President Trump said Monday he would
leave an intelligence presence in Afghanistan, though he has long hoped for a
full withdrawal of U.S. military presence from the country.
“I would
leave very strong intelligence there,” Trump told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson in
a wide-ranging interview that aired Monday night.
Trump said
he’d like to “get out” of Afghanistan but added that it is a country with “a
lot of good hiding places” and needs to be watched.
His comments
follow reports of the Taliban pushing to rewrite a draft agreement under which
the U.S. would withdraw troops from Afghanistan in exchange for pledges that
Taliban leaders would help combat terrorism.
“We are
working to rewrite the draft agreement and incorporate in it clauses that have
been agreed upon,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told The Associated Press
during peace talks in Qatar with U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.
Trump has
pushed for taking troops out of Afghanistan since well before his presidency,
tweeting in 2013, “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by
the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.”
In December,
the Trump administration planned to withdraw forces from the country, but the
proposal was met with resistance from Republican lawmakers.
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