Sunday, March 08, 2020

A Secret Accord With the Taliban: When and How the U.S. Would Leave Afghanistan


David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thomas Gibbons-Neff



American soldiers boarding a plane last year in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.Next Slide
Full screen 1/3 SLIDES © Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In a secure facility underneath the Capitol, members of Congress stopped by all last week to review two classified annexes to the Afghan peace accord with the Taliban that set the criteria for a critical element of the agreement: What constitutes enough “peace” for the United States to withdraw its forces?

The Taliban have read the annexes. Nonetheless, the Trump administration insists that the secret documents must remain secret, though officials have struggled to explain why to skeptical lawmakers.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, in congressional testimony, appeared unaware of — or seemed unwilling to discuss — the secret annexes just days before the agreement was signed. And lawmakers who have paid the most attention to the peace plan also openly express frustration with the lack of a mechanism for verifying compliance that they believe Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had promised.


At the core of the two documents, according to people familiar with their contents, is a timeline for what should happen over the next 18 months, what kinds of attacks are prohibited by both sides and, most important, how the United States will share information about its troop locations with the Taliban.

While it may sound odd that the American military is sharing troop locations with its enemy of 18 years, the goal is to give the Taliban information that would allow it to prevent attacks during the withdrawal. Mr. Pompeo described the annexes last week as “military implementation documents.”

That is part of it, but they appear to be much more.

Because the documents lay out the specific understandings between the United States and the Taliban — including what bases would remain open under Afghan control — the details are critical to judging whether the United States is making good on its promise to leave only if conditions allow, or whether it is just getting out.

The State Department has struggled to explain why the criteria for the terms, standards and thresholds for the American withdrawal could be known to the adversary but not to the American people or allies. In response to questions from The New York Times, the State Department issued a statement on Friday saying that the documents remained classified because “the movement of troops and operations against terrorists are sensitive matters.”

“We do not want, for example, ISIS to know those details,” the statement added, referring to Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan.

But another reason for the secrecy, according to several people familiar with the matter, is that the annexes leave the markers for peace remarkably vague, making it far from certain that the Taliban must convert into a counterterrorism force — as President Trump suggested a week ago — or that they are required to make complete peace with the elected government of President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan.

In fact, as written, they appear to give Mr. Trump, or his successor, enormous latitude to simply declare that the war is over and leave. But many of Mr. Trump’s aides suggest that American counterterrorism forces and a significant C.I.A. presence should remain in the country. How that will be resolved within the U.S. government, with the Taliban and with the Kabul government remains to be seen, and any resolution likely will prove difficult.


Many of the Republicans and Democrats who have taken the opportunity to review the documents say they are unimpressed.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican and one of the sharpest critics of the accord, said before the agreement was signed last week, “Any deal that the United States would contemplate entering into with the Taliban should be made public in its entirety.”

After reading the pact, including the classified annexes, Ms. Cheney said that the deal failed to provide mechanisms to verify that the Taliban was keeping the promises that Mr. Pompeo had described at the signing. “My concerns still remain,” she said, declining to describe the contents.

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said in an interview that the thresholds outlined in the annexes were “remarkably fuzzy” and that it was unclear how the United States would measure success.

Representative Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat who served as a senior State Department official in the Obama administration, posted a blistering message on Twitter last week about the annexes.

“Bottom line: the administration is telling a terrorist group the conditions (such as they are) of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, but not telling the American people,” he wrote. “This is wrong. And it serves no national security purpose.”

Lawmakers have voiced widespread unhappiness about Mr. Pompeo’s outreach on the subject. He called top members on the Senate and House committees dealing with foreign affairs last weekend to give them a cursory heads-up that the documents were coming to Congress, but lawmakers and their aides said they had not heard from him since.

Days before the agreement was signed, Mr. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to not know about — or seemed reluctant to discuss — the secret annexes.

“Are you aware of any contemplation of any secret side deals with the Taliban?” Ms. Cheney asked on Feb. 26 during a House Armed Services Committee meeting.

“Nothing, nothing comes to mind right now that you’re mentioning,” Mr. Esper replied.

“You’re quoting things that I haven’t seen,” General Milley said.

The annexes predominantly revolve around a committee to facilitate communication between the two parties to ensure commitments are being adhered to, according to officials who have read them. No details have come to light about the composition of that committee.

They describe the parameters for when it would and would not be appropriate to use force, including commitments from the Taliban not to attack American forces during a withdrawal. Over all, the annexes make up no more than a few pages, often with just one to two sentences laying out each component. For example, the Taliban are not to conduct suicide attacks, and the Americans forgo drone strikes — portions of the agreements that thus far have held.

General Milley hinted in congressional testimony last week what scope and scale of attacks were not permitted under the agreement.

“There is no attacks in 34 provincial capitals, there is no attacks in Kabul, there is no high-profile attacks, there is no suicide bombers, there is no vehicle-borne suicide, no attack against the U.S. forces, no attack against coalition,” General Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, after reports that the Taliban had carried out attacks against Afghan security forces. “There is a whole laundry list of these things that aren’t happening.”

In its statement, the State Department said the secret annexes were consistent with the public agreement. “The arrangements include specific commitments by all parties to efforts to continue to reduce violence until a permanent and comprehensive cease-fire is agreed in intra-Afghan negotiations, while preserving the right of all parties to self-defense,” it said. The United States has “a robust monitoring and verification mechanism” to track and assess the behavior of the Taliban, it added.

But those who have seen the agreement said the specifics were so nebulous that they doubted the United States retained much leverage.

“The documents provided none of the assurances that I felt like we heard from Secretary Pompeo and others about a rigorous process that was going to make sure we hold the Taliban accountable for their end of the deal,” said Representative Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, who served in Afghanistan as a civilian adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“I saw nothing in there that gives me any confidence” that those assurances are in place “beyond trusting the word of the Taliban,” he said. “This vague, thin package of documents is all we could actually get agreed to by the Taliban. I don’t really understand how we can say we have what we need to be able to commit to the troop level agreements that have been articulated.”

He added, “How can I meaningfully talk to my constituents about this when I’m not even allowed to share information with them that the Taliban already knows?

Mr. Murphy agreed, but noted, “That being said, I’m not sure we were ever going to get bright-line terms for the mechanisms by which the Taliban prevents extremist groups like Al Qaeda from ever returning to Afghanistan.”

“I think the terms were always going to be very difficult to put down into words,” he said.

Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.


US intel says Taliban won't honor agreement with US, even as Trump says they 'really want to make a deal'
Business Insider•March 6, 2020
  

Afghan Taliban fighters. AP Photo

Intelligence indicates the Taliban does not plan to comply with a peace deal it reached with the US, according to NBC News.

Three US officials familiar with the intelligence said the it was convincing, with one saying the Taliban has "no intention of abiding by their agreement."

The report comes nearly a week after President Donald Trump agreed to a partial-truce with the group.

Intelligence obtained by the US indicates the Taliban does not plan to comply with an agreement it signed with the US, according to an NBC News report published Friday.

Three US officials familiar with the intelligence reportedly said it was convincing, with one saying that the Taliban has "no intention of abiding by their agreement."

"We all hope they follow through with their side of the agreement, but we believe we know their true intentions," an official told NBC News.

The report comes nearly a week after President Donald Trump agreed to a partial truce with the group. The agreement was predicated on the lowering of violence throughout the country and the release of 1,000 Afghan security forces members held by the Taliban in exchange for 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said he would not agree to to the release of prisoners, which has thrown a wrench in the agreement. Violence throughout the country continued after the signing, despite cautious optimism expressed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The US military launched its first airstrike in weeks against the Taliban early Wednesday, one day after President Donald Trump said he had a "good talk" with the group. A US military spokesperson said the attack was "defensive" and was launched to counter a Taliban assault against US-backed Afghan government forces in southern Helmand province.

"We know that the road ahead will be difficult," Pompeo said Thursday. "We expected it. We were right. The upsurge in violence in parts of Afghanistan over the last couple days is unacceptable. In no uncertain terms violence must be reduced immediately for the peace process to move forward."

Separate Taliban sources in Pakistan said the agreement with the US was merely a way for them to rid US "occupiers" from Afghanistan and that they would eventually attack government forces in the country, according to NBC News.

"We will ask the Afghan leadership and other political factions that since the US has accepted us and recognized our position, it is time for you to accept us and give us the country peacefully," a Taliban member told NBC News.

On Thursday evening at a Fox News town hall, Trump said the Taliban "really want to make a deal."

"We've been there for 20 years," Trump said. "We could win that war very easily, but I don't feel like killing millions of people to do it."

"We want our people to come back home," he added.

Critics of the deal warned that it heavily favored the Taliban and that the US pulling out would be disastrous in the long run.

"Having led all US and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2011-13, I have my own perspective on this agreement, which is grounded in practical, lived experience," retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, president of the Brookings Institution, wrote in a blog post for the think tank.

"As I've said publicly, the Taliban are untrustworthy; their doctrine is irreconcilable with modernity and the rights of women; and in practice, they're incapable of summoning the necessary internal controls and organizational discipline needed to implement a far-flung agreement like this," Allen added.


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