Afghanistan War is bleeding US economy with $51 billion per annum, accepts Donald Trump
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ISLAMABAD - US President Donald Trump has once again insisted that he will withdraw his forces from Afghanistan.
In an interview with CBS News published on Sunday, February 3, Trump said the US has been engaged in Afghanistan for 19 years, spending billions of dollars on the military.
“And by the way, I’ve been hitting very hard in Afghanistan and now we’re negotiating with the Taliban. We’ll see what happens, who knows,” Trump said in the interview.
When asked whether he will keep a smaller number of troops in Afghanistan, Trump said “yes”, but added that he will “leave intelligence” there – in Afghanistan.
“Yes. And I’ll leave intelligence there. Real intelligence, by the way. I’ll leave intelligence there and if I see nests forming, I’ll do something about it. But for us to be spending 51 billion dollars, like last year, or if you average the cost it’s- I mean you’re talking about numbers that nobody’s ever heard of before,” he said in the interview with CBS News.
Trump meanwhile said that former US Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned because he “asked him to resign”. “He resigned because I was very nice to him. But I gave him big budgets and he didn’t do well in Afghanistan. I was not happy with the job he was doing in Afghanistan,” he said.
Similar remarks were made by Trump when he addressed reporters at the Oval Office on February 1.
