President Donald Trump's new Afghanistan plan is an "Obama-lite policy," Erik Prince, the founder of the private military company Blackwater Worldwide, told The Hill Tuesday.
"This is a kind of Obama-lite policy," Prince said in reference to former president Barack Obama's 2009 orders to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan.
"This is a lighter but almost as expensive version. Remember, the Pentagon now is spending as much as when they had five times as many troops in the country. It's horrendous how they've lost control of the spending. That's what makes this so unsustainable," he said.
The president's plan calls for a modest troop increase, an approach opposite of the one he touted in campaign rhetoric because he had determined the approach to pull solders out could create a vacuum that terrorists could "instantly fill."
Prince also slammed Trump's comment that the commitment wasn't "a blank check."
"He said it's not a blank check, but the Pentagon continues to stand and plan and operationalize as if it is a blank check," Prince said. "That's the fundamental problem the plan now doesn't address: How does this end. The Pentagon wants to position this like a forever occupation like South Korea. And I think that's a horrendous and untenable position."
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