https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-troop-cut-afghanistan-iraq/2020/11/17/ed6f3f80-28fa-11eb-b847-66c66ace1afb_story.htmlAs Trump’s term nears close, administration announces troop level cuts in Afghanistan and IraqThe U.S. military will halve the number of troops it has in Afghanistan within the next two months, Pentagon officials said Tuesday, as President Trump seeks to move closer to keeping a promise to end wars abroad despite concerns that the decision could undermine negotiations with the Taliban.
Pentagon officials also said they would make smaller cuts in Iraq, where U.S. forces have focused on countering the Islamic State.
“We owe this moment to the many patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice and our comrades who carry forward their legacy,” acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller said at the Pentagon.
Miller said the military will carry out Trump’s orders in both countries by Jan. 15, with troop numbers reduced from about 5,000 to 2,500 in Afghanistan and from about 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq. Even with the president’s repeated calls over the years to bring American troops home, the United States remains entangled in the wars in the closing weeks of the Trump administration.
In Afghanistan, which the United States invaded in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the move appeared to mark a middle ground between Trump’s impulse to remove all American troops and recommendations from senior U.S. military officials to maintain the current numbers. In October, the president tweeted that all U.S. troops should be “home by Christmas.”
The announcement came eight days after Miller took over for ousted defense secretary Mark T. Esper, who had submitted a classified memo to the White House saying that the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan did not warrant such troop reductions.
Good. I can't see Biden reverse this (though, may be quietly?).
