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2020-05-22 Afghanistan
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US has Not Cut Afghan Security Funds: Reuters
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[ToloNews] The US Defense Department has not withheld $1 billion in funding from Afghan cops despite Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s vow on March 23 to cut that sum "immediately," five sources familiar with the matter said.
The Pentagon has been reluctant to shave the funds announced by Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper has not provided guidance to his agency on how to carry it out, three sources told Rooters.
It was unclear why the cut has not been made, whether President Donald Trump
Continued from Page 2
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
’s administration may have decided not to reduce the funding - no such policy change has been announced - or if there was some disconnect between the State and Defense Departments.
The White House National Security Council referred queries to the Defense and State Departments. The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A Pentagon front man did not directly address why the cuts had not been made immediately, and said that the State and Defense Departments were working on how to carry them out.
"Secretary Esper supports the Department of State efforts to encourage the Afghanistan government to move forward with the inter-Afghan grinding of the peace processor," said Army Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Campbell.
A fourth source, a US official, said while the Pentagon was concerned about the cut Esper and senior department officials had signed off on Pompeo’s decision.
This official also said Pentagon brasshats were not blindsided by Pompeo’s statement, issued as he flew home after being frustrated in his efforts to persuade Afghan leaders to form a power-sharing government during a trip to Kabul.
"There have been no reductions of any funding for this year," said a congressional aide. "As far as I can tell, it was a food fight between State and DoD ... DoD continues to say ’we have received no guidance.’"
The five sources included two congressional aides, two USofficials and one source familiar with the matter. All spoke on condition of anonymity.
The two US officials said US funds continued to flow unabated to the Afghan cops.
Pentagon officials - from mid-level staffers to political appointees - and US commanders in Afghanistan have repeatedly been asked to give Congress details of how the cut would be made and have responded that Esper has not given them any guidance, said a second congressional aide.
An aide to Afghanistan's Caped President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money...
said he asked top national security officials to prepare a contingency plan and to cut extraneous expenses after Pompeo’s announcement.
In addition, Pompeo also threatened to slash another $1 billion next year and a broad review of all US aid to Afghanistan.
"We are today announcing a responsible adjustment to our spending in Afghanistan and immediately reducing assistance by $1 billion this year," he wrote in his March 23 statement.
Pompeo has declined to publicly detail how the cut would be made. Sources have told Rooters the $1 billion would come from a $4.2 billion Pentagon fund that underwrites about three quarters of the Afghan cops’ annual budget.
A US defense official previously described "huge concern" within the Pentagon about slashing that funding, which chiefly covers salaries, food, fuel, equipment and infrastructure for Afghan troops and police.
Ghani and rival Abdullah Abdullah
 ...the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against both Karzai and Ghani. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun. He also held the meaningless salaried sop position as CEO of Afghanistan, while Ghani was president...
on Saturday signed a power-sharing deal to end a stalemate that had threatened to undermine US efforts to withdraw its troops and nurture a grinding of the peace processor to end four decades of war.
Their impasse delayed movement toward peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
that were to have begun on March 10 under a Feb. 29 troop withdrawal agreement between the United States and the bully boy group.
The main provisions of that pact - to which the Afghan government was not a party - involved a US commitment to reduce its military footprint in Afghanistan to 8,600 by mid-July and, conditions permitting, to zero by May 2021.
Trump wants to bring US troops home to end the longest conflict in American history and to tout it as an achievement in his re-election campaign ahead of the Nov. 3 election. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-05-22 01:12||
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Posted by Zhang Fei 2020-05-22 15:34||
2020-05-22 15:34||
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