US hides in Afghanistan as Trump mulls strategy

Bloomberg

US engagement in Afghanistan has deteriorated to a new low, with personnel hunkered down behind blast walls as President Donald Trump struggles to define a vision for the war-torn country almost 16 years after American forces first arrived.
While Defense Secretary James Mattis told lawmakers in June
that the US is “not winning in Afghanistan right now” — despite spending about $714 billion since 2001 — the latest report by the US special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction shows how bad the situation has become.
Security incidents, including terrorist attacks by both Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, jumped 21 percent from March through May compared with the previous quarter, and civilian deaths are hovering near a record. Meanwhile, the amount of territory controlled by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani’s government was down to about 60 percent, six percentage points less than a year earlier.
The worsening security means that personnel at the US embassy in Kabul won’t venture out of the secured international zone and have been reluctant to let the inspector general’s staff travel around the country to gather information, according to the report released late Monday.

‘HUNKERING DOWN’
“Hunkering down behind blast walls damages not only the US civilian mission but also handicaps the US military mission,” according to the report. The inspector general “is concerned that US officials, whether at State, USAID, Justice, Treasury, Commerce, or elsewhere, cannot oversee the billions of dollars the United States is dedicating to Afghan reconstruction if, for the most part, they cannot leave the US embassy compound,” the inspector general found.
Trump voiced his frustrations with the Afghan situation on July 18, saying during a luncheon at the White House, “I want to find out why we’ve been there for 17 years.”
Trump is now the third US president struggling to stabilize Afghanistan since George W. Bush sent special forces to help oust the Taliban government for harboring Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. In July of last year, the Obama administration announced that 8,400
US troops would remain in Afghanistan into this year rather than cutting the force to 5,500 as originally planned.
Pentagon officials have been discussing options to increase troops levels in the country, but a report Sunday by the Wall Street Journal suggested the White House may consider reducing forces instead. In June, Trump gave Mattis authority to determine troop levels in the country, essentially lifting force limits imposed during the Obama administration.
Captain Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman, declined to comment on the Journal article. “This is a White House-led effort to articulate the strategy, which is more than just military,” he said. “It’s a process that continues.”

PRESIDENT’S GUIDANCE
Mattis has said “he wants any decisions we make about military operations” in Afghanistan, including tactics and troop numbers, “to be derived from a clear understanding of the president’s guidance on the broader strategy,” according to Davis.
As the strategy winds it way through the White House and
Pentagon, however, the outlook is only becoming more grim for Ghani’s government and the Afghan people.
Among the incidents chronicled in the latest period are an April 21 attack on a military camp near Mazar-e-Sharif, where Taliban fighters killed at least 250 Afghan soldiers. Less than a month later, a truck bomb exploded in the center of Kabul’s diplomatic quarter during rush hour, killing more than 150 people and injuring several hundred more. The explosion heavily damaged several embassies and injured staff from the German, Japanese and Pakistani embassies.
Civilian deaths rose 2 percent to 1,662 for the first six months
according to the United Nations, with 26,500 civilians killed and
almost 49,000 injured since the conflict began.
On the economic front, the report provided little cause for optimism. Afghanistan’s government revenue declined almost 25 percent in the first six months, leaving a budget gap of $1.1 billion. Donor contributions have narrowed the shortfall, but a $458 million
hole remains.