Retired US general and former advisor of the US president, HR McMaster, criticized recent announcement on reduction of American troops presence in Afghanistan and said the Trump administration is handing the Taliban a victory by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, calling the plan “abhorrent.”  

McMaster told “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the president has “paradoxically doubled down on all the flaws of the Obama administration approach to Afghanistan, by conjuring up the enemy we would prefer, instead of the actual enemy that we are facing,” according to CBS report. 

“If the Taliban establishes control of large parts of Afghanistan, gives safe haven and support base to terrorist organizations who want to commit mass murder against us on the scale of 9/11, we will be far less safe and vulnerable to these groups,” he said. “And I think what happened is the prioritization of withdrawal over our interests led to us actually empowering the Taliban.” 

“If we were going to leave, just leave,” McMaster said, criticizing the telegraphing of plans.   

Trump fired former Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Twitter shortly after Election Day, replacing him with Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. Soon after, defense officials announced the US plans to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan.  

On November 18, US acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said that US troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq will be reduced to 2,500 in each country by mid-January.  

Miller made the announcement in remarks to Pentagon reporters that highlighted the next step in what he called "President Trump's plan to bring the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to a successful and responsible conclusion and to bring our brave service members home.”  

He said that President Donald Trump made the decision to draw down troops in both countries in consultation with his top national security officials and that it did not amount to a change in policy.  

Before this, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high,” referring to recent reports on Trump administration’s plan to reduce its presence in Afghanistan.