A new report coming out of the New York Times tonight reveals that President Obama has signed a secret order dramatically expanding the scope of US military operations in Afghanistan in 2015.

Despite claims that the war is “ending” at the end of 2014, the new order will ensure that US ground troops will continue to carry out direct combat operations throughout 2015, and potentially beyond.

Obama had announced back in May that there would no combat role at all in 2015, and that the remaining troops, about 10,000 of them, would be limited to training Afghan forces.

There was said to have been a “heated debate” within the administration about this decision, which led to the secret order changing the policy back toward US troops in direct combat.

The Pentagon was said to have been the driving force behind the decision, with civilian leaders seeking to keep the war limited to “al-Qaeda remnants,” while the Pentagon wanted to get back to direct fighting against the Taliban.

As usual, the debate on US war policy was kept totally out of the public eye, and Americans were led to believe that the end of direct combat was indeed finalized, even though it was not the case.