On Monday last week, Mr. Miller was announced to be the Pentagon’s Acting Secretary of Defense after U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt termination of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
“Indeed, this fight has been long, our sacrifices have been enormous, and many are weary of war — I’m one of them — but this is the critical phase in which we transition our efforts from a leadership to supporting role,” Mr. Miller wrote in an early Saturday morning message to Department of Defense employees.
“We are not a people of perpetual war — it is the antithesis of everything for which we stand for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end,” he added, writing that the U.S. was “on the verge of defeating Al Qaida and its associates.”
“We met the challenge; we gave it our all. Now, it’s time to come home,” the Acting Pentagon Chief wrote.
The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.57 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, as per a Defense Department report cited by CNBC.
The war in Afghanistan, which has been America’s longest conflict, began 19 years ago and has cost U.S. taxpayers $193 billion, according to the Pentagon.
It comes after President Donald Trump announced in a tweet early on October, ahead of U.S. presidential elections on November, that he wants a “small remaining number” of his troops “serving in Afghanistan” to return home by Christmas.
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