BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- President Barack Obama slipped into Afghanistan for a surprise visit Sunday and made clear that the U.S. will likely maintain a limited role in the country even after its combat mission ends this year and America's longest war comes to a close.
"America's commitment to the people of Afghanistan will endure," he pledged.
Speaking to troops gathered in an airplane hangar on the sprawling military base, Obama said the war had reached a pivotal point, with Afghan forces assuming primary responsibility for their country's security. But while many of the 32,800 U.S. forces now in Afghanistan will leave in the coming months, Obama said a continued military presence could protect gains made during nearly 13 years of fighting.
"After all the sacrifices we've made, we want to preserve the gains that you have helped to win, and we're going to make sure that Afghanistan can never again, ever, be used again to launch an attack against our country," Obama declared.
At least 2,181 members of the U.S. military have died during the nearly 13-year Afghan war, and thousands more have been wounded.
Obama told the troops, "For many of you, this will be your last tour in Afghanistan," a comment that was met with applause. "America's war in Afghanistan will come to a responsible end."
The president appeared optimistic that the Afghan government soon would sign a bilateral security agreement allowing the U.S. to keep some forces in the country to train Afghans and launch counterterrorism operations. He has been considering keeping up to 10,000 troops in Afghanistan and said he would announce his decision shortly.
That announcement could come as early as Wednesday, when Obama delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
In 2009, Obama used a similar setting at West Point to announce a decision to add more troops to the effort in Afghanistan, pushing the total U.S. presence there past 100,000, while at the same time saying he intended to draw down the effort there over several years.
Obama arrived at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, under the cover of darkness for his first trip to the war zone since 2012. He spent about four hours at the base and did not go to Kabul, the capital, to meet with Hamid Karzai, the mercurial president who has had a tumultuous relationship with the White House.
Instead, officials said Obama wanted to keep the focus during his Memorial Day weekend visit on the troops serving in the war's closing months. Karzai's office said it had declined a U.S. Embassy invitation for him to go to Bagram to see Obama. The White House said Obama was not meeting with the outgoing Afghan president to avoid getting involved in Afghan politics.
Obama called Karzai from Air Force One on his way back to the U.S. A senior administration official traveling with the president said the two leaders discussed the progress that has been made by Afghan security forces and its successful first round of elections.
The president told Karzai he would be in touch with him before announcing any decision on the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014.
Obama's visit, his fourth to Afghanistan as president, came at a time of transition for a country long mired in conflict. Most of the U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan are withdrawing ahead of the year-end deadline. A vote on Karzai's replacement was conducted April 5, but a runoff is being held next month after no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote.
Karzai stunned the White House by refusing to sign a bilateral security agreement needed to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan after this year. His decision has delayed U.S. decision-making on a post-2014 presence, leading Obama to ask the Pentagon to work up plans for a possible full withdrawal of American forces.
But with both candidates on the runoff ballot vowing to quickly sign the security agreement, Obama appeared more confident Sunday that there would be a continued U.S. troop presence after 2014.
"Once Afghanistan has sworn in its new president, I'm hopeful we'll sign a bilateral security agreement that lets us move forward," Obama told troops.
After an overnight flight from Washington, the president got on-site briefings from Ambassador James Cunningham and Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., commander of international forces in Afghanistan. He said that as he entered the briefing room, he saw a poster of the twin towers destroyed in the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"It's a reminder of why we're here," he said.
Obama was accompanied by a few advisers, including senior counselor John Podesta, whose son is serving in Afghanistan. Country singer Brad Paisley joined Obama on Air Force One and entertained the troops as they waited for the president.
As is typical of recent presidential trips to war zones, the White House did not announce Obama's visit in advance. Media traveling with Obama for the 13-hour flight had to agree to keep the trip secret until the president had arrived.
But the CIA's top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating with Obama on the visit.
The White House recognized the mistake and issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified as the "Chief of Station" in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.
The disclosure marked a rare instance in which a CIA officer working overseas had his cover -- the secrecy meant to protect his actual identity -- pierced by his own government. The only other recent case was when former CIA operative Valerie Plame was exposed as officials of the George W. Bush administration sought to discredit her husband, a former ambassador and critic of the decision to invade Iraq.
The name of the CIA officer is being withheld at the request of Obama administration officials who warned that the officer and his family could be at risk if the name were published. The CIA and the White House declined to comment.
It is unclear whether the disclosure will force the CIA to pull the officer out of Afghanistan. As the top officer in one of the agency's largest overseas posts, with hundreds of officers, analysts and other subordinates, the station chief in Kabul probably has been identified to senior Afghan government officials and would not ordinarily take part in clandestine missions beyond the U.S. Embassy compound.
The president's visit took place against the backdrop of growing anger in the United States over the treatment of America's war veterans. More than two dozen veterans' hospitals across America are under investigation over allegations of treatment delays and deaths, putting greater scrutiny on the Department of Veterans Affairs. The agency already was struggling to keep up with the influx of forces returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We're going to stay strong by taking care of our wounded warriors and our veterans," Obama said to applause. "Because helping our wounded warriors and veterans heal isn't just a promise. It's a sacred obligation."
Obama has staked much of his foreign-policy philosophy on ending the two wars he inherited from his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Ben Rhodes, the president's deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Obama is likely to speak about the parameters of his foreign policy when he returns from Afghanistan.
"We are at a bit of a turning point in our foreign policy generally," Rhodes said. "Our foreign policy is going to be a lot different than it has been over the past decade, and the president will speak to what that transition will mean."
The final American troops withdrew from Iraq in the closing days of 2011 after the U.S. and Iraq failed to reach a security agreement to keep a small American residual force in the country. In the years that have followed the American withdrawal, Iraq has been battered by resurgent waves of violence.
U.S. officials say they're trying to avoid a similar scenario in Afghanistan. While combat forces are due to depart at the end of this year, Obama administration officials have pressed to keep some troops in Afghanistan after 2014 to continue training the Afghan security forces and undertake counterterrorism missions.
Pentagon officials have pushed for as many as 10,000 troops; others in the administration favor as few as 5,000 troops. Obama has insisted he will not keep any Americans in Afghanistan without a signed security agreement that would grant those forces immunity from Afghan law.
Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace of The Associated Press; by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News; and by Greg Miller of The Washington Post.
A Section on 05/26/2014
