---
title: "Dunford Dismisses Reports Of An Imminent Afghanistan Drawdown As ‘Rumors’"
date: "2018-12-26"
modified: "2018-12-26"
authors:
  - name: "Jared Keller"
    job_title: "Former Managing Editor"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/dunford-trump-afghanistan-withdrawal/"
categories:
  - "News"
---

# Dunford Dismisses Reports Of An Imminent Afghanistan Drawdown As ‘Rumors’

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/19044588-1.jpg>)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford appeared to dismiss reports that President Donald Trump has [ordered](<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/politics/afghanistan-troop-withdrawal.html>) the withdrawal of some 7,000 U.S. service members from Afghanistan as "rumors" during a USO holiday event on Monday.

- “There’s all kinds of rumors swirling around,” Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told U.S. forces at Camp Dahlke West during the event there, Stars and Stripes [reports](<https://www.stripes.com/news/dunford-addresses-talk-of-afghanistan-pullout-at-holiday-uso-show-1.561929>). “The mission you have today is the same as the mission you had yesterday.”
- Dunford's comment came one day after Army Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, [stated](<https://www.voanews.com/a/us-general-no-orders-on-troop-reduction-in-afghanistan/4712965.html>) that he had received "no orders" to withdraw U.S. forces from the country yet.

- "I have no orders, so nothing has changed," Miller [said](<https://www.voanews.com/a/us-general-no-orders-on-troop-reduction-in-afghanistan/4712965.html>) during a meeting with the with the governor of the Nangarhar province. "But if I do get orders, I think it is important for you to know that we are still with the security forces. Even if I have to get a little bit smaller, we will be okay."
- NBC News [reported](<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-s-envoy-tests-all-channels-afghan-taliban-bid-launch-n940846>) at the end of November that Trump had planned on withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the 2020 presidential election.
- Just weeks before news of Trump's imminent drawdown broke, Dunford had [warned](<https://www.tolonews.com/afghanistan/dunford-says-us-must-stay-afghanistan-or-face-new-911>) during an event organized by the Washington Post that a sudden pull-out could prove disastrous.
- “Were we not to put the pressure on Al-Qaeda, ISIS (Daesh) and other groups in the region we are putting on today, it is our assessment that, in a period of time their capability would reconstitute, and they have today the intent, and in the future, they would have the capability to do what we saw on 9/11," he [said](<https://www.tolonews.com/afghanistan/dunford-says-us-must-stay-afghanistan-or-face-new-911>).

### SEE ALSO: Marine Commandant Says He Has ‘No Idea’ On Troop Withdrawal Specifics

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## Author
Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

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