Pentagon watchdog warns exit of US contractors could doom Afghan government

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Pentagon watchdog warns exit of US contractors could doom Afghan government
By: Jamie McIntyre - Washington Examiner News - 03-18-21
Re: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/p...han-government

AFGHANISTAN COUNTDOWN, DAY 44: As of today, there are 44 days left before U.S. and international troops are scheduled to withdraw fully from Afghanistan under the Feb. 29, 2020, agreement negotiated with the Taliban by the Trump administration. President Biden has yet to indicate whether he will abide by the agreement or declare the Taliban to be in violation of the terms and extend the deployment of 2,500 U.S. troops, along with more than 5,000 NATO and partner forces.

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE TROOPS: In testimony this week, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog over Afghanistan spending warned the withdrawal of international forces would also mean the departure of 13,000 U.S. contractors, without which “Afghanistan may be fighting for its very survival.”

The warning from John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, came in sobering testimony Tuesday before a House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee hearing. “DOD estimates that no Afghan airframe can maintain combat effectiveness for more than a few months if contractor support is withdrawn,” Sopko said. “If there is no peace agreement on May 1st, the Afghan government will probably lose the capability of flying any of its aircraft.”

If the U.S. withdraws financial support as well, the Afghan government “probably would face collapse,” Sopko said. “Remember, 80% of that government [funding] comes from the United States and our donors, including salaries for the troops, money to buy fuel, money to buy bullets, et cetera. So if that happens, if you combine those three, it's a disaster for Afghanistan.”

Sopko says there are roughly 18,000 foreign contractors in Afghanistan, of which 13,000 have to leave along with U.S. troops, pursuant to the Feb. 29 agreement. The 13,000 includes about 6,000 U.S. citizens and about 7,000 or more who are non-Afghan but third-party nationals from other countries.

“Whether or not the U.S. withdraws its troops, the new administration and Congress will need to decide and whether and to what extent [the $143 billion] reconstruction will continue,” Sopko said. “It could be a very critical decision, for we must remember that it was not the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, but the withdrawal of Soviet rubles that led to the collapse of the Afghan regime in 1992.”

BIDEN: ‘COULD HAPPEN, BUT IT IS TOUGH’: In his interview with ABC Tuesday, President Biden admitted he’s in a bind, telling George Stephanopoulos that a full withdrawal “could happen, but it is tough."

"I'm in the process of making that decision now as to when they'll leave," Biden said, putting some of the blame on the Trump administration for his no-win dilemma. “The fact is that that was not a very solidly negotiated deal that the president, the former president, worked out. And so we're in consultation with our allies as well as the government, and that decision's going to be — it's in process now."

Biden said what he called the failure to have an orderly transition from the Trump administration cost him “time and consequences.” And If the deadline is extended, he added, it won’t be by “a lot longer.”

ALL EYES ON RUSSIA: As the Taliban continues to press its advantage in Afghanistan, the focus shifts to Moscow today, where Russia is hosting the first of three international conferences aimed at re-energizing the stalled Afghanistan peace process.

Representing the U.S. at the conference is Amb. Zalmay Khalilzad, special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, who is fresh from talks with Afghan leaders in Kabul, including President Ashraf Ghani. “I was encouraged by the fact that all political figures endorse efforts to accelerate the peace process and have agreed to attend or send delegates to upcoming international engagements for a lasting political settlement and permanent ceasefire,” he tweeted ahead of the talks.

Khalilzad will be there “to share perspectives on ways to bring about political settlement and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire,” said State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter. “And of course, we're hopeful that the gathering will be productive.”

Next, the U.S. is hoping the United Nations will convene a conference of foreign ministers from Iran, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, and the U.S., followed by a third conference to be held in Turkey where in theory, a peace deal would be signed.

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More news below:

HAPPENING TODAY: Secretary of State Antony Blinken flies from Seoul, South Korea, where he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrapped up consultations over North Korea, to Anchorage, Alaska, where he and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet China’s top two diplomats.

The meeting will be a forum for each side to air their grievances and try to see if there is common ground to work together, especially on North Korea denuclearization.

“That’s an opportunity for us to very directly, face to face, share with our Chinese counterparts the concerns that the United States has, that our allies and partners have, about some of the things that China is doing,” Blinken said in an interview with TV Asahi in Japan. “And I suspect it’ll be an opportunity for China to share whatever concerns it has about us.”

In a news conference before leaving Seoul, Blinken said he’ll be pressing Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi to live up to their obligations to do more to convince North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear and long-range missiles.

“Beijing has an interest, a clear self-interest, in helping to pursue the denuclearization of the DPRK because it is a source of instability, it's a source of danger, and obviously a threat to us and our partners,” Blinken said. “It also has an obligation under the U.N. security council resolutions to implement fully the sanctions that the international community has agreed to.”

In addition to Korea, the U.S. side plans to raise several other issues, Blinken said. “China acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad, including with regard to the Senkaku Islands, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and that’s a concern.”

Expectations for the meeting are low, but Blinken said, “It’s just important to make sure we understand each other, and in particular that our Chinese counterparts understand the concerns that we have, understand why so many countries are increasingly worried about the actions that China is taking, again, whether it’s with regard to human rights at home or some of its aggressive actions in the region.”

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NORTH KOREA REBUFFS ‘PLAY-FOR-TIME TRICK’: A top North Korean diplomat has confirmed the Biden administration has reached out in an attempt to restart denuclearization discussions that ended more than a year ago but said Pyongyang has no interest in talking for now.

“The U.S. has tried to contact us since mid-February through several routes, including New York,” said Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s first vice minister of foreign affairs, in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

“It has recently requested to contact us by sending emails and telephone messages via various routes. Even in the evening before it started the joint military drill, it sent a message of imploring us to respond to its request through a third country,” she said.

“But we think it unnecessary to respond to its play-for-the-time trick again. We have already declared our stand that no DPRK-U.S. contact and dialogue of any kind would be possible unless the U.S. rolls back its policy hostile towards the DPRK. Therefore, we will disregard such an attempt in the future, too.”

MORE TROUBLE WITH TURKEY: Turkey's efforts to dissolve the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party and strip a prominent member of the party of his seat in parliament has once again put the NATO ally sharply at odds with the U.S.

“The United States is closely following events in Turkey, including troubling moves on March 17 to strip Member of Parliament Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary seat,” said a statement by State Department spokesman Ned Price. “We are also monitoring the initiation of efforts to dissolve the People’s Democratic Party, a decision that would unduly subvert the will of Turkish voters, further undermine democracy in Turkey, and deny millions of Turkish citizens their chosen representation.”

“We call on the Government of Turkey to respect freedom of expression in line with protections in the Turkish constitution and with Turkey’s international obligations,” he said.

BEEFING UP US CYBERDEFENSE: Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, and Dustin Carmack, research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, say it’s past time to take a more proactive approach to strengthen America's cyberdefenses in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner.

“The SolarWinds cyberespionage breach and the Hafnium zero-day attacks on Microsoft’s exchange servers should spark government officials, Congress, and the private sector to move expeditiously to address threats from these Chinese- and Russian-backed hackers,” they write. “A good place to start is to address inadequate information-sharing arrangements. It is no secret that China and Russia, along with other bad actors such as North Korea and Iran, have sought to undermine Western democracies by using our open-society and free markets against us.”

"There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule,” they argue. “The old Mark Twain adage comes to mind as the United States grapples with its second major cyber kick in recent months.”

TODAY ON THE HILL: The op-ed from Wolf comes as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee holds a hearing at 10 a.m. on “Understanding and Responding to the SolarWinds Supply Chain Attack: The Federal Perspective."

Testifying will be Christopher DeRusha, federal chief information security officer in the Office of Management and Budget; Brandon Wales, acting director of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency; and Tonya Ugoretz, deputy assistant director for the FBI's Cyber Readiness, Outreach, and Intelligence Branch.