THE DEAL IS DONE: President Trump is being presented today with a draft agreement with the Taliban that would provide for the phased withdrawal of more than 5,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan, from five bases, over five months. There are between 13,000 and 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, split between two missions, shoring up the Afghan government and fighting al Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups.
Trump is scheduled to discuss the agreement with Defense Secretary Mark Esper at a late afternoon meeting in the Oval office, according to the official White House schedule.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TRUMP AGREES: The pending deal has been signaled for weeks by U.S. special representative Zalmay Khalilzad, who tweeted Friday, “We are at the threshold of an agreement that will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable & sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country.”
Khalilzad, who over the past year held nine rounds of negotiations with the Taliban, told TOLOnews that the “agreement in principle” requires the Taliban to negotiate in good faith with the U.S.- backed Afghan government and that the U.S. withdrawal is conditioned on the Taliban keeping its promises.
“If one side’s ideas are tried to be endorsed by force on the others, the result will be a war,” Khalilzad said. “Of course, it is not final until the U.S. president agrees on it.”
BACK TO OBAMA LEVELS: As President Trump announced in a radio interview last week, the plan would bring the level of U.S. forces down to 8,600 troops, which would would be mostly focused on the counterterrorism mission dubbed “Freedom’s Sentinel.”
That’s roughly the number of U.S. forces President Barack Obama left in Afghanistan after unilaterally declaring an end to combat operations in 2014. But Obama attempted to end the war without the benefit of a peace agreement with the Taliban, which then began to make a comeback.
In August 2017, Trump reluctantly agreed to send more troops to back up the struggling Afghan forces, along with authorizing offensive airstrikes against the Taliban.
DON’T TRUST, THREATEN: Trump says he has no illusions about Afghanistan, which he calls the “Harvard University of terror,” and insists the agreement is not based on trusting the Taliban. “Well, I’m not trusting anybody. Look, I’m not trusting anybody,” he said two weeks ago. “It’s a horrible situation that’s going on in Afghanistan.”
And last Thursday, as the deal was coming together, Trump warned that any future attack on the United States launched from Afghanistan would provoke a punishing response.
“I will put this word out, and I’ve already said it, but if they ever did anything from Afghanistan, we will come back with a force like they’ve never seen before,” Trump told Brian Kilmeade on Fox News Radio.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Congress returns from its long August recess, with plenty to do before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. The House meets at 9 a.m., the Senate at 1 p.m., both in pro forma session.
Top among the Pentagon’s concern is whether the two-year bipartisan budget deal, which sets defense spending for next year at $738 billion, will be finalized with passage of both the authorization and appropriations bills required to free up the funds and nail down the details of exactly how the money can be spent. While the House has passed several appropriations bills, so far the Senate has not approved any.
One unanswered question is whether Democrats will agree to fully fund President Trump’s Space Force as a separate branch of the armed forces, which Trump keeps indicating is a fait accompli.
DoD PAY RAISE?: After proposing a pay freeze for federal workers — including 732,000 civilian employees of the Department of Defense — President Trump has done an about-face and is now calling for a 2.6% pay hike for fiscal year 2020.
The proposal is a move to try to prevent federal workers automatically getting an additional 0.5% in locality pay, which would add $24 billion to the federal payroll. Uniformed military members are already on track to get a 3.1% raise next year.
HYTEN’S UNCERTAINTY: Also up in the air is the fate of Gen. John Hyten’s nomination to be vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. His nomination sailed through the Senate Armed Services Committee but has not been scheduled for a floor vote yet.
An Air Force investigation failed to find corroborating evidence to back up allegations from Army Col. Kathryn Spletstoser, who accused Hyten of accosting and sexual assaulting her on several occasions when they were alone. And former Air Force secretary Heather Wilson testified before Congress that she believes Hyten was wrongly accused.
Any senator can put a hold on Hyten’s nomination.
POMPEO IN BELGIUM: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Brussels, where he met with European Commission President-Elect Ursula von der Leyen. Pompeo also has meetings with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, European Parliament President David Sassoli, and Acting Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell.
LEFT THE PRESS BEHIND: Pompeo, who usually travels with reporters and is one of the most interviewed members of the Trump administration, departed Joint Base Andrews Sunday night without his usual contingent of embedded press.
“Heading out without even the minimal press pool. As far as we know 1st overseas trip with no reporters (need media pay their fares) Why no press?,” tweeted veteran NBC diplomatic correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
“It is vital for the press to be present on all official trips of the Secretary of State,” Shaun Tandon, president of the State Department Correspondents’ Association, told CNN. “Crises can erupt at any moment so it is indispensable to have reporters who can quickly, thoroughly and accurately cover the decision-making of the top diplomat of the United States.”
PENCE IN ICELAND: Vice President Mike Pence is on travel to Iceland “to highlight its strategic importance in the Arctic and NATO’s efforts to counter Russian aggression in the region.”
ALSO TODAY: Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, former defense secretary Jim Mattis’s “tell-some” memoir of his long military career, tracking his transformation from lowly grunt to legendary Marine commander, is officially released.
The highly readable account, liberally spiced with classic Mattisims, debuts at No. 1 on Amazon’s list of hardback bestsellers.
Mattis spares the sitting president from any direct criticism but has plenty of opprobrium for other superiors who either ignored his advice or failed to consult him, including Joe Biden, Donald Rumsfeld, Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer, and Barack Obama.
ON BIDEN: Mattis describes meeting the then-vice president in 2010 and trying to convince him that President Obama was making a big mistake trusting Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki and agreeing to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq.
He portrays Biden as a man whose mind was made up, “past the point where he was willing to entertain ‘a good idea.’” Mattis says he could make no headway with Biden, who he describes as “admirable and amiable” but not open to Mattis’s arguments.
“It was like talking to people who lived in wooden houses but saw no need for a fire department,” he writes. “[He] wanted our forces out of Iraq. Whatever path led there fastest, he favored. He exuded the confidence of a man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly.”
ON FRANKS: Mattis squarely places the blame for Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora in 2001 on U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks, who he portrays as overly cautious and out of touch with his ground commanders.
Mattis says his Marines essentially had bin Laden trapped in the mountains with only a few routes passable in the December snows and only needed Franks’ approval to prevent bin Laden from escaping to Pakistan.
“We had high-resolution photomaps detailing every twist and turn on the high altitude passes. All could be kept under observation and under fire,” Mattis writes, then quotes a New York Times correspondent who wrote years later that Franks’ refusal to unleash the Marines “was the gravest error of the war.”
Mattis also faults both Franks and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for a pause in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that he says was based on his superiors having “bad information” and came “at the worst possible moment” in the ground assault.
“[D]igital technologies,” Mattis writes, “can encourage remote staff to believe they have a God’s-eye view of combat.”
ON OBAMA: Mattis’ opinion of Obama, for whom the Marine general served as head of U.S. Central Command from 2010 until 2013, might be summed up by a single entry in the book’s index: “Obama, Barack, strategic thinking lacking.”
Mattis — whose time as CENTCOM commander ended when Obama fired him — makes clear he believes Obama bungled Middle East policy and, as a result, sent American allies around the world a dangerous message. “It was to be a time when I would witness duty and deceit, courage and cowardice, and, ultimately, strategic frustration.”
‘I NEVER SAID THAT’: Mattis is on a media blitz and over the weekend did interviews with CBS, NPR, and PBS.
On the PBS NewsHour, Mattis was asked about a line in Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article in which he wrote, “Mattis often seemed burdened in his role. His aides and friends say he found the president to be of limited cognitive ability, and of generally dubious character.”
“I never said that. And I’m not going to comment on who might have said it,” Mattis told Judy Woodruff. “But I wouldn’t tolerate, when I was on active duty or as secretary defense, any condemnation or characterization like that of any elected commander in chief.”
THE OTHER MATTIS BOOK: The attorney for a former aide to Mattis is accusing the Pentagon of deliberately holding up his client’s competing book to benefit Mattis.
“How convenient that Mattis wrote book while encouraging #Pentagon officials to deliberately slow roll prepublication processing of his former aide’s book. #Hypocrisy,” tweeted Washington attorney Mark Zaid.
Zaid is suing the Pentagon on behalf of his client Guy Snodgrass, who was Mattis’s communications director and chief speechwriter and whose book Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis was to be released next month.
Snodgrass accuses the Pentagon of slow-walking the approval of his manuscript and demanding that he redact large portions of unclassified information “with the acquiescence, if not complicity of” Mattis.
WAR OF WORDS: North Korea’s vice foreign minister on Saturday said that recent remarks by Mike Pompeo regarding “North Korea’s rogue behavior” will complicate peace negotiations between the two countries.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency quoted senior diplomat Choe Son Hui, who said “Pompeo has gone so far in his language and it made the opening of the expected DPRK-U.S. working-level negotiations more difficult.”
Pompeo made the comments while speaking at the American Legion National Convention in Indiana on Tuesday. “We recognized that North Korea’s rogue behavior could not be ignored,” Pompeo said. Choe called Pompeo’s remarks “unreasonable and provocative.”
STUBBORN STREAK: Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard says the streak is here to stay.
On an Instagram live stream yesterday, the Hawaii congresswoman answered questions, including one about the distinctive streak of silver on the left side of her head that stands out amid her dark hair.
“I actually started going gray in that one spot during and after my first deployment to Iraq,” Gabbard said while in Iowa. “And so I keep it as just a remembrance of those who we lost there and the cost of war and why we fight so hard for peace.”
The Rundown
New York Times: North Korea Missile Tests, ‘Very Standard’ to Trump, Show Signs of Advancing Arsenal
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Signs 5G Agreement With Poland Amid Huawei Concerns
Washington Examiner: Green Beret killed in action in Afghanistan is survived by pregnant wife and daughter
Washington Post: Bolton excluded in Afghan strategy
NPR: Amateurs Identify U.S. Spy Satellite Behind President Trump’s Tweet
Washington Examiner: ‘National security imperative’: Military spouses struggle to find employment
USNI News: USS Harry S. Truman Suffers Major Electrical Malfunction, Raising Questions About Upcoming Deployment
Washington Post: Black Hawk crash suit accuses Lockheed, others of wrongdoing
New York Times: Trial for Men Charged With Plotting Sept. 11 Attacks Is Set for 2021
Strategic Studies Quarterly: A New Defense Strategy Requires a New Round of BRAC
Calendar
TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 3
11:30 a.m. 58 East 68th Street, New York. Council on Foreign Relations discussion with former defense secretary Jim Mattis, on his new book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. www.cfr.org
1:45 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Hudson Institute discussion on national security at a time when conservative foreign policy debate is divided between interventionist and isolationist policy options, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Michael Doran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. www.hudson.org/events
5:30 p.m. 1619 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies seminar on “The State of Transatlantic Relations in the Age of Trump,” with Philip Gordon, former special assistant to the president and White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region, and Erik Jones, European and Eurasian studies director and professor of European studies and international political economy at SAIS. sais.jhu.edu/events
WEDNESDAY | SEPTEMBER 4
7:30 a.m. 1250 S. Hayes Street, Arlington. Third annual Defense News conference, featuring Matthew Donovan, acting Air Force secretary; Michael Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering; Ryan McCarthy, acting Army secretary; Gen. James McConville, Army chief of staff; and many others. conference.defensenews.com/agenda
9 a.m. 300 5th Avenue S.W. U.S. Army Military District of Washington holds “Capital Shield 2019” joint training exercise focusing on urban search and rescue following mass casualty scenarios in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive threat. www.mdwhome.mdw.army.mil
10 a.m. 1957 E Street N.W. The University of Southern California and George Washington University hold a forum with Michelle Giuda, assistant secretary of state for public affairs and acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. communicationleadership.usc.edu/events
11:45 a.m. 201 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Maryland. Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and the Intelligence and National Security Alliance 2019 Intelligence and National Security Summit, with Gen. Paul Nakasone, U.S. Cyber Commander; Lt. Gen Robert Ashley, director, Defense Intelligence Agency; Jack Gumtow, CIO of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Lt. Gen. Veralinn “Dash” Jamieson, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and cyber effects operations at the Air Force; Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, deputy chief of staff for intelligence at the Army; Rear Adm. Steve Parode, warfare integration director at the Navy; and others. website.eventpower.com/19INSS/Home
1 p.m. 801 Mount Vernon Place N.W. Billington Cybersecurity 10th annual Cybersecurity Summit, with Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, director, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center; Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commanding general, U.S. Army Cyber Command; Grant Schneider, federal chief information security officer in the Office of Management and Budget; and Anne Neuberger, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency. www.billingtoncybersecurity.com
2 p.m. 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Former supreme NATO commander retired Adm. James Stavridis addresses the annual conference of the Inter-American Dialogue, the Organization of American States, and the Andean Development Corporation-Development Bank of Latin America. www.thedialogue.org/events
THURSDAY | SEPTEMBER 5
10:45 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Association of the U.S. Army Hot Topic Symposium on Army aviation, with Maj. Gen. David Francis, commanding general of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker, and others. www.ausa.org/events
12 p.m. 1763 N Street N.W. Middle East Institute discussion on “Assessing the Implications of a U.S.-Taliban Deal,” with former Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies’ Center for Strategic Studies; Javid Ahmad, senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center; Jarrett Blanc, senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Geoeconomics and Strategy Program; Laurel Miller, director of the International Crisis Group’s Asia Program; and Marvin Weinbaum, director of the MEI Afghanistan and Pakistan Program. www.mei.edu/events
12:30 p.m. CVC-268, Capitol. Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies discussion on “Building Tomorrow’s Air Force,” with Lt. Gen. Tim Fay, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements at the Air Force Headquarters; Dave Gerber, senior principal systems engineer at the MITRE Corporation; Mark Gunzinger, director of future aerospace concepts and capabilities assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies; and Doug Birkey, executive director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event
6:30 p.m. 1777 F Street N.W. Council on Foreign Relations discussion with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford on U.S. military and defense strategy in conflict areas around the world and the current state of cooperative efforts with U.S. allies, with David Sanger, national security correspondent at the New York Times. www.cfr.org
FRIDAY | SEPTEMBER 6
8:30 a.m. 300 First Street S.E. Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies “Space Power to the Warfighter” seminar on “Secure Communications,” with Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, commander of Air Forces Central Command, and Air Force Lt. Gen. J.T. Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center. www.mitchellaerospacepower.org
7:30 p.m. 800 21st Street N.W. Politics and Prose and George Washington University present a conversation with former defense secretary Jim Mattis on his book Call Sign Chaos. calendar.gwu.edu
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Loyalty to your troops, to your superiors, and to your oath to obey orders from civilian authority matters most, even when there are a hundred reasons to disagree.”
Jim Mattis, writing in Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, page 124.
