Afghan war still in strategic stalemate: Gen. Milley

KABUL nor the Afghan government can achieve a win on the battlefield, a top US military commander says.

Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, told reporters in Washington Friday the ongoing war would end only through a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The Military Times quoted him as rejecting recent reports that US army and government leaders had duped the public about the state of the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan.

“I don’t think anyone has died in vain … I could not look myself in the mirror. I couldn’t answer myself at two to three in the morning when my eyes pop open and see the dead roll in front of my eyes," Milley said.

The Washington Post published a trove of reports earlier in the month, claiming successive US administrations often painted a rosy picture and deceptive statistics to win political support for the war.

His view was endorsed by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who remarked: “It’s not like this war was hiding somewhere. The “insinuation that there’s been this large-scale conspiracy is just ridiculous.”