By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 18, 2006
The British commander of the allied forces in Afghanistan said yesterday that his U.S. predecessors moved too quickly from the 2001 invasion to a "peacetime approach," allowing the ousted Taliban to regroup and stage a counteroffensive this year in the southern provinces.
Gen. David Richards, whose NATO command this month took control of the 31,000 allied troops in Afghanistan, said that in 2001, "the Taliban were defeated, weren't they? You know, wonderful work by a lot of people, mainly American and Afghan, and it looked pretty hunky-dory."
But the general told reporters at the Pentagon that the Taliban was able to regroup because American forces remained somewhat isolated. The Afghan army was not established to the point that it could fill security roles in Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace, and other southern towns.
"The benefit of hindsight, you know, we thought it was all done, success was there and we could adopt a sort of peacetime approach to it and didn't treat it as aggressively as a problem," he said. "Your forces were doing a great work, but they were almost in isolation because the Afghan army and police weren't there to help at that stage."
He said there also was a "disconnect" in what the U.S.-led humanitarian and reconstruction effort could provide and what the Afghan people expected.
"The Taliban exploited it," Gen. Richards said. "They exploited this sense of frustration amongst the people who just didn't see all the good things that have been talked about."
Asked about Gen. Richard's remarks, Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Associated Press, "It will take years of hard work by the Afghan people and the international community to reverse the effects of decades of occupation and civil war. Nonetheless, there has been significant economic growth and donor efforts to improve living conditions across the country."
Gen. Richards said the new tactic has been to retake control of Taliban areas, move in reconstruction programs and maintain a security presence. He is giving the allies six months to start showing the Afghans that they can expect better services and security. If not, the alliance risks losing the populace to the insurgents.
"I think that's why I'm optimistic that we have understood the issue broader, the way I've just analyzed, learned our lessons and now can take this forward aggressively to deliver on the promise," said Gen. Richards, who led British troops in strife-torn Northern Ireland. "I will now construct a security operation that allows that work to start and then will ensure a continuing level of security, so that it can go on."
The allies seemed caught off guard this spring, when the Taliban began surprise attacks on southern Afghan towns.
The coalition eventually poured more troops into the south and mounted major air and ground operations, routing the Taliban, whose spokesman conceded they had to retreat.
"We had to fight and fight we have," Gen. Richards said. "There is no doubt anymore that NATO can fight if and when it's required to do so, and it inflicted the biggest single defeat on the Taliban that had occurred since 2001."
NATO's new tactics played out this week in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province. Allied forces left the area after weeks of bloody fighting. Security will be handled by tribal chiefs and Afghan forces, with NATO on an emergency recall status.
Gen. Richards commands a force that includes troops from Britain, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark.
Showing posts with label U.S.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S.. Show all posts
Thursday, October 19, 2006
U.S. may have weeks, not months, to avert civil war, adviser warns
James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
With the violence in Iraq flaring dangerously, a national consensus is growing, even among senior Republicans, that the United States must consider a major change in strategy in the coming months.
But in a sign of the growing sense of urgency, a member of a high-powered government advisory body that is developing options to prevent Iraq's chaotic collapse warns that the United States could have just weeks, not months, to avoid an all-out civil war.
"There's a sense among many people now that things in Iraq are slipping fast and there isn't a lot of time to reverse them," said Larry Diamond, one of a panel of experts advising the Iraq Study Group, which is preparing a range of policy alternatives for President Bush.
"The civil war is already well along. We have no way of knowing if it's too late until we try a radically different course," said Diamond, an expert on building democracies who is at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and is a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
The co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, former Secretary of State James Baker, has already made headlines by saying that "stay the course" is no longer a viable strategy and that some kind of change will be required. The study group's final report is not due until after the November election, but Baker has insisted in several interviews over the past two weeks that the United States must place greater emphasis on diplomacy, including talks with avowed U.S. foes such as Syria and Iran, in an effort to stabilize Iraq. He has said the United States should place less emphasis on military force alone.
"I believe in talking to your enemies,'' Baker said in an interview on ABC. "'It's got to be hard-nosed, it's got to be determined. You don't give away anything, but in my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."
Baker's comments have been echoed by another prominent Republican, Virginia Sen. John Warner, the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. After a visit to Iraq, Warner said he believes a change in course might be required if the situation does not improve in the next two months. Two other Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, also have urged changes in policy.
Because it could lead to a major policy shift, the release of the study group's report could prove a critical event in the course of the war in Iraq.
Diamond said in an interview that he was expressing strictly his personal opinions, not necessarily those of the study group. He said he was prohibited by a confidentiality agreement from disclosing any of the group's internal discussions beyond what Baker himself has publicly provided.
But having studied the situation in Iraq closely almost from the time Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003, and having been involved in trying to build a functioning democracy there, Diamond said the one thing the United States might no longer have is time. The Bush administration needs to initiate a "crash program" to avoid a catastrophe, he said. A key element would include bringing in new U.S. leadership to rebuild America's battered credibility in Iraq and the region.
Diamond proposes a multipronged diplomatic strategy intended to woo secular groups away from extremists and to define a more equitable power-sharing arrangement within the fragile Iraqi government to build popular support.
If the Bush administration does not move rapidly in this direction and the violence continues to rise, Diamond said he fears Iraq's central government could be overthrown or collapse and the Iraqi military might disintegrate, leaving heavily armed militias controlled by the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis in a bloody struggle for power. The already heavy civilian death toll could soar still higher, dragging Iraq's neighbors into the chaos, he said.
The result, Diamond warned, could be the transformation of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province west of Baghdad into a zone effectively controlled by Islamic extremists, filled with terrorist training camps.
"What worries me more than any other single thing," Diamond said, "is if the country does effectively get broken up through a civil war -- and Anbar province, where most of the Sunnis live, becomes what Afghanistan was before 9/11."
At best, Diamond said, it appears the United States has a few months to implement a new strategy. He added, though, that an atrocity by an Iraqi group -- such as the bombing of the Askariya shrine, sacred to Shiites, in Samarra in February -- could trigger a cycle of retaliation that might spin out of control and give the United States even less time to act.
The first step the Bush administration should take is to renounce any plan to maintain permanent U.S. military bases in the country, said Diamond. Polls inside the country have shown that the vast majority of Iraqis fear that the secret U.S. aim is to continue to occupy Iraq and control its oil, a view that has fueled the insurgency.
The administration should simultaneously open discussions with the Sunnis, the Kurds and the Shiites aimed at instituting previously discussed revisions to the Iraqi Constitution to ensure that the minority Sunnis obtain a fair share of political power and an equitable portion of Iraq's oil wealth. Even insurgents should be part of the dialogue, he said.
"We need to have comprehensive, intensive, serious negotiations with the insurgents," Diamond said.
Diamond suggested that Baker, or another elder statesmen from outside the Bush White House, might be a good candidate to lead the effort.
"That's the only thing that's going to demonstrate that we're really changing course," said Diamond.
A fair arrangement, Diamond said, could peel away secular Sunnis from jihadi extremists, providing a firmer base of support for the Iraqi government. Those discussions, Diamond said, need to involve the United Nations, the European Union and other Arab governments in the region.
The United States should also announce plans for a flexible drawdown of troops over a period of from 18 months to 3 years, he said. Some troops should be redeployed to other countries in the region, such as Kuwait and Qatar, to ensure that the United States can respond swiftly to any crises, but a substantial number should return to their U.S. bases, he said.
And a large number of those troops should be sent to Afghanistan, Diamond added, to combat the Taliban resurgence there.
He emphasized that the Iraq plan should be flexible so that, if things stabilize, the troops can leave earlier or the drawdown can be slowed if violence flares.
"That's the only way of inducing the competing Iraqi political forces to take responsibility for the future of their country," he said.
As long as U.S. troops are seen as the sole guarantor of some level of stability, Diamond argued, Iraqi politicians will continue to stake out extreme positions and compete for all the power and wealth they can gain for their constituencies, without any sense that they need to build compromises to bring about stability on their own.
Diamond stressed that the Bush administration has to move forward on all these different tracks simultaneously, in part because they are interconnected and in part because there is no time to wait for the resolution of one issue before moving on to the next.
"This is the fourth quarter, there's two minutes left in the game, and we're down two touchdowns," said Diamond. "There may not be enough time left."
E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
With the violence in Iraq flaring dangerously, a national consensus is growing, even among senior Republicans, that the United States must consider a major change in strategy in the coming months.
But in a sign of the growing sense of urgency, a member of a high-powered government advisory body that is developing options to prevent Iraq's chaotic collapse warns that the United States could have just weeks, not months, to avoid an all-out civil war.
"There's a sense among many people now that things in Iraq are slipping fast and there isn't a lot of time to reverse them," said Larry Diamond, one of a panel of experts advising the Iraq Study Group, which is preparing a range of policy alternatives for President Bush.
"The civil war is already well along. We have no way of knowing if it's too late until we try a radically different course," said Diamond, an expert on building democracies who is at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and is a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
The co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, former Secretary of State James Baker, has already made headlines by saying that "stay the course" is no longer a viable strategy and that some kind of change will be required. The study group's final report is not due until after the November election, but Baker has insisted in several interviews over the past two weeks that the United States must place greater emphasis on diplomacy, including talks with avowed U.S. foes such as Syria and Iran, in an effort to stabilize Iraq. He has said the United States should place less emphasis on military force alone.
"I believe in talking to your enemies,'' Baker said in an interview on ABC. "'It's got to be hard-nosed, it's got to be determined. You don't give away anything, but in my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."
Baker's comments have been echoed by another prominent Republican, Virginia Sen. John Warner, the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. After a visit to Iraq, Warner said he believes a change in course might be required if the situation does not improve in the next two months. Two other Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, also have urged changes in policy.
Because it could lead to a major policy shift, the release of the study group's report could prove a critical event in the course of the war in Iraq.
Diamond said in an interview that he was expressing strictly his personal opinions, not necessarily those of the study group. He said he was prohibited by a confidentiality agreement from disclosing any of the group's internal discussions beyond what Baker himself has publicly provided.
But having studied the situation in Iraq closely almost from the time Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003, and having been involved in trying to build a functioning democracy there, Diamond said the one thing the United States might no longer have is time. The Bush administration needs to initiate a "crash program" to avoid a catastrophe, he said. A key element would include bringing in new U.S. leadership to rebuild America's battered credibility in Iraq and the region.
Diamond proposes a multipronged diplomatic strategy intended to woo secular groups away from extremists and to define a more equitable power-sharing arrangement within the fragile Iraqi government to build popular support.
If the Bush administration does not move rapidly in this direction and the violence continues to rise, Diamond said he fears Iraq's central government could be overthrown or collapse and the Iraqi military might disintegrate, leaving heavily armed militias controlled by the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis in a bloody struggle for power. The already heavy civilian death toll could soar still higher, dragging Iraq's neighbors into the chaos, he said.
The result, Diamond warned, could be the transformation of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province west of Baghdad into a zone effectively controlled by Islamic extremists, filled with terrorist training camps.
"What worries me more than any other single thing," Diamond said, "is if the country does effectively get broken up through a civil war -- and Anbar province, where most of the Sunnis live, becomes what Afghanistan was before 9/11."
At best, Diamond said, it appears the United States has a few months to implement a new strategy. He added, though, that an atrocity by an Iraqi group -- such as the bombing of the Askariya shrine, sacred to Shiites, in Samarra in February -- could trigger a cycle of retaliation that might spin out of control and give the United States even less time to act.
The first step the Bush administration should take is to renounce any plan to maintain permanent U.S. military bases in the country, said Diamond. Polls inside the country have shown that the vast majority of Iraqis fear that the secret U.S. aim is to continue to occupy Iraq and control its oil, a view that has fueled the insurgency.
The administration should simultaneously open discussions with the Sunnis, the Kurds and the Shiites aimed at instituting previously discussed revisions to the Iraqi Constitution to ensure that the minority Sunnis obtain a fair share of political power and an equitable portion of Iraq's oil wealth. Even insurgents should be part of the dialogue, he said.
"We need to have comprehensive, intensive, serious negotiations with the insurgents," Diamond said.
Diamond suggested that Baker, or another elder statesmen from outside the Bush White House, might be a good candidate to lead the effort.
"That's the only thing that's going to demonstrate that we're really changing course," said Diamond.
A fair arrangement, Diamond said, could peel away secular Sunnis from jihadi extremists, providing a firmer base of support for the Iraqi government. Those discussions, Diamond said, need to involve the United Nations, the European Union and other Arab governments in the region.
The United States should also announce plans for a flexible drawdown of troops over a period of from 18 months to 3 years, he said. Some troops should be redeployed to other countries in the region, such as Kuwait and Qatar, to ensure that the United States can respond swiftly to any crises, but a substantial number should return to their U.S. bases, he said.
And a large number of those troops should be sent to Afghanistan, Diamond added, to combat the Taliban resurgence there.
He emphasized that the Iraq plan should be flexible so that, if things stabilize, the troops can leave earlier or the drawdown can be slowed if violence flares.
"That's the only way of inducing the competing Iraqi political forces to take responsibility for the future of their country," he said.
As long as U.S. troops are seen as the sole guarantor of some level of stability, Diamond argued, Iraqi politicians will continue to stake out extreme positions and compete for all the power and wealth they can gain for their constituencies, without any sense that they need to build compromises to bring about stability on their own.
Diamond stressed that the Bush administration has to move forward on all these different tracks simultaneously, in part because they are interconnected and in part because there is no time to wait for the resolution of one issue before moving on to the next.
"This is the fourth quarter, there's two minutes left in the game, and we're down two touchdowns," said Diamond. "There may not be enough time left."
E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
U.S., Japan differ with China on NKorean sanctions
By Evelyn Leopold and Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States and Japan on Wednesday met resistance from China in their push for tough U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its reported nuclear test, Security Council members said.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, speaking as major powers negotiated a range of sanctions, said he hoped to circulate a revised text soon and hoped it would be adopted on Friday but acknowledged "there were a number of disagreements."
Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, this month's council president, said China was willing to impose some punitive measures "but in our view we would have to ask them to make further efforts."
The position of Beijing, which has huge influence on the reclusive Communist state as its most important political and economic ally, was critical.
In the past it has opposed sanctions as a way to curb North Korea's nuclear program but China has agreed to some punitive measures if they are narrowly focussed on dangerous weapons.
One controversial provision in the U.S.-drafted resolution, was authorization for international inspections of cargo moving into and out of North Korea to detect weapons-related material.
Diplomats said China had rejected this.
Interdiction would help U.S. efforts to stop the transport of dangerous weapons. Washington fears North Korea, which has been a big supplier of missiles to some countries hostile to the United States, might make nuclear weapons available to other countries or groups.
In 2002, the United States and the Spanish navy had to release a seized vessel that was carrying 15 Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen, because there was no provision under international law prohibiting it.
NONMILITARY SANCTIONS
China also wants the resolution to refer to a provision in Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, known as Article 41, which would authorize only nonmilitary sanctions. "I think Article 41 serves our purpose," Ambassador Wang Guangya said.
The U.S. draft is under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which covers sanctions and even military force, providing the Security Council designates specific action.
But since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, nations fear that invoking Chapter 7 could automatically open the way for force, even if the council has not authorized it.
"We think the fact that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test does amount to a clear threat to international peace and security and warrants action under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter as well as a variety of strong measures," Bolton said.
The draft also calls for an arms embargo, a freeze on any transfer or development of weapons of mass destruction and a ban on luxury goods. And it would impose financial sanctions targeted at ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
In an effort to defuse the crisis, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Washington to hold bilateral talks with North Korea, which it refuses to do.
"The U.S. and North Korea should talk," Annan said. "I've always argued that we should talk to parties whose behaviour we want to change, whose behaviour we want to influence."
In Washington, Bush again rejected bilateral talks.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States and Japan on Wednesday met resistance from China in their push for tough U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its reported nuclear test, Security Council members said.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, speaking as major powers negotiated a range of sanctions, said he hoped to circulate a revised text soon and hoped it would be adopted on Friday but acknowledged "there were a number of disagreements."
Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, this month's council president, said China was willing to impose some punitive measures "but in our view we would have to ask them to make further efforts."
The position of Beijing, which has huge influence on the reclusive Communist state as its most important political and economic ally, was critical.
In the past it has opposed sanctions as a way to curb North Korea's nuclear program but China has agreed to some punitive measures if they are narrowly focussed on dangerous weapons.
One controversial provision in the U.S.-drafted resolution, was authorization for international inspections of cargo moving into and out of North Korea to detect weapons-related material.
Diplomats said China had rejected this.
Interdiction would help U.S. efforts to stop the transport of dangerous weapons. Washington fears North Korea, which has been a big supplier of missiles to some countries hostile to the United States, might make nuclear weapons available to other countries or groups.
In 2002, the United States and the Spanish navy had to release a seized vessel that was carrying 15 Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen, because there was no provision under international law prohibiting it.
NONMILITARY SANCTIONS
China also wants the resolution to refer to a provision in Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, known as Article 41, which would authorize only nonmilitary sanctions. "I think Article 41 serves our purpose," Ambassador Wang Guangya said.
The U.S. draft is under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which covers sanctions and even military force, providing the Security Council designates specific action.
But since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, nations fear that invoking Chapter 7 could automatically open the way for force, even if the council has not authorized it.
"We think the fact that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test does amount to a clear threat to international peace and security and warrants action under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter as well as a variety of strong measures," Bolton said.
The draft also calls for an arms embargo, a freeze on any transfer or development of weapons of mass destruction and a ban on luxury goods. And it would impose financial sanctions targeted at ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
In an effort to defuse the crisis, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Washington to hold bilateral talks with North Korea, which it refuses to do.
"The U.S. and North Korea should talk," Annan said. "I've always argued that we should talk to parties whose behaviour we want to change, whose behaviour we want to influence."
In Washington, Bush again rejected bilateral talks.
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