President Donald Trump is increasingly venting frustration to his national security team about the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and showing renewed interest in a proposal by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to privatize the war, current and former senior administration officials said.
Prince’s idea, which first surfaced last year during the president’s Afghanistan strategy review, envisions replacing troops with private military contractors who would work for a special U.S. envoy for the war who would report directly to the president.
It has raised ethical and security concerns among senior military officials, key lawmakers and members of Trump’s national security team. A year after Trump’s strategy announcement, his advisers are worried his impatience with the Afghanistan conflict will cause him to seriously consider proposals like Prince’s or abruptly order a complete U.S. withdrawal, officials said.
In an interview with NBC News, Prince said he believes Trump advisers who oppose his plan are painting “as rosy a picture as they can” of the situation on the ground, including that “peace is around the corner” with recent U.S. efforts for peace talks with the Taliban. He said he believes Trump’s advisers “over-emphasize the fluff and flare of these so-called peace talks.”
Prince, a staunch Trump supporter whose sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, argues that after 17 years of war in Afghanistan, it’s time for the U.S. to try something new.
“I know he’s frustrated,” Prince said of the president. “He gave the Pentagon what they wanted. …And they haven’t delivered.”
Prince said he hasn’t spoken directly to Trump about the plan, but told NBC News he plans to launch an aggressive media “air campaign” in coming days to try to get the president to embrace it.
His effort coincides with Tuesday’s one-year anniversary of Trump announcing a strategy that increased the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. Trump approved the Pentagon recommendations reluctantly.
“The strategy as announced a year ago was essentially just a dressed-up version of the status quo,” said Jarrett Blanc, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as a special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the State Department during the Obama administration.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said Trump is committed to the current strategy he signed off on after months of deliberations.
“No such proposal from Erik Prince is under consideration,” the spokesperson said. “The president, like most Americans, would like to see more progress in Afghanistan. However, he also recognizes that withdrawing precipitously from Afghanistan would lead to the re-emergence of terrorist safe havens, putting American national security and lives in danger.”
In recent briefings with Trump, the president’s advisers have emphasized the possibility of a political resolution with the Taliban and downplay the lack of military advances, officials said.
“The president hears about Afghan military and political progress and the possibility of reconciliation during his briefings, but he rarely gets the full picture of security on the ground,” said one senior U.S. official who has seen the briefing materials.
The NSC spokesperson said, however, that the president is briefed regularly on Afghanistan, and “his briefs are comprehensive, covering both positive improvements and problematic actions.”
A defense official said the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan might not show significant results until at least next summer, complicating efforts to convince the president to stick with it.
“The current effort will show results, but it could be another year or more before the new advising mission makes a real, widespread difference on the ground,” the official said.
Trump’s renewed interest in privatization was stoked by a recent video shot by Prince, according to a senior administration official, in which Prince argues that deploying private contractors instead of U.S. troops, and using limited government resources, would save the U.S. money.
The White House currently has no plans for a comprehensive Afghanistan policy review, officials said. While one could take place after a new U.S. military commander of the war takes over in coming weeks, some officials said the president’s team has been reluctant to conduct one now out of concern about what the president will decide.
Prince said he hopes to speak in coming days with some officials on the National Security Council about his proposal. He said that while last year he discussed it with Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when Pompeo was CIA director, he has not spoken to John Bolton, who become Trump’s third national security adviser in April.
