To Slow U.S. Exit, Ghani Offers Trump a Cost Reduction

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has sent a letter to the U.S. President Trump offering him reduced costs for keeping American troops in the country, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The letter, confirmed by three officials and described by one who had seen its contents, is among the strongest signs yet that Ghani is worried about the consequences of an abrupt American withdrawal from an intractable war that has lasted nearly two decades.

Ghani has made no secret of his concern about a hasty American exit by an increasingly impatient Trump, fearing it could unravel the fragile Afghan state and lead to a renaissance in power by the Taliban, which have been steadily gaining territory.

The Afghan leader wrote the letter to Trump just a few days after the most serious negotiations between American diplomats and Taliban representatives ended on what both sides considered an upbeat note in Qatar, 1,200 miles away.

The chief American diplomat, Zalmay Khalilzad, told The New York Times there had been an agreement on a “framework” for two key issues — that the Taliban would prevent the use of Afghan territory by terror groups like Al Qaeda against the United States, and that the Americans would agree to withdrawing their forces.

Frustrated Afghan officials, who played no role in the negotiations, said they nonetheless saw a confirmation of what many have feared over the past year or so — that the Trump administration, despite having signaled a long-term commitment, cares little for what an American withdrawal could mean for Afghanistan’s 35 million people.

The senior Afghan official who had seen Ghani’s letter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the contents were private, told NYT  that Ghani and his aides had long discussed how to deal with any possible change of plans by the Trump administration. Those discussions included cost savings and troop reductions and were held with the previous American commander, Gen. John W. Nicholson.

The official said the language of Ghani’s letter was broad — asking for teams from both sides to discuss details of where costs could be reduced, and how the troop levels could be brought down from the current 14,000 to a “more efficient level.”

The official said the possibilities they had envisioned could save as much as $2 billion a year for the United States, drawing from areas such as maintenance contracts, and reduce the level of American troops to as low a 3,000.

The NYT said that the United States Embassy in Kabul declined through a spokesperson to comment on Ghani’s letter to Trump, saying “we are not going to get into the specifics of diplomatic conversations.”

It was not immediately clear on Tuesday whether Trump had received the letter yet. It was sent to him via Alice Wells, the principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, who had been visiting Kabul. A spokesman for Ghani also declined to discuss the letter.