03/15/2021
The U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan Just Got More Complicated.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that 1,000 more troops are in-country than stated in the official count. The service members, considered “off the books” according to one senior U.S. official, include Joint Special Operations Command units, working under both the CIA and the Pentagon, as well as some temporary and transitioning military units.
As the Times reports, this practice of strategic undercounting is a common and convenient way for the executive branch to avoid public oversight in the long and entangled conflicts of the U.S. after September 11: “From Syria to Yemen to Mali, the United States often details military troops to the CIA or other agencies, declares that information ‘classified’ and refuses to publicly acknowledge their presence.” When asked by the paper about the additional 1,000 troops, a Pentagon spokesman replied with a bureaucratic denial: Thanks to this scattering around of forces on paper, officially “we are still at 2,500.”
The real number also makes Biden’s decision to stick with the full removal more complicated, as the Defense Department would need to withdraw close to a third more troops if May 1 remains the hard deadline.
As the May 1 deadline for withdrawal looms, a new report states that the U.S. has 1,000 more troops in the nation than previously disclosed.