GOP lawmaker: Time needed to ‘build confidence’ of Afghans

The Republican chairman of an Armed Services subcommittee is backing President Obama’s decision to extend the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

“You want to make sure you build confidence within the Afghan National Security Force,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee, told The Hill in an interview Tuesday following his recent trip to Afghanistan.

{mosads}U.S. troops will continue to train Afghan forces and could assist them in combat after the president signed a classified order. The U.S. combat mission was slated to end in December.

“That means if they get into a spot that’s over their heads, that you can get that close air support to come and help them,” said Wittman, offering support for the decision.

“We don’t want to repeat the same mistakes in Iraq, in that we pulled out too quickly, and there wasn’t enough of that peer support for Iraqi forces,” he added.

The Virginia lawmaker said the extended mission was crucial to helping ready Afghanistan’s security forces, noting that training efforts had been put on hold following the country’s contested presidential elections in April and by the delay in signing a bilateral security agreement that would pave the way for U.S. forces to stay after December.

In early November, top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. John Campbell told Foreign Policy he was reviewing whether U.S. forces needed to stay in Afghanistan longer, after the political transition was delayed by months.

“There’s a rational reason why you’d want to do that,” said Wittman.

“Many of the efforts there [were] not advancing while they were waiting for the transition of power to take place. So I think Gen. Campbell has a very valid point there,” he added.

“For us to do the job right will require consideration of additional time.”

Wittman and other lawmakers spoke with troops, commanders and Afghan leaders during their visit. The lawmaker said he met with trainers and members of the Afghan air force and Afghan special forces, who are learning advanced skills. The Afghan air force is not expected to be fully operational until 2017.  

The current U.S. plan envisions drawing down to 9,800 troops by the end of December, half that by the end of next year, and down to an embassy presence of 1,000 by the end of 2016, when Obama leaves office.

The results of Afghanistan’s presidential elections were delayed for months following a runoff, fraud allegations and an audit. In September, the top two contenders agreed to a power-sharing deal, with Ashraf Ghani elected as president and Abdullah Abdullah becoming chief executive officer.

Wittman, who met with Ghani and Abdullah, said he is optimistic about the two working together, and that they would form a Cabinet soon.

On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby left the door open on the size of the U.S. presence beyond 2015.

“We’re still having discussions with our NATO partners about the Resolute Support mission and the resources that are gonna be required to execute that,” he said.

“As you know, the bilateral security agreement didn’t get signed until fairly late, so that has set back some of those discussions. Those discussions are ongoing.”

This story was updated at 10:46 a.m.