Dunford warns against ‘zero option’ for Afghanistan

“Anyone who reinforces this idea of December 2014 as being Y2K or a cliff that the Afghan people are going to fall off is actually being unhelpful,” the four-star general told the Journal. 

{mosads}”An option to me is something you plan against,” he said. “And we are not planning against the zero option.”

Dunford’s comments echo those of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said he has not been asked to prepare for a zero option by the Pentagon or White House. 

Merely putting the zero option back on the table is already having a chilling effect on Afghan government leaders, from Kabul all the way down to the provincial and district levels, according to Dunford. 

And with less than a year before all U.S. combat troops come home from Afghanistan, time is running out to get plans in place for a residual American military force post-2014. 

“By the late fall, you’ve got to know what the size of the force is going to be in the fall of 2014 when you deploy the force in the summer of 2014,” according to Dunford. 

The conflicting messages coming from the Pentagon on leaving no U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the 2014 drawdown is just another example of the administration discord over the American drawdown strategy there, according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) 

The mixed messages coming from the White House on the zero option were causing more confusion in an already chaotic environment, the Arizona Republican said. 

“You never point a loaded weapon at somebody unless you are ready to pull the trigger,” McCain said of the Pentagon’s flip-flopping on the viability of a zero option in Afghanistan.

That said, the diplomatic impasse between Washington and Kabul on an Afghan postwar plan will not stop efforts to hand off security operations to local forces, according to U.S. military advisers. 

Afghan military and police forces officially took the reins of all security and combat operations from American and allied commanders in late June.

Since then, groups of U.S. military advisers have been working to professionalize the Afghan forces before the White House’s 2014 withdrawal deadline.

That work will continue, with or without a bilateral security agreement, Lt. Col. David Hamann, head of the American Security Force Assistance Advisory Team, told The Hill during an interview at Combat Outpost Matun Hill in eastern Afghanistan. 

“We have to get out,” Hamann said. 

Obama administration brought back the “zero option” plan to leave no U.S. troops in the country after 2014 after a contentious meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai earlier this month. 

The move cast further doubt on the ability for the U.S. and Afghanistan to reach a deal on a bilateral security agreement, a pact that lays the groundwork for a postwar American force. 

U.S. forces faced a similar dilemma in 2009, ahead of the American pullout from Iraq.

Back then, U.S. advisers pressed ahead with similar advise and assist operations with Iraq’s nascent military as Kabul and Washington debated a postwar plan.

But in the end, a postwar security agreement could not be reached with Baghdad and U.S. forces ended up completely withdrawing from Iraq.