Other Cabinet members like Attorney General Jeff Sessions are wary of making a long-term commitment to the government in Afghanistan, given the track record of the last two American administrations in navigating such relationships. Trump conveyed these concerns to the national security cabinet as recently as Monday.
Members of the Taliban, who ruled the country brutally for years before being ousted in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, sensed opportunity when former President Barack Obama began drawing down USA forces.
"The president has delegated force management authority for Afghanistan to the secretary", said White.
Defense Secretary James Mattis "has made no decisions on a troop increase for Afghanistan", wrote Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White.
The New York Times first reported the policy decision, and Mattis confirmed this on Wednesday.
Those U.S. officials explain that the new Afghanistan strategy would require a total of about 5,000 additional worldwide forces in the war-torn country.
A US surge like that ordered by Mr. Obama in 2009, which sent tens of thousands of additional American troops to Afghanistan, is not in the cards. Despite heavy losses, the Taliban fought on.
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Currently, he said, government tech is outdated and redundant, especially when compared to the private sector. A 2016 government audit found that in Medicaid alone, there was $29 billion in fraud in a single year.
On June 10, an Afghan army commando killed three US soldiers and wounded another. That will require, as Mr. Mattis hinted, a better regional approach that gains the cooperation of Pakistan, which continues to harbor, and probably to support, the Taliban faction that recently carried out a devastating bombing in Kabul.
That strategy is expected to be ready for the president's decision sometime next month. Mattis said that they will avoid all of the mistakes made by the Obama administration and focus on eradicating the country of Taliban resistance fighters. He added it is hoped members of Congress can be briefed on a new plan for USA involvement in Afghanistan by mid-July.
Some lawmakers are growing impatient. On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Mattis: "It makes it hard for us to support you when we don't have a strategy".
That's likely to be the case as policy reviews on a number of issues are now underway, Eisenstadt said, even as "the ground regarding some of these issues is shifting under our feet as we speak".
"It is deciding we're going to push the clock further, we are going to stay involved longer, we are going to engage the American people and the Afghan people". He added, "We recognize the need for urgency, and your criticism is fair, sir".
"Even Mattis himself has acknowledged that the USA is "not winning" the war against the Taliban, and the administration has not provided any explanation on how sending a few thousand more troops will reverse that course", Miles said.
Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist.
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