Gates: US Troops In Afghanistan Until At Least 2014

By Steve Hynd

SecDef Bob Gates is now saying that Obama's 2011 "beginning of withdrawal" date was mostly spin aimed at the Taliban, to lull them into a false sense of security.

MELBOURNE, Australia, Nov. 8, 2010 � Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here today that he hopes the Taliban think July of next year is an end date for U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

�It�s not,� Gates said during a roundtable with Australian and American reporters at the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations. �They�re going to be very surprised come August, September, October and November, when most American forces are still there, and still coming after them.�

President Barack Obama�s plan for July is to begin handing over security responsibility to the Afghans, based on conditions in any given area. The transition of security responsibilities to Afghan security forces will be a years-long process, Gates said, noting that NATO heads of government will discuss the transition at the alliance�s summit meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, later this month.

�One of the agenda items for the Lisbon summit is to embrace [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai�s goal of completing the transfer of security responsibility to Afghanistan by 2014,� the secretary said. �So I think that�s the kind of time frame we�re looking at.�

But even that won�t be the end of U.S. and worldwide engagement in Afghanistan, Gates said. �We�re going to remain a partner of Afghanistan even after our troops are gone,� he told the reporters.

Gates says a 2014 date for troop withdrawals is "entirely realistic". Meanwhile, the guy in charge of training Afghan forces so that they can stand up as we stand down is still trying to blackmail extra trainers out of NATO by saying that date isn't at all realistic if they don't cough up.

�No trainers, no transition� is the stark message delivered in Lieutenant General William Caldwell�s report card on his first year leading NATO�s restructured training mission. Specifically, he�s facing an increasing shortfall � 900 trainers in specialty disciplines � now that he�s opened up nearly a dozen schools for particular military tradecraft like signals, human resources and logistics. But the biggest shortfall, he tells Danger Room, is in getting the police ready.

�We still need to add police � gendarmes, carabinieri,� Caldwell tells Danger Room, referring to European countries� national police forces. NATO�s been pretty good at getting instructors for �green skill sets� � that is, Army disciplines � since it�s a military organization. But there�s been a comparative lag with police forces that �exist within NATO but we don�t have resident in the U.S.,� he said. And Afghanistan�s cops are probably the country�s most corruption-prone force, causing NATO to repeatedly change its training plans in response to the cops� endemic problems.

Trainer shortfalls been a consistent problem for the coalition, and it�s gotten worse over time. In May, Caldwell reported that NATO was short 750 trainers that partner nations promised and didn�t deliver.

We've written before about Caldwell's blackmail, back in September, and about the hollow concept at the heart of transition plans. If 2014 is predicated on getting enough Afghan forces ready by then, it's a sham.

So what's the really real timeline for US troop withdrawal?

The British government has committed to having all its troops out of Afghanistan by 2015 - and as my colleague Dave has pointed out more than once, it is inconceivable that American troops will leave before the Brits do. So take that 2015 date and add another year or three.