Trump: I’d win Afghan war in a week but only by wiping out too many people

Washington —  US President Donald Trump said Monday he could win the Afghanistan war in a week, but added that he doesn’t really want to kill all those people.

“If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people,” Trump told reporters after welcoming Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to the White House

“I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone. It would be over in - literally in ten days. And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to go that route,” said the president, who was expected to ask Khan to put pressure on the Taliban to sign a permanent cease-fire agreement in Afghanistan.

Trump said that in their meeting they will work on analyzing a way to “extricate” US troops from Afghanistan.

“We’ve been there for 19 years in Afghanistan. It’s ridiculous, and I think Pakistan helps us with that because we don’t want to stay as policemen,” he said.

For his part, Khan spoke of the role his country is playing in the negotiation of a peace accord between the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan after the long armed conflict there, talks now headed for their seventh round.

The Pakistani prime minister was optimistic about the growing possibility of a peace treaty being signed.

The meeting between the two leaders, in what is Khan’s first visit to the White House since he came to power in mid-2018, is an attempt to improve relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Last year Trump accused Pakistan of the fact that, despite receiving $1.3 billion (1.2 billion euros) a year from the United States, it has done nothing to fight terrorism.

As a result, the president ordered the suspension of most of that security aid to Pakistan until Islamabad takes decisive measures against terrorist groups like the Taliban, who destabilize the region and threaten US troops.

But for now, relations seem to have changed.

“I’ve been looking forward to this since I assumed office,” Khan said of his reception at the Oval Office. EFE-EPA afs/cd