The Obama administration has ordered significant cutbacks in initial plans
for a robust U.S. civilian presence in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops
withdraw two years from now, according to U.S. officials.
Learning from Iraq, where postwar ambitions proved unsustainable, the White
House and top State Department officials are confronting whether the United
States needs — and can protect — a large diplomatic compound in Kabul, four
consulates around the country and other civilian outposts to oversee aid
projects and monitor Afghanistan’s political pulse.
Planners were recently told to reduce personnel proposals by at least 20
percent, a senior administration official said. Projects once considered crucial
are being divided into lists of those considered sustainable and those that will
not be continued.
“As we saw in the Iraq exercise, you need to be very tough on the numbers
going in,” the official said. “We need to have enough civilians to achieve the
goals we’ve laid out,” within “a finite amount of money we have to spend.”
Officials declined to identify specific projects that might end. But the
inevitable decrease in eyes and ears across Afghanistan could threaten a range
of long-term U.S. investments and priorities, such as women’s rights, education,
health care and infrastructure.
The challenge of balancing the American civilian presence of what are now
about 1,000 officials and thousands of contractors with reasonable resources
goes beyond pocketbook and personnel issues, according to several senior
officials, who discussed the planning on condition of anonymity because it is at
an early stage.
On one side of the simmering internal debate are fiscal constraints,
diminished hopes for progress and national weariness with the Afghanistan
effort. On the other side are formal U.S. pledges of development support, moral
and political commitments to a country where nearly 2,200 U.S. troops have died
and $590 billion has been spent, and fears Afghanistan could again become a
terrorist haven.
Looming over the debate is the determination to avoid a repeat of the
September attack on a poorly defended U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya,
that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
Last month, the administration began what is likely to be a year-long
negotiation with the Afghan government over how many troops the U.S. military
will leave behind when combat ends in 2014. A key sticking point is whether
remaining troops will be subject to Afghan law, which doomed similar talks with
Iraq last year.
Even if the negotiations succeed and a sizable American force remains, the
U.S. military is certain to curtail or stop the security and other services it
provides U.S. government civilians in Afghanistan.
