President Obama backtracked on a previous promise he made to voters during his past White House races to withdraw nearly all troops from Afghanistan, saying in a Thursday press conference he will instead keep the present number of 9,800 U.S. service members in the country through the end of 2016.
His past promise was to withdraw all but only the smallest of contingent forces – totaling about 1,000 troops, to be based at the U.S. Embassy – before his departure from the White House in early 2017.
The new mission: Leave the 9.800 through 2016, drop that to 5,500 by 2017, but keep operations non-combat.
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"First, I've decided to maintain our current posture of 9.800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next year," he said, during televised remarks from the White House. "Second, I've decided that instead of going down to a normal embassy presence in Kabul by the end of 2016, we will maintain 5,500 troops [and] a small number of bases. ... Third, we will work with allies and partners to align the steps I'm announcing today with their own presence in Afghanistan after 2016."
The shift in strategy is a major turn-about for Obama, who generated massive media chat on his campaigns with vows to end America's longest war and bring home almost all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Just, last spring, for instance, Obama said it was time for America to move on from its Afghanistan mission and remove the U.S. military thumbprint.
Military officials, however, haven't always agreed with that assessment. Many have argued for months the president needed to reverse that draw-down vow and leave more troops in the country, due in large part to a resurgence of Taliban members. From the White House on Thursday, Obama seemed to agree. At the same time, he failed to characterize his policy flip-flop in negative terms.
'This decision's not disappointing," he said, in answer to a reporter's questions about his personal views of his strategy shift. "Continually, my goal has been to make sure that we give every opportunity for Afghanistan to succeed while we're still making sure we're meeting our core missions. My approach has been to ... make adjustments when necessary."
Obama called his policy change "consistent with the vision we've had" for Afghanistan all along, and one that wasn't entirely unexpected.
"Frankly, we anticipated as we were drawing down troops that there would be times we might need to slow things down or fill gaps in Afghan capacity," Obama said. "This is a reflection of that."
He also clarified the role of the American troops in Afghanistan would remain non-combat. Specifically, he said U.S. military members would be tasked with two operations: training and counter-terrorism, aimed at rooting out al-Qaida.
"The things I want to emphasize is the nature of our mission has not changed and the cessation of our combat role has not changed," he said.
Not all may see it that way, however.
Obama said in May 2014 he would conclude America's combat mission in Afghanistan. He also vowed to conclude U.S. military operations in Iraq. And in January, he said in his State of the Union speech to Congress: "Tonight, for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over."
Meanwhile. Afghanistan's government has pleaded with America for some time to keep a strong military presence in the country to help fight off the Taliban.