Politics

Tillerson: U.S. Will Hide Future Troop Levels In Effort To Mirror Taliban’s ‘Cagey’ Tactics

REUTERS/James Mackenzie.

Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirmed Tuesday that the U.S. will keep future troop deployments secret as he claimed that in order to win, America has to be “cagey and tactical” like the Taliban.

President Donald Trump addressed the nation Monday night in which he said America will shift its strategy in its longest war in history. Trump refused to lay out a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan and said, “We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that there will be an deployment of 4,000 troops to Afghanistan to add on to the current 8,400 service members in the nation.

Tillerson was asked about the president’s comments during a press briefing and said, “I think the intent is there will be visibility to troop levels once the decision has been made. I think what the president has conveyed, and I agree wholeheartedly with him, is that we are not going to signal ahead what our plans are.”

“The only way we can defeat an enemy that is as nimble and cagey as this enemy we have, is to be as cagey and tactical as they are and we’ve not been fighting that way,” the secretary of state said. 

It was shortly before this briefing that Gen. Joseph Votel, the top American commander for the Middle East, said new American forces will arrive in Afghanistan “pretty quickly.”