U.S. May Cut Force in Afghanistan by 2005

The United States could cut its forces in Afghanistan in mid-2005 if Taliban militants accept an amnesty to be drawn up by President Hamid Karzai and neighboring Pakistan, the senior U.S. commander here said Sunday.

Any reduction in the 18,000-strong U.S.-led force in Afghanistan would bring relief to the American military, stretched thin by the much larger deployment in Iraq. Still, the force is unlikely to shrink before the Afghan parliamentary elections slated for April.

“I think by next summer we’ll have a much better sense if the security threat is diminished as a result of, say, a significant reconciliation with large numbers of Taliban,” Lt. Gen. David Barno said. “That will change the security dynamics tremendously, and of course our forces are sized against the security threat.”

Afghan officials have repeatedly urged supporters of the former ruling regime to give up the fight or return from exile and help to rebuild a country shattered by a quarter-century of war and a debilitating drought.

But only since Karzai’s landslide victory in the landmark Oct. 9 presidential election have plans emerged for a full-blown reconciliation program, which could anger ethnic minorities who suffered under the Taliban.

Barno said Karzai, who is to be sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected leader this week, is to produce a list of Taliban leaders to be excluded from the amnesty and pass it to Islamabad.

The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would then “review it and make any comments on it, and I think there’ll be a collectively subscribed-to list that says here who we all believe we’re going to go after,” he said. The final number could be whittled down to fewer than 100, Barno said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military will start a register of lower-level ex-Taliban militants willing to return to their villages and live in peace as a precursor to a reconciliation plan, which the Afghan government has yet to formally announce.

“There’ll be great interest in those first few figures who come in to see how they’re treated, to see if they’re protected or not,” Barno said. “If it works, I think that there will be a significant number of people following it up.

“I think you’ll see some of it starting in December, or in January for sure.”