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National security adviser H.R. McMaster (left) and Vice President Mike Pence (right) seek to persuade President Donald Trump to accept commanders' proposals to beef up the 8,400 American troops in the country. | Evan Vucci/AP

Top administration officials in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan teamed up ahead of a high-level meeting on Friday to persuade President Donald Trump to step up American military involvement in the 16-year-old war, two sources told POLITICO.

Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser H.R. McMaster rehearsed their pitch heading into the Camp David strategy session in an effort to persuade Trump to accept commanders' proposals to beef up the 8,400 American troops in the country, the sources said.

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But as of Friday evening, the president had not announced a decision on his plans for Afghanistan, where the Taliban have grown in strength and Al Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorist groups have a foothold. And no announcement appeared imminent.

The two sources an administration official and a senior White House aide also confirmed that Erik Prince, founder of the former Blackwater private security firm, had been scheduled to attend the session but that he was blocked at the last minute. The administration official said McMaster was the one who blocked Prince.

Prince has been urging the administration publicly and privately to outsource much of the war effort which primarily involves training and advising Afghan security forces. Prince had the backing of Steve Bannon, who was ousted Friday from his role as the chief White House strategist.

Also among the options being considered were staying the current course and withdrawing U.S. troops.

Pence's office denied that he had done any rehearsals with McMaster on a pitch to Trump, saying the most recent time the two men spoke was before the vice president's trip to Latin America this past week, which he cut short to return for the Camp David session.

"The vice president views his role on this as an honest broker," a top aide to Pence said Friday. "The vice president has not weighed in on any side other than to make sure that the options presented to the president are fully fleshed out and objective."

Trump's indecision on the war this summer has frustrated some of his advisers and commanders in the field eager to bulk up their support for their Afghan counterparts, who have been engaged in a pitched battle with militants in large areas of the country. The president has been hesitant to authorize a troop surge.

McMaster enlisted the vice president's help about six weeks ago, according to a third official, asking him to help build consensus within the administration and to work with him to make the case to the president.

Pence landed back in the United States very early Friday morning, just after midnight, according to a pool report.

The administration official said the rehearsal with McMaster took place partly via Pence's secure phone line on his plane. The vice president also had representatives attend White House meetings on the matter ahead of time, the official said.

The administration official said a memo distributed Friday morning to the other attendees of the session laid out the road toward persuading the president to send more troops.

"The whole point with the rehearsals was to work out and, to be crass, was to get the president to agree to this proposal that hes been against before," the official said of Pence and McMaster's plans. "Theyre not giving any credence to the other ... options. Theyre going ahead with the troop increase option."

It was not immediately clear whether the effort convinced Trump either way. In a statement issued after the Camp David session, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had been briefed extensively on what steps he could take.

"The president is studying and considering his options and will make an announcement to the American people, to our allies and partners, and to the world at the appropriate time," Sanders said.

Wesley Morgan contributed to this report.

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Sources: Pence, McMaster team up to push more troops in Afghanistan - Politico

I hope President Trump, unlike his predecessor, will not put our military in a bad spot in Afghanistan," Sen. Lindsey Graham said. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned President Donald Trump on Friday that pulling troops out of Afghanistan could lay the groundwork for another 9/11.

Trump is traveling to Camp David on Friday with his chief national security aides to discuss the path forward for the 16-year-old U.S. war there.

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The South Carolina Republican urged Trump in a statement to listen to his generals an apparent request for the president to prioritize the views of military commanders over those of his just-dismissed chief strategist Steve Bannon, who reportedly wants to replace U.S. troops in Afghanistan with private contractors.

If we were to pull all our troops from Afghanistan it would be a disaster for our national security interests and set the stage for another 9/11 on American soil, Graham said. I hope President Trump, unlike his predecessor, will not put our military in a bad spot in Afghanistan. He should give them the tools and support they need to confront the rising terror threats in Afghanistan.

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On Thursday, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters the administration was very close to a decision on the next steps for the U.S. in Afghanistan.

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Link:
Graham to Trump: Afghanistan pullout could cause another 9/11 - Politico

Nearly 16 years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States is nearing a seminal moment in its involvement in Afghanistan, as President Donald Trump gathers at Camp David today with his national-security team to determine what to do about the deteriorating stalemate he inherited in South Asia.

The Trump administration is reportedly weighing several competing proposals for Afghanistan. While military commanders have recommended an increase of several thousand U.S. troops to enable increased support for the Afghan military and counterterrorism operations, the White House is also considering alternative approaches that could entail the reduction or even the complete exit of American conventional forcesrelying instead on special operations forces, paramilitaries, and contractors.

To an unusual degree, the debate over the future of the Afghan war is really about its past: specifically, why a decade and a half of military operations has failed to turn the tide. It is a fair question, and President Trump has been correct to press for answers before deciding on a way ahead.

Some argue the problem has been America's unrealistic ambitions in Afghanistanundertaking a costly nation-building campaign in the hopes of transforming a broken countryand that the best course, therefore, is to scale back military involvement and minimize further entanglement in this graveyard of empires.

The problem with this argument is that it inverts the history of what has actually happened in Afghanistan since 2001. In fact, the consistent theme of U.S. Afghan policy for 15 years has not been nation-building, but exit-seeking. From nearly the moment the first U.S. forces arrived in the wake of 9/11, Washington has been trying to hand off responsibility for the country and draw down its military presence. In doing so, it has inadvertently thrown a lifeline to the enemies it went to Afghanistan to defeat, encouraged regional powers to hedge against it, and needlessly compounded the difficulty of this mission. The key question now is whether Trump recognizes this mistake, or repeats it.

It's Time to Make Afghanistan Someone Else's Problem

The story of U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan begins in late 2001 with the Bush administration, which fiercely resisted any kind of large-scale military commitment to stabilize the country after the Taliban regime retreated from Kabul and Kandahar. In addition to its interest in keeping forces in reserve for its anticipated showdown with Iraq, the Bush administrations embrace of a modest footprint for Afghanistan, as then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called it, was rationalized as a repudiation of the Clinton administrations peacekeeping interventions in the Balkans during the 1990s. A large U.S. presence in Afghanistan, it was argued, would spur Afghan xenophobia and foster unnatural dependency on foreigners, while its absence would encourage a quicker transition to Afghan self-sufficiency.

In fact, as a consequence of this initial hands off approach in Afghanistan, the country soon found itself in a kind of political and security free fall. To his credit, President Bush changed course in 2003, initiating a U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign that closely integrated military and political lines of effort, and began to yield hopeful results. But with Iraq itself melting down by 2005 and the White House eager to show it was bringing troops home from somewhere, the White House dropped this brief experiment in favor of transitioning ownership of Afghanistan to NATO. In doing so, the Bush administration argued the Taliban was a spent force, that NATO allies were up to the task of shouldering responsibility for vital terrain like southern Afghanistan, and the United States therefore could look to reduce its own military presence.

All three assumptions were disastrously wrong. NATO lacked the command structure, authorities, and capabilities, to wage the nationwide counterinsurgency campaign required to keep pressure on the Taliban, which quickly came roaring back. In his eagerness to extricate his administration from Afghanistan, Bush paved the way for an even bigger quagmire.

The Obama administration entered office pledging to reverse Bushs failures in Afghanistan, only to replicate the most fundamental of them in arguably even more spectacular fashion. While Obama reluctantly backed a surge of U.S. forces at the urging of his commanders, he coupled this with a fixed date for their withdrawal. In an ironic echo of Rumsfeld, Obama justified this move by arguing that it would incentivize the Afghans to take responsibility for their country. Instead, it discouraged a wary populace from siding with a U.S. military presence designed to be fleeting, while signaling to the Taliban (and its Pakistani backers) that time was on their side.

Obama then redoubled this unforced error by announcing an even more draconian drawdown of U.S. troops in 2014, not on the basis of on-the-ground military conditions, but with the political timetable of getting all troops out by the end of his own tenure. The predictable result was that security conditions deteriorated, eventually forcing the White House to stop short of the complete withdrawal it had promised, but only after U.S. forces had been severely pared back, the Taliban had reclaimed momentum, and regional powers had stepped up their support for insurgents in anticipation of a post-American Afghanistan.

What Washington has never attempted in Afghanistan, over the course of more than 15 years there, is the one policy that has been necessary from the outset: an explicit commitment to a sustainable, sustained U.S. military presence in the country.

Making such a commitment would send the unequivocal message to the Taliban that it cannot hope to prevail on the battlefield and must therefore pursue political reconciliation seriously. It would also position America for the tough diplomacy to convince Afghanistan's neighbors, foremost Pakistan, to stop backing insurgent groups in preparation for an American exit.

The strategic paradox of Afghanistan is that the more the United States has sought to leave, the more it has fostered the conditions that have forced it to stay. By contrast, the sooner Washington can convince all parties to the conflict of its long-term intent to remain, the sooner it can set the conditions to drive the conflict towards an end game.

To be clear, a sustained U.S. military presence in Afghanistan alone is no guarantee of success. But repeating the mistakes of the past by trying to withdraw troops from the country is a surefire recipe for more failure.

Can Americans stomach an open-ended military commitment to Afghanistan? Didnt they, after all, elect Trumpand for that matter, Obamain part because they promised to diminish Americas overseas burdens? Wont they demand a date by which all of U.S. forces come home?

This is, in some respects, a strange argument. More than 60 years after the end of the Korean War, tens of thousands of American troops are still deployed therein the shadow of Kim Jong Uns arsenalwithout any hint of domestic controversy, because Americans long ago accepted that this was in the national interest. So too with the enduring U.S. military presence in Europe and Japan after World War II, and across the Middle East since the early 1990s.

In truth, the foremost responsibility of any president is to keep Americans safe. Preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a terrorist sanctuary from which attacks on America can be launched is as clear-cut a vital national interest as any in the world. If the price for this is a sustained military presence thereand the alternative, withdrawal, is more likely to result in a terrorist victory along the lines of what happened in Iraq after America leftthat is not seemingly a prohibitively difficult case to make to the American people. On the contrary, it is telling that, almost 16 years after 9/11, there is no great groundswell of public protest or opposition to Americas current operations in Afghanistan. In a perfect world, of course, U.S. forces wouldnt be required to stay in Afghanistanor anywhere else for that matterbut as Americans long ago internalized, that is not the world they live in.

To his admirers and detractors alike, Donald Trump has promised to be a revolutionary force in U.S. foreign policy, prepared to overturn longstanding practices if they do not advance Americas interests, and to deliver tough truths to the American people. That is precisely the opportunity, and the imperative, that now exists in Afghanistan. Rather than following the example of his predecessors in searching for an exit from the outset of his presidency, he can learn from their experience and commit to stay. In addition to being the only plausible path to a decent outcome in Afghanistan, it also has the virtue of never before having been tried.

Link:
America Needs to Stay in Afghanistan - The Atlantic

The Pentagon has identified the U.S. Army Green Beret who was killed Wednesday battling Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Aaron R. Butler, 27, of Monticello, Utah was killed by an improvised explosive device in Nangahar Province, the Pentagon said in a statement late Thursday. An unknown number of U.S. troopswere also injured during the fighting as wereseveralAfghan troops working alongside their American counterparts.

[A U.S. service member is killed, others wounded, fighting ISIS in Afghanistan]

Butler belonged to a Special Forces team from 19th Special Force Group and was based out of Camp Williams Utah. The 19th Group is an Army National Guard unit with detachments all over the United States, including Washington and Colorado. A Green Beret from 19th Group, Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock, was the first U.S. combat deathin Afghanistan for the year 2016.

Butlers death brings the total of Americans killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan this year to 10. Seven of those deaths were directly related to fighting Islamic State militants in the eastern part of the country.

The U.S. military has invested considerable resources and troops in battling the Islamic States Afghan affiliate. Yet despite numerous offensive operations and a concerted bombing campaign that involved the use of a 22,000-pound bomb and several surgical strikes against the groups leaders, about 1,000 of the militantshave remained dug in along the Pakistani border, according to U.S. military officials in Kabul.

In bid to beat back the Taliban, Afghanistan starts expanding its commando units

This is what a day with the Afghan air force looks like

The Islamic State is fighting to the death as civilians flee Raqqa

Continued here:
Pentagon identifies Special Forces soldier killed battling Islamic State in Afghanistan - Washington Post

Erik Prince thinks he can turn around the war in Afghanistan, and hes got a PowerPoint deck to explain the whole thing. The Blackwater founder brought it with him to the Corner Bakery on North Capitol Street in Washington last Thursday, printed out and placed in a presentation binder. Hes been shopping it around D.C. And on Friday, when President Trump huddles with his advisers at Camp David to plot a way forward, it will be in the mix.

The 16-year-old war in Afghanistan has become a central point of conflict in the White House as the administration passes the half-year mark without having settled on a new strategy. Trump has so far rejected the proposals brought to his desk. The troop increases favored by his generals, Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, are strongly opposed by his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and the president himself is skeptical of such approaches.

The America First ethos on which Trump campaigned is bumping up against the approach of his military brass. But an answer may finally be at hand. Trump and top administration officials will gather at Camp David on Friday to discuss South Asia strategy. Vice President Pence is even cutting his Latin America trip short to join the talks.

America Needs to Stay in Afghanistan

But this is not just an argument between warring elements within the administration. Plans to privatize the war proposed by two businessmen with ties to the White House have become a linchpin of the debate. Prince is proposing to send private contractors to Afghanistan instead of U.S. troops, and have the entire operation overseen by a viceroy. The billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg has also submitted a proposal using contractors. Both have met with top administration officials on the matter. Their involvement was first reported by The New York Times last month. In recent weeks, their lobbying effort has ramped up, as Trump signals he is nearing a decision. And Trump is said to favor using at least some of Prince and Feinbergs proposals.

However, a document has circulated within the National Security Council and to Cabinet members this week, according to a senior administration official who reviewed it. It offers notes from meetings ahead of Fridays showdown, summarizing a plan to convince the president to agree to the R4+S escalation plan. The document, this official said, characterizes the surge as the only credible option for Afghanistan, dismissing the other options of withdrawing completely or using contractors or paramilitaries with a minimal U.S. counterterrorism presence. Asked about that characterization of the document, NSC spokesman Michael Anton said it sounds wrong to me.

When I met Prince, he was coming from a morning of TV hits. Prince has been campaigning hard in favor of his proposal, as well as shopping it on Capitol Hill and in the White House, where he was headed next.

Prince calls his proposal A Strategic Economy of Force. It entails sending 5,500 contractors to Afghanistan to embed with Afghan National Security Forces, and appointing a viceroy to oversee the whole endeavor. Prince said some version of the idea had been percolating in his mind since he first went to Afghanistan in 2002; he knew then, he said, that the Pentagon wasnt going to be able to resolve this. But it wasnt until the Trump administration that he felt it really had a shot; There are some phone calls where its not even worth wasting the electrons on, he said when I asked why he hadnt proposed this idea during the Obama administration. Obama approved a substantial troop increase for Afghanistan in his first term.

Prince wouldnt let me keep a copy of the plan, though he showed it to me and walked me through it, and let me take photos of a couple pagesespecially the page comparing his idea to Trumps turnaround of the Wollman Rink in New York. Make sure to get the Wollman Ice Rink, Prince said. Please be sure to use that in the article.

Under Princes plan, the viceroy would be a federal official who reports to the president and is empowered to make decisions about State Department, DoD, and intelligence community functions in-country. Prince was vague about how exactly this would work and which agency would house the viceroy, but compared the job to a bankruptcy trustee and said the person would have full hiring and firing authority over U.S. personnel. Prince wants to embed mentors into Afghan battalions. These mentors would be contractors from the U.S., Britain, Canada, South Africaanybody with a good rugby team, Prince quipped. Prince also wants a composite air winga private air forceto make up for deficiencies in the Afghan air capabilities.

Prince said McMasters office called him to discuss his ideas after he wrote an op-ed outlining the plan in The Wall Street Journal in May. But McMaster hates it, Prince said. Since then, Prince has met with McMaster to discuss the proposal. He remains committed to more troops and more money, he said. Well leave it at that.

The same can be said for the other military brass playing key roles on Afghanistan policy.

The adults hate it, said a congressional aide who has seen the plan, referring to McMaster, Mattis, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. Mattis acknowledged that his analysis of the problems in Afghanistan is correct, Prince claimed, while disagreeing on his recommendations. On Monday, Mattis confirmed in a press gaggle that the contracting proposals were under consideration. A Pentagon spokesperson didnt immediately return a request for comment.

According to officials familiar with the proposals, Mattis, McMaster, Tillerson, and others in the administration have two main objections to the Prince plan: One is that they believe Prince is downplaying how much it will truly cost, and the other is that they assume allies will ditch the U.S.-led effort once a switch is made to contractors instead of uniformed troops.

It is Bannon and the presidents son-in-law Jared Kushner who have advocated giving Prince and Feinbergs ideas a hearing. Prince said he had not yet met with the president himself on the issue. I know hes seen part of it. I know he liked my op-ed, Prince said. According to a source familiar with the process, the Prince proposal hasnt been formally presented to Trump.

Feinberg, on the other hand, has met with Trump, as well as with Kushner. One senior administration official said Feinberg has met more than once with Trump in the Oval Office. Through his investment firm Cerberus Capital, Feinberg controls the huge military contractor Dyncorp. He is also a confidant of Trump and has known him from business circles since before Trump became president. Feinberg was considered for a czar-type position overseeing an intelligence review earlier this year, but the idea was stymied by a vehement backlash from the intelligence community. Feinberg does not have an intelligence background.

Feinberg is proposing ideas similar to Princes; Prince said the two were 95 to 98 percent in agreement, though he wrote his thing, I wrote mine.

A source close to the situation said Feinberg had been asked to submit a strategic recommendation for Afghanistan that is materially different with respect to the use of independent contractors from the plan Erik Prince proposed.

Sean McFate, a Georgetown professor and former DynCorp contractor, described Feinbergs plan for contractors as more status quo. He wants to take the current mission and just make it bigger.

But according to one senior administration official, Feinberg is angling to be the viceroy described in Princes plan.

Prince wouldnt tell me who he has in mind for the viceroy job, but he confirmed that Feinberg is interested in it. Hes one of them, Prince said. He has a lot of business experience and turning around distressed businesses. So, thats an option for a guy. But it has to be someone who understands the military and intelligence aspects as well.

A senior administration official said that the administration has been talking to Feinberg about taking a senior job somewhere in the national-security apparatus, and one option that has recently been discussed is a role in the Afghanistan-Pakistan portfolio.

Feinberg and his aide Lou Bremer, a managing director at Cerberus and former Navy SEAL, have been to the White House recently. Bremers Instagram account shows him posing for photos with a litany of Trumpworld figures over the last few months, from Sean Hannity to Rudy Giuliani. One of those photos shows Bremers ticket for the presidential reviewing stand at the inaugural parade. Both declined requests for comment.

The pair also have influence at the CIA, whose leadership is said to favor using some elements of Prince and Feinbergs plans, according to sources. Another source familiar with the discussions said that Pompeo and other CIA leaders are open to another approach in Afghanistan and realize a change has to be made, because the same thing is not working. They also know it comes with the risks of this town, the type of hyper-politicized town this is. Donald Trump could even cure cancer and people would find ways to criticize him.

While some members of Congress have dismissed the idea out of handLindsey Graham told The Washington Post Its something that would come from a bad soldier of fortune novelPrince is finding a degree of support for his plan on the Hill.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher has known Prince for years, since Prince was his intern, and his top aide Paul Behrends is also close with Prince, having worked as a lobbyist and spokesman for Blackwater. Rohrabacher wrote an op-ed last week in The Washington Examiner lauding the proposal.

In an interview, Rohrabacher said that he and Prince had been talking about these ideas for over a year.

Some of us [in Congress] are aggressively pushing for the plan, Rohrabacher said, adding that Representative Duncan Hunter is also a big fan. But Rohrabacher said the plan was being resisted by military professionals.

One of the issues raised by Princes plan is that U.S. law prohibits using contractors for combat operations. The workaround is that instead of being categorized under Title 10 of the U.S. code, it will be housed under Title 50, making it subject to the same regulations as intelligence operations. This has sparked concerns about transparency, but appeals to some in the secretive intelligence community.

I would think the CIA and some other intelligence agencies may have people in the upper echelons who have a better understanding of operations like what Erik is proposing, Rohrabacher said.

The biggest drawback is, our military people, our military professionals just hate the idea of not using regular combat units in which there is a really command and control aspect of the mission, Rohrabacher said.

Critics say Princes plan will lead to a moral and legal quagmire, as contractors from around the world fighting in place of U.S. forces present a host of possible problems. What happens if a Canadian, for example, kills an Afghan civilian while fighting as a contractor under the leadership of the American viceroy? What if the contractors get in a real binddoes the U.S. send our military in to help them?

Quality is a problem, accountability is a problem, said McFate, who wrote a book about modern mercenary warfare. McFate raised the possibility of the Prince fighting force changing allegiances: It could go into business for itself. It could be bought out by ISIS, China, Russia.

Over the past 10 years, the industry has become increasingly regulated and professionalized, said Deborah Avant, a Denver University professor who studies mercenaries.

I would say that most of the industry from 2007 on became sort of increasingly professionalized, normalized according to particular regulatory structures, she said. Erik Prince decided to completely go against that.

Prince sold Blackwater in 2010Feinberg reportedly considered investing in itand now heads the Chinese-owned Frontier Services Group, which he says primarily does logistics. He moved to Abu Dhabi in 2010, where he raised an army of Colombian mercenaries for the United Arab Emirates in 2011, but told me hes now based full-time in Virginia. His sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trumps education secretary, and Prince was an enthusiastic backer of the president during his campaign. He even met with a Russian national close to the Kremlin in the Seychelles during the transition. The Washington Post reported the meeting was an effort to set up a backchannel between Trump and the Russians. Prince told me he didnt even know the Russians name, and only met with him briefly.

One criticism of the Feinberg and Prince plans is that they are being proposed by people who potentially stand to make a profit off of them.

I think it will make Erik Prince billions of dollars while he loses the war for us, a congressional aide who has seen the plan said.

Princes argument essentially boils down to: So what?

If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad? he said. And let me flip that on its head even more. Before anyone throws that accusation, I think they should interview all the former generals, all the former Pentagon generals, and all the boards they serve on, and all their recommendations advocating for the Pentagon $50 billion approach to continue on like weve been doing for the last 16 years. Which one is it going to be? Im happy to have that debate.

Top administration officials, including the president, have said a decision on Afghanistan is coming very soon. Bannons faction has sought to slow down the process and give space to ideas like Princes. But the extent to which Prince and Feinbergs proposals are given real consideration could be affected by Bannons precarious position in the White House. Trump is under pressure to fire him. News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch is reportedly pushing for him to be removed. After Charlottesville, the pressure to remove Bannon has increased, though Trump has not done so, even after a surprising on-the-record interview Bannon gave to the progressive American Prospect in which he attacked his enemies in the administration by name and undermined Trumps stance on North Korea.

McMaster, the target of relentless attacks from Bannon allies in the media over the past two weeks, sent a shot across Bannons bow on Meet the Press last Sunday, refusing to answer whether he could work with him.

Bannon has been described in news stories as having ties to Prince, though Prince said he only met Bannon over the past couple years when he started doing Bannons Breitbart radio show to promote his book. Prince has in recent weeks repeatedly promoted his Afghanistan plans in interviews on Breitbart, telling the website just this week that Trump is considering his proposal. Prince also recently gave an interview to the to alt-right reporter Cassandra Fairbanks of Big League Politics, a spinoff site founded by former Breitbart reporters.

Prince said he intends to keep pushing what he calls the moderate option in the public discussion. Theres pullout completely, theres double down, triple down, after 16 years, he said. Even though you might not like the use of contractors, what is there as a better alternative?

Link:
Erik Prince's Plan to Privatize the War in Afghanistan - The Atlantic