For immediate
release
13 September 2007
THE VIEW FROM AFGHANISTAN: MAKING
PROGRESS,
BUT RE-DEDICATION AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
REQUIRED
A delegation composed of six members of
the Defence and Security Committee (DSC) led by DSC Chairman Julio Miranda Calha
(Portugal) visited Afghanistan from September 2-7, 2007, and Dushanbe,
Tajikistan, on September 7-8, 2007. The group, composed of Members from
Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, the UK and the US, met with Afghan officials at the
national and local levels as well as members of the Afghan Parliament, visited
Provincial Reconstruction Teams in different areas of the country, and met with
the ISAF Commander and a number of his subordinates.
The delegation found that
visible progress had been made since the Committee’s last visit in May of
2006. For instance, Members remarked on the increased economic activity
visible on the streets of Kabul. Members were also encouraged by the good
work they saw performed by the several Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs)
they visited.
Members were especially encouraged by the excellent
performance of the Alliance’s personnel in Afghanistan, as well as that of our
partners fighting alongside NATO troops. Not only was Allied personnel
doing good work, but it was doing so in a remarkably successful multi-national
manner. NATO member states were demonstrating interoperability and
performing well.
On the other hand, the delegation also came away
with a strong concern regarding the critical tactical and strategic challenges
hampering efforts to secure and stabilize Afghanistan. The NATO mission
still suffers from a lack of personnel and assets, the delegation
assessed. While NATO forces are able to clear any given area of
insurgents, they do not have enough personnel to ‘backfill’ and hold a cleared
area after a successful operation. Nor are there enough trained and
capable Afghan National Security Forces to do the job independently. The
end result is the re-infiltration of cleared areas by insurgents, and an
inability by local populations to commit to actively support NATO and the
central government.
The most pressing needs
include: additional trainers to quicken the standing up of the Afghan
National Security Forces; additional theater-appropriate helicopters, an
absolutely necessity in the rugged terrain and great distances of Afghanistan;
and additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets,
critical for knowledge of the battlespace and a tool that contributes to
minimizing civilian casualties.
National caveats overall had been
significantly reduced since the Riga summit, and nations with forces in the
south, where most of the heavy fighting was taking place, did not have
significant restrictions. However, General McNeill, COMISAF, called
remaining caveats ‘vexing,’ stating that they still hampered his ability to
concentrate military mass when needed, with sufficient speed to make a
difference.
In the non-operational sphere, governance
problems continued to plague Afghanistan, a country that has been without
effective central government for the past 30 years. This is likely to
remain a primary obstacle to the reconstruction of the country for the
foreseeable future. Corruption, often linked to the surging drug trade,
crippled efforts at every level of government from, for example, the Ministry of
the Interior, to provincial governors, judges and police forces. Without
dramatic progress in these areas, the vision of a stable and democratic state,
responsive to the needs of the Afghan people, will remain unattainable.
The delegation concluded that perhaps the central
political/strategic problem facing NATO in Afghanistan was the absence of a
well-defined strategic vision for its presence there. While NATO has
successfully expanded its presence throughout the country, and while the
personnel on the ground is performing brilliantly at the tactical level, the
Alliance simply does not yet have a sufficiently explicit goal for what it wants
to achieve in collaboration with the Government of Afghanistan. Without
such a vision, our forces in Afghanistan will continue to perform their current
tasks with great success; they may not, however, succeed in creating the
fundamental conditions of security and stability necessary for the emergence of
an Afghan political solution.
Fundamentally, the delegation came
away with a sense that current efforts are making significant incremental
progress, but not at a rate that will ensure without doubt an acceptable end
state to our mission there. NATO must undertake a fundamental examination
and re-definition of its strategic vision for Afghanistan, and immediately
provide those resources (both human and financial) necessary to accomplish that
vision.
The delegation also took advantage of the visit to
hold meetings with Tajik and Allied officials in Dushanbe, Tajikistan September
7-8. NATO is developing a relationship with Tajikistan including
assistance with border policing at its 1,206 km-long shared border with
Afghanistan, the site of smuggling of narcotics, small arms, and other
contraband. Tajik officials expressed optimism that Afghanistan could
eventually become a strong commercial partner, principally as a potential
corridor for the transport of energy resources to Asia and Europe. The
delegation also toured the French military presence at Dushanbe, a major hub for
Allied transport into and out of Afghanistan, as well as the current location of
French Mirage fighter planes operating in support of international efforts in
Afghanistan. The impressive facilities were making an important
contribution to Allied operations, the delegation
learned.
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