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US considers less than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014: Officials

Iran Press TV

Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:11PM GMT

The United States is considering keeping less than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, White House officials briefed on the issue say.

The administration of President Barack Obama has repeatedly expressed deep frustration with the government of outgoing President Hamid Karzai over refusing to sign a bilateral security pact that will allow the US to keep thousands of troops in the country for years to come.

Karzai has not signed the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) and is leaving the thorny issue for the next Afghan president to deal with. The final results of Afghanistan's April 5 presidential election have not been announced yet.

Since the election, US officials have resumed talks on how many US troops should stay behind beyond the end of this year in the country where the US once had more than 100,000 troops.

Washington has been looking for a residual US force of 10,000 to 25,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but now US officials are considering a figure under 10,000.

'The discussion is very much alive,' said one US official who asked not to be identified. 'They're looking for additional options under 10,000' troops.

'The longer we go without a BSA, the more challenging it will be to plan and execute any US mission,' said Laura Lucas Magnuson, a White House spokeswoman. 'Furthermore, the longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 US mission will be smaller in scale and ambition.'

However, some former CIA experts are still arguing for bigger options for the residual force in Afghanistan after 2014.

'If the White House opts to keep a lower number of troops, it will put more pressure on the Afghan forces and run the risk of squandering their recent progress against the Taliban,' said Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst and State Department official now with the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington.

However, a major concern for the CIA is that the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would affect its drone strikes in neighboring Pakistan.

The spy agency asserts that without an enduring military presence there, it would not be able to fly drones from its Afghan bases because its drone operations are covert and need US military protection.

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but after more than 12 years, the foreign troops have still not been able to establish security in the country. There are still tens of thousands of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

GJH/ISH