Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

U.S. Officials Offer Dismal Review of War in Afghanistan

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • U.S. Officials Offer Dismal Review of War in Afghanistan

    Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. The US and Nato will still have a long drawn out war there.

    U.S. Officials Offer Dismal Review of War in Afghanistan

    MUNICH, Feb. 8 (WashingtonPost) -- President Obama's national security team gave a dire assessment Sunday of the war in Afghanistan, with one member calling it a challenge "much tougher than Iraq" and others hinting that it could take years to turn around.

    U.S. officials said more troops were urgently needed, both from the United States and its NATO allies, to counter the increasing strength of the Taliban and other warlords opposed to the central government in Kabul. But they also said new approaches were needed to untangle an inefficient and conflicting array of civilian-aid programs that have wasted billions of dollars.

    "NATO's future is on the line here," Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told an international security conference here. "It's going to be a long, difficult struggle. In my view, it's going to be much tougher than Iraq."

    Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, said the war in Afghanistan "has deteriorated markedly in the past two years" and warned of a "downward spiral of security."

    In addition to more combat troops, Petraeus called for "a surge in civilian capacity" to help rebuild villages, train local police forces, tackle corruption in the Afghan government and reduce the country's thriving opium trade. He also suggested that the odds of success were low, given that foreign military powers have historically met with defeat in Afghanistan. ...

  • #2
    US President Barack Obama's envoy to Afghanistan has said that winning the conflict there will be "much tougher" than in Iraq.

    Richard Holbrooke told a conference in Munich: "I have never seen anything like the mess we have inherited."

    Nato defence ministers at the security conference differed on whether the focus should be military or civilian.

    The architect of the US surge in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, urged measures for Afghanistan similar to those in Iraq.

    He warned Afghanistan was likely to get harder before things improved and called for a future change in tactics.

    Gen Petraeus, the top US commander in the region, was clearly borrowing on lessons learned from Iraq, the BBC's Rob Watson reports from the security conference.

    In future US forces would live and work more closely with ordinary Afghans. More effort would be made to promote local reconciliation and good government, the general added.

    Two US soldiers were killed along with an Afghan interpreter and a policeman when a bomb they were trying to disarm exploded in Helmand Province on Sunday.

    'Long struggle'

    The Obama administration is stressing that it is still reviewing its Afghan policy.


    But Ambassador Holbrooke told the conference that Washington would be working under the principle that Pakistan and others in the region would have to be part of the solution to Afghanistan's problems.

    "What is required in my view is new ideas, better coordination within the US government, better coordination with our Nato allies and other concerned countries, and the time to get it right," he said.

    The envoy, who is to embark on a tour of the region soon, also said: "It is like no other problem we have confronted, and in my view it's going to be much tougher than Iraq.

    "It is going to be a long, difficult struggle."

    Pressure for reinforcements

    Gen James Jones, the new US national security adviser, told reporters at the conference that a planned doubling in the number of US troops in Afghanistan to about 60,000 was not in itself enough.


    "The troops alone will not be sufficient and we have to... engage in the broad spectrum of things," he said.

    "I want to stress that it's the cohesion of the international effort that has to be better put together in order to be successful."

    America has long been pushing its Nato allies to increase their troop numbers in Afghanistan and UK Defence Secretary John Hutton raised the need for "burden-sharing", without naming any particular nation.

    "Combat forces, that is a most precious contribution right now to that campaign," he said.

    "We kid ourselves if we imagine that other contributions are as important."

    However, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, whose country is a major troop contributor in Afghanistan, insisted that civil reconstruction was as important as the military effort.

    He said that Berlin thought its existing troop commitment - about 3,500 with plans to raise the number to 4,500 - was adequate.

    The current Nato strength in Afghanistan is approximately 55,000, including US soldiers.

    Karzai appeal

    Also speaking at the Munich conference, Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeated his call for elements of the Taleban to return to Afghanistan as part of a process of reconciliation before elections later this year.

    This may well be part of Mr Karzai's own electioneering tactics, our correspondent says.

    With his own reputation badly damaged these days, he also launched a strong defence of the Afghan government in front of an audience comprised of many of his critics in the international community, Rob Watson notes.

    Although he admitted his government suffered from corruption, he laid much of the blame for the country's problems on a lack of coordination among the international organisations supposedly trying to help Afghanistan.



    Story from BBC NEWS:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...ia/7877505.stm

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Merlin View Post
      Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. The US and Nato will still have a long drawn out war there.
      NATO is not an empire, it is a alliance and the US are a part of that alliance.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by gabriel View Post
        NATO is not an empire, it is a alliance and the US are a part of that alliance.
        Of course we know that. It is just an old saying, and anyway, 'empire' is not the point of this thread.

        This point below is however disturbing to NATO and to the US.

        "NATO's future is on the line here," Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told an international security conference here. "It's going to be a long, difficult struggle. In my view, it's going to be much tougher than Iraq."
        Last edited by Merlin; 09 Feb 09,, 02:56.

        Comment


        • #5
          Afghanistan is a much, much more difficult conflict to win than Iraq ever was. Obama could go from near god status amongst Americans to worse than Bush quick if people base approval ratings on number of troops killed. The terrain is more difficult to navigate, more people/troops to content with, all of whom are better armed and more determined to fight back.

          I'm curious to know how Obama will conduct an offensive there. At least Gen Petraeus is in charge, but no mere surge will win this part of the war.

          Comment


          • #6
            Here's more information on the new thinking of Obama and his team towards Afghanistan.

            Obama team outlines 'new realism' for Afghanistan

            US strategy will focus on 'winning hearts, minds and stomachs'

            8 Feb 2008 (Guardian) The Obama administration today today outlined a new campaign strategy for the war in Afghanistan, scaling back the ambitions of George Bush in a shift which senior officials and diplomats described as a "new realism".

            Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama's new envoy for Afghanistan, General James Jones, the new White House national security adviser, and General David Petraeus, the new commander of the Afghan campaign, all stressed that the US president's policy on the Taliban and al-Qaida would be governed by "attainable goals" matched by "adequate resources".

            In the first major foreign policy speech from the new administration, the vice-president, Joe Biden, told a security conference in Munich that the strategic review on Afghanistan under way in Washington would "make sure that our goals are clear and achievable".

            Notable by its absence in any of the speeches from the American team was any mention of building democracy in Afghanistan. Instead, the emphasis was on creating sustainable security to try to prevent the Taliban from extending their grip on the country.

            "Obama's objectives will be much more moderate," said a senior European policy-maker involved in discussions with the Obama team. A senior Nato official said Washington's emphasis on Afghanistan was shifting to "being much more realistic", adding: "It doesn't need to be a democracy, just secure."

            "The new policy will be not just winning hearts and minds, but winning hearts, minds, and stomachs," said another senior diplomat working in Kabul. "It's realistic. Realism is good."

            The Obama team and Nato leaders are due to finalise a "comprehensive" review of the Afghan strategy by April when the US president arrives in Europe for a Nato summit in France and Germany.

            "Barack Obama is a pragmatist. He knows we must deal with the world as it is," said Jones. He added that there had been a "failure to harmonise" the various strands of the campaign in Afghanistan. The new policy would place greater emphasis on "going beyond military capacity" to dealing with good governance, judicial reform, a focus on the police, and the "war on drugs".

            General John Craddock, the Nato commander, said alliance forces in Afghanistan would launch attacks on opium and heroin cartels "within a few days", ...

            Comment

            Working...
            X