the 2.7 million veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, many on multiple deployments, at least 970,000 have life-long medical needs, the Watson Institute reported in 2015.
“My entire career and my body have been consumed and defined by war,” said retired Army Staff Sgt. Mark Jackson, one of hundreds of veterans who deployed to Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, or K2, to support operations against the Taliban.
“Over four tours, I spent nearly three years of my life in combat in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In the years since, as I grew ill alongside my comrades, we were told the science on toxic exposures was unclear, the radiation was safe, the chemical weapons inert. We were told the burn pits’ smoke and the ash that fell like snow and coated our lungs and clothes and skin was harmless,” he said.
“I do not mourn the end of these wars any more than I fear the consequence of our imminent withdrawal,” Jackson said in an email to McClatchy. “As Secretary Miller said, it is time to heal the scars, both visible and invisible. It is time to remove rhetoric and policy from the flesh and bone of those who carry it out. “
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., lost both her legs in Iraq in 2004 when the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket. She said in a statement that she too wants to bring the troops home, but the decision to withdraw “needs to be carefully planned and safely executed, but instead Trump and his newly-installed, unconfirmed lackeys at the Pentagon are undercutting our long-standing allies, potentially dooming the peace process and putting our remaining troops at greater risk.”
Duckworth is often mentioned as a possible candidate to serve in Biden’s Cabinet, possibly as secretary of defense or veterans affairs.
VoteVets senior adviser Will Fischer, also an Iraq veteran, said making this decision so close to a transition to the Biden administration without involving them creates risk for the troops still on the ground.
“Drawing down our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is a positive step, but doing so without full coordination with the incoming administration is extremely dangerous,” Fischer said. “It will be the Biden administration that will need to manage the new troop levels, and it is essential they are fully looped in on this process.”
Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs has monitored the economic and medical costs of both wars for years. It estimates that the United States will have spent more than $6.4 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when lifetime medical needs for the veterans who served there are included.
Other forces still serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria include elements of III Corps from Fort Hood, Texas; the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y. and the 4th Infantry Division and 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade, Fort Carson, Colo.
There are also members deployed from Air National Guard units from across the country, including air squadrons from Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Washington state, Florida and elsewhere.
The Pentagon did not identify which units would be returning home.
Updates with veteran Mark Jackson ‘s comment.
McClatchy White House correspondent Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Pentagon reducing troop levels to 2,500 in Afghanistan and Iraq on Trump’s orders."
