Afghan MPs warn against total pullout of US troops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/10/afghan-mps-warn-against-pullout

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Afghan politicians have reacted with alarm to a White House announcement that it is considering a complete withdrawal of US troops after 2014, warning that disaster and civil war would follow.

The Obama administration has said it is considering the so-called "zero option" of a complete pullout despite earlier recommendations from the top military commander in Afghanistan to keep soldiers there to help the government.

That option and the angry reaction from Afghan officials are likely to dominate talks between President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, in Washington on Friday.

The meeting was already likely to be tense given ongoing strains in their relationship over the war.

"If Americans pull out all of their troops without a plan the civil war of the 1990s would repeat itself," said Naeem Lalai, a lawmaker from volatile Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban.

"It [full withdrawal] will pave the way for the Taliban to take over militarily," Lalai told the Reuters news agency.

When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade-long war, financial aid dried up and the Afghan communist government collapsed, leading to infighting between warlords. A civil war paved the way for the Taliban's rise to power.

The United States has about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan and that number is expected to reduce sharply ahead of 31 December 2014, the official end of the Nato-led combat mission in the country.

Nato and its partners are trying to train Afghanistan's 350,000 security personnel but questions remain over how their effectiveness against insurgents and leading Afghan officials had assumed some US troops would stay.

"If American forces leave Afghanistan without properly training the Afghan security forces and equipping them it would be a disaster," said member of parliament Mirwais Yasini.

Shukria Barekzai, another MP, said a total withdrawal after 2014 would be equivalent to the United States "accepting defeat".

The Taliban said the US "zero option" was speculative and it had no comment for the moment.

The US deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said on Tuesday that the complete withdrawal was "an option that we would consider".

He made clear that a decision on post-2014 troop levels was not expected for months and would be made based on two US security objectives in Afghanistan: denying a safe haven to al-Qaida and ensuring Afghan forces were trained and equipped so that they, not foreign forces, could secure the nation.

Washington officials have privately said the White House is seeking a post-2014 presence of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops, which is significantly less than the 6,000 to 15,000 number given by the top commander, US General John Allen.