U.S. Has 11,000 Troops In Afghanistan, More Than Previous Count Of 8,400: Pentagon

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U.S. Has 11,000 Troops In Afghanistan, More Than Previous Count Of 8,400: Pentagon
By: AP, Reuters, and AFP 8-3017
RE: https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-.../28705926.html

The Pentagon on August 30 sharply raised its estimate of the number of U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, ahead of a decision on adding thousands more under President Donald Trump's new strategy for the war-wracked country.

Pentagon Joint Staff Director Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie said a comprehensive review showed that there were approximately 11,000 uniformed U.S. servicemen and women in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has said previously that there were roughly 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, under a cap set during former President Barack Obama's administration.

Military officials have long quietly acknowledged there were far more forces in the country than the cap allowed, but commanders shuffled troops in and out, labeled many "temporary," and used other personnel-accounting tactics to artificially keep the public count low.

"This is not a troop increase," but rather an effort to be more transparent about the total size of the U.S. force, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said.

The new count, which includes temporary and covert units as well as regular forces, was made to establish the basis for an increase in troops -- possibly by around 4,000 -- under Trump's revised strategy to better support Afghan troops in the fight against the Taliban.

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Afghan troop surge likely to include thousands of paratroopers, Marines and heavy bombers
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff August 30 at 3:02 PM
RE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.a454d19a951c

The bulk of the roughly 4,000 additional troops headed to Afghanistan will probably be composed of thousands of paratroopers from two units — the 82nd Airborne Division and an airborne brigade from the 25th Infantry Division, according to U.S. officials.

More air support — in the form of more F-16 fighters, A-10 ground attack aircraft and additional B-52 bomber support, or a combination of all three — is also probably on the way, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not yet been made public. The B-52s will remain based in Qatar but will be tasked to cover Afghanistan.

Small Marine artillery detachments, composed of about 100 or so troops per unit, will be spread around the country to fill in gaps in air support, the official said.

[U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan are at levels not seen since Obama troop surge]

The preparations come as the Pentagon announced Wednesday that it is altering how it counts the number of troops in Afghanistan to include all service members who are on temporary assignments and working for combat support agencies that did not count against the “force management levels” disclosed previously. The Pentagon has said for months that about 8,400 troops are in Afghanistan, but the actual “total force” number is closer to 11,000, said Marine Lt. Gen. Frank McKenzie, the director of the Joint Staff.

McKenzie said that no longer will the Pentagon be required to meet an “arbitrary force management level,” meaning that entire units can deploy rather than parts of them in order to adhere to troop caps. Doing so, he said, will increase their readiness for combat.

A similar shift in how troops are counted is expected in Iraq and Syria, but the Pentagon isn’t ready yet to announce those numbers, McKenzie said. He would not say whether that is in part due to sensitivities in Iraq over the number of U.S. troops deployed there.

While President Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan last week, his statement had little detail and did not mention troop numbers. The Pentagon has yet to make any announcement about the coming deployments as the final orders have yet to be approved by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the officials said. As the Pentagon delays signing off on the troop increase, the availability of certain units could change.

About half of the 82nd Airborne’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is already in Afghanistan, while the rest of the unit — around 1,500 troops — is waiting to join them as a part of the troop increase. The 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Alaska, is set to relieve parts of the Army’s 1st Armored Division already in the country. To contribute to the troop increase, the 4th Brigade is likely to deploy more of its troops rather than send just enough to replace those in the 1st Armored Division. Fox News first reported the 82nd Airborne’s deployment last week.

During a recent visit to Kabul, Gen. Joseph Votel, the officer who oversees U.S. operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, told reporters that he was hoping to get some of the new forces into the country before the end of the fighting season. While in Afghanistan’s warmer climes the fighting season usually lasts almost year-round, clashes elsewhere in the country usually taper off by the end of October.

It is unclear why the Pentagon has delayed authorizing the additional troops even though Trump made his announcement. On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Rob Manning said Mattis had directed Dunford “to put together a plan to achieve the strategic goals of the president’s strategy.” A spokesman for the National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2009, when President Barack Obama authorized the surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, units were notified of their deployments almost immediately. In that instance, the units were deploying at full strength to conduct standard combat operations. In the case of Trump’s surge, the units being tasked to deploy are going to advise Afghan troops.

At the war’s height in 2011, there were more than 100,000 U.S. troops on the ground. More than 2,000 Americans have died in Afghanistan since the United States invaded the country in 2001. Ten U.S. troops have been killed by hostile fire so far in 2017.

Now with a relatively small force, the U.S. military and NATO counterparts are spread across the country trying to advise the Afghan military while marshaling enough air support to ensure Taliban militants are held at bay. There also more than 20,000 contractors in Afghanistan, according to a July report from the Pentagon. Those civilians do everything from aircraft maintenance to base security and are an integral part of the American war effort in the country. With more troops, those numbers are sure to increase as well.

The additional U.S. forces will allow Americans to advise Afghan troops in more locations and closer to the fighting, U.S. officials in Kabul said ahead of Trump’s announcement. With more units farther away from the country’s biggest bases, additional air support and artillery will be needed to cover those forces.

Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.

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Note: End Goal of Afghanistan Surge Is Regime Change in Iran
By: Rachel Marsden - 8-30-17
RE: https://www.newsmax.com/RachelMarsde.../22/id/809166/

The Islamic State has taken another hostage — and he was reading to America from a teleprompter in an expensive suit and blue tie Monday evening at the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall near Arlington National Cemetery. Apparently there are some things that simply are more powerful than the president of the United States — namely, the military-industrial complex, the original sponsor of the Islamic State and now the sponsor of U.S. President Donald Trump's planned troop surge in Afghanistan.

"We are not nation-building again," Trump proclaimed near the end of his Monday-night address. "We are killing terrorists."

Back in 2001, I might have believed that. Actually, I did believe it when the U.S. launched a war against the Afghanistan-ruling Taliban in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

But that was 16 years ago. Trump had the right idea when he tweeted on January 11, 2013: "Let's get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA."

While indeed there are still jihadists in Afghanistan, that's hardly shocking — no more shocking than the fact that wildebeests and lions roam the Serengeti. There are terrorists in Europe, too, and they're mowing down citizens with cars on a regular basis. Terrorists are everywhere these days. We have to ask ourselves whether the 16-year fight against terrorism has made America and its allies any safer.

Afghanistan is back to square one, with the Taliban increasingly running the country, backed by its traditional sponsors: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Most of the terrorists who attacked America on September 11, 2001, were from Saudi Arabia. And Pakistan was where the mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, found safe haven until he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs.

The Taliban's military activities are also funded by the black market opium trade. Russia bailed on counterterrorism cooperation with the NATO alliance in Afghanistan because of frustration over the lack of interest in cutting this source of revenue, which grew by 43 percent last year, according to United Nations officials.

If you're not going to touch the opium trafficking, and you're not going to penalize Saudi Arabia for sponsoring jihadism and interfering with its neighbors, then you're wasting your time sending soldiers back into that bottomless black hole of conflict.

By sending more troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. is actually worsening the national-security interests of the Western world, just as it did with attempts at regime change in Syria and Libya, where both conflicts caused jihadist blowback in Europe. As the noose tightens in the Middle East, terror attacks have ramped up. And such attacks have become easier to pull off as European borders have opened in the interests of humanitarianism, exposing a lethal loophole in Western benevolence.

Make no mistake: This is still all about regime change for the military-industrial complex, particularly as hopes of overthrowing the Syrian government dissipate. What do Syria and Afghanistan have in common? Proximity to Iran. This is hardly a coincidence.

Trump's secretary of defense, General James Mattis, has done little to hide his animosity toward the Iranian regime, telling a high school journalist in a June interview that "[Iran] is the only reason Assad has been able to stay in power." Mattis added: "Iran is certainly the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East, and when I would travel to Cairo or Tel Aviv or Riyadh . . . from Arabs from Jews, all the people in the region, that is their view of Iran."

What Mattis failed to mention is that nearly all those entities are on the same side, along with the U.S. military-industrial complex. Russia and Iran are on the other side — the one that's constantly treated like an enemy for having competing economic interests.

In Monday's speech, Trump admonished Pakistan but not Saudi Arabia. "We can no longer be silent about Pakistan's safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond."

Why not just cut off the head of the snake? What will it take for this administration to sanction and condemn Saudi Arabia?

Notably, Trump didn't mention Iran. Heaven forbid that anyone put two and two together and figure out the real reason behind this new incursion: regime change in Tehran.

Can we please just take a break from failed regime changes already? If this is all really about long-term foreign economic interests — and it always is — there are far more intelligent ways to achieve success. International businessman Trump should know that bombing the competition isn't exactly the best foundation for a long-term business strategy.