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Sunday, April 16, 2017

9:55 AM 4/16/2017 - National security adviser in Kabul for talks days after U.S. dropped massive bomb on ISIS forces _ WP | Angelo Colon-Ortiz - Google Search | Sophisticated Lady - Duke Ellington and his orchestra

National security adviser in Kabul for talks days after U.S. dropped massive bomb on ISIS forces - The Washington Post

9:55 AM 4/16/2017

News Reviews and Opinions: 9:55 AM 4/16/2017 - National security adviser in Kabul for talks days after U.S. dropped massive bomb on ISIS forces _ WP | Angelo Colon-Ortiz - Google Search

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— Mike Nova (@mikenov) April 16, 2017

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National security adviser in Kabul for talks days after U.S. dropped massive bomb on ISIS forces - The Washington Post

9:55 AM 4/16/2017

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National security adviser in Kabul for talks days after U.S. dropped massive bomb on ISIS forces
Sunday April 16th, 2017 at 9:46 AM

KABUL — U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster was in Kabul on Sunday for what is the first visit by a Trump administration official to Afghanistan, officials here said, coming just days after U.S. forces dropped a 22,000-pound bomb during combat and revived debate over the war.

President Trump has so far said little about the conflict, where more than 8,000 U.S. troops are helping battle the Taliban, raising concerns among Afghan officials about the administration’s commitment to the fight.

The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., has said he will need thousands of additional troops to break the stalemate. And on Friday, U.S. forces used the largest conventional bomb in the military’s arsenal — the GBU-49 — to hit a stronghold of Islamic State militants in the east.

The deployment of such massive weaponry stunned many in Afghanistan and around the world, jolting the public's attention back to what has been a slow-grinding war. The U.S. military has still not released its assessment of the bomb’s impact, but officials here say more than 90 militants were killed.

The use of the GBU-49, coupled with McMaster’s trip, is being viewed as a sign the administration is headed for a policy change in Afghanistan, potentially reversing former president Barack Obama’s pledge to remove all troops.

H.R. McMaster. (Susan Walsh/AP)

Senior U.S. officials said last week that a strategy review is underway.

The officials, who spoke in a background briefing during a White House visit by NATO’s secretary general, said there is no specific deadline for the policy review.

“It’s based on when the president makes a decision,” one senior administration official said.

While here, McMaster, who served in Afghanistan for two years, is expected to meet with Nicholson and other NATO commanders overseeing the mission to advise Afghan security forces. He also met with his counterpart, Haneef Atmar.

McMaster is tasked with evaluating the progress of the fight against the Taliban, as well as other militant groups including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Right now, Taliban insurgents control more territory than at any other time since 2001, when U.S. troops first helped overthrow the regime.

“I have always said that it is better to equip Afghan forces. If we are not equipped better, the situation will not improve,” said Sayed Malik Maluk, an official in the policy department of the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Officials here said the Afghan government would raise their request for more military aid with McMaster, who is seen as an ally of those pushing for the administration to send more troops.

“I have said this repeatedly to foreign commanders,” said Maluk, who also served as a corps commander in the volatile Helmand province in the south from 2008 to 2015. “We need better and more modern gear, especially for the air force.”

Since 2002, Congress has appropriated about $70 billion to support Afghan security forces, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a U.S. government oversight commission. Despite that, desertion rates and civilian casualties are on the rise.

In the past, McMaster has criticized previous administrations for neglecting to plan for the day after the war. In Afghanistan, McMaster has said that the U.S. reliance on militias ended up undermining the very government the United States was supporting.

He has also been critical of deploying small numbers of troops to fight wars, instead advocating for a more comprehensive approach, including the use of development funds and diplomacy. To what extent these prescriptions will clash with Trump, who has scoffed at diplomacy and proposed gutting foreign aid, is unclear.

When serving in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012, McMaster oversaw the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force Shafafiyat (Transparency), which had a mandate to clean up corruption within the contract system used by international military forces

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He summed up what he saw as one of the key problems to anti-corruption group, Transparency International, in 2015.

“There was a connection with a criminal underworld and a political upperworld and a political settlement that rested in large measure on criminality and impunity,” McMaster said.

“McMaster is a strategic thinker and a good friend of Afghanistan,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, the former chief of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s spy agency. He has “great knowledge of Afghanistan’s problems, including corruption and war.”

“If we only decide to support Afghan troops, it won’t work,” he said. “We also need to focus on political stability.”

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Sayed Salahuddin and Walid Sharif contributed reporting from Kabul.

Angelo Colon-Ortiz - Google Search
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