Trump Met With His National Security Team After Afghan Official Complained About Taliban Talks by Deb Riechmann - AP
President Donald Trump and his national security team had an hour-long, classified meeting on Afghanistan on Friday, a day after a top Afghan official openly complained that the Trump administration was keeping his government in the dark about its negotiations with the Taliban.
The meeting in the secure room at the Pentagon called "the tank" included Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Trump's national security adviser John Bolton, among others. The session was a classified briefing about Afghanistan, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject of the private briefing.
The Pentagon has been developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 troops still in Afghanistan. Patrick Shanahan, acting secretary of defense, said he has no orders to reduce the U.S. troop presence, although officials say that is at the top of the Taliban’s list of demands in exploratory peace negotiations…