McCHRYSTAL IN TROUBLE !

[GUNNER]

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2010 (AFP) - US President Barack Obama faced calls on Thursday to follow the sacking of his commander in the Afghan war with a shake-up of the diplomatic team, amid strained military-civilian relations.

A day after General Stanley McChrystal was forced to step down from the Kabul command, some lawmakers and commentators argued for the replacement of US civilian envoys, saying it would shore up ties with the Afghan government and put an end to damaging in-fighting within the administration.

McChrystal's disdainful remarks to a magazine about the US envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, and the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, led to his abrupt exit, but also underlined signs of a toxic relationship between the military commander and his civilian counterparts.

"The civilian side is, in my view, completely dysfunctional," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Wednesday.

"I would urge the president to look at this as a chance to put new people on the ground without old baggage. And if we don't change quickly, we're going to lose a war we can't afford to lose," he said.

Graham was one of three hawkish senators who quickly demanded a clean sweep, saying too much was at stake to allow turf wars to drag on.

Senator John McCain on Thursday praised the appointment of General David Petraeus to take over in Kabul, but told ABC television "we also need a new team over there as well -- perhaps at the embassy and other areas."

Both Holbrooke and Eikenberry have taken a tough line towards Afghan President Hamid Karzai over allegations of widespread government corruption, and some critics say they have lost influence with Kabul as a result.

"Neither Holbrooke nor Eikenberry has a functional working relationship with President Karzai -- Holbrooke because of his early efforts to find a replacement for Karzai during the Afghan election, and Eikenberry because of leaked cables in which he stated that he did not believe Karzai to be an adequate partner," commentator Alexander Benard wrote on the website of the respected National Review magazine.

"So Eikenberry and Holbrooke no longer have any sway over Karzai, and they are not capable of effectively serving as intermediaries between him and President Obama."

There was no immediate sign from the White House that Obama was prepared to relieve top civilians shaping Afghan policy. But the US president did issue a stern warning Wednesday against any more back-biting on his Afghan team.
Skeptics of the US-led war in Afghanistan say the military has been given too prominent a role in diplomacy, and that the top US civilians have pinpointed the weak link in Washington's strategy -- the Kabul government.

Holbrooke has conveyed a "tough love" message to Karzai and Eikenberry has rightfully questioned if the Afghan leader was a reliable partner, Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, told The Cable blog.

But when the Obama administration chose to take a less confrontational approach to Karzai in recent months, Holbrooke and Eikenberry were sidelined, said Galbraith.

"Unfortunately, as part of his love offensive, Obama made a mistake in letting Karzai choose his interlocutor," said Galbraith, who was fired from his UN post after alleging his superiors covered up electoral fraud in the presidential polls last year.

Galbraith echoed comments from some on the left that the US government should rely on its diplomats and not generals to communicate its policies.
"The president needs to make clear that it is the ambassador that speaks for the US and the commanding general is not the one who is making US policy."

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

McChrystal: Gone and Soon Forgotten

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, June 23, 2010, at 4:36 PM ET

President Barack Obama has accomplished what many might have thought impossible just a few hours earlier. He has fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, his combat commander in Afghanistan, in such a way that not only will the general go unmissed but his name will likely soon be forgotten.

Obama's decision to replace McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus is a stroke of brilliance, an unassailable move, politically and strategically.

On a political level, McChrystal has many fans inside Congress and the military, but Petraeus has orders of magnitude more. No one could accuse Obama of compromising the war effort, knowing that Petraeus is stepping in.

On a strategic level, while McChrystal designed the U.S. military policy in Afghanistan, Petraeus is its ur-architect. Petraeus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency strategy while McChrystal was still running the black-bag hunter-killers of the special-ops command.

Petraeus has also spent the last year and a half as head of U.S. Central Command, supervising military operations throughout the Persian Gulf and central Asia, including Afghanistan. McChrystal has built relations with political and military leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Petraeus has been building the same relations, plus some.

Those who might have expected a scaling back in the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan will, and should, be disappointed. In his Rose Garden speech this afternoon, Obama made the point explicitly: "This is a change in personnel," he said, "but it is not a change in policy."

One of those who might be disappointed in this remark—and in the naming of Petraeus as McChrystal's replacement—is Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone article that triggered this chain of events.

The last, and less-noticed, part of the article, which was called "The Runaway General," not only amounted to a critique of the whole idea of counterinsurgency but also suggested that President Obama bought into the concept, ensnared by the wily Gen. McChrystal, without grasping its full implications.

Hastings made this claim explicitly in an interview aired Tuesday on NPR's The Takeaway. "President Obama has lost control of the Afghan war policy, and I believe he lost control of it almost a year ago," Hastings said. Obama, he continued, "did not know what he was getting into when he announced the hiring of McChrystal and then also the sending of 21,000 troops, because immediately months later, he was asked to send 40,000 more. … And that, obviously, was shocking to President Obama because last year it took his, you know, there was this three-month review period."

I have heard from some on the inside that Obama hadn't focused so deeply on Afghanistan when he decided in March 2009 to send in 21,000 extra troops. Hastings is also right that Obama was initially surprised to receive the request for another 40,000. However, during the "three-month review period," which climaxed in his approval of 30,000 additional troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy, Obama came to understand fully what he was getting into, its risks, and its opportunity. It's absurd to suggest that McChrystal or anybody else maneuvered him onto the road he wound up taking.

For better or for worse, this is Obama's war. His differences with McChrystal had nothing to do with policy.

The war and the counterinsurgency strategy are, clearly, not going very well. Yet it was always extremely unlikely that Obama would change course, at least not until December, when his commanders are scheduled to conduct a comprehensive assessment of their progress. Firing McChrystal was bound to make many important players—U.S. troops and their officers, allied commanders, and the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan—wonder about Obama's commitment to the strategy. Replacing McChrystal with Petraeus should allay those worries, as well as frustrate the strategy's critics and perhaps the Taliban insurgents, too.

Petraeus is taking a demotion, from commander of the entire region, to take this post. One can imagine Obama's sales pitch, telling the general that he's the only American who could take over from McChrystal without any need to work up to speed and, therefore, without causing further delays in the (already much-slowed-down) military operation. It's the sort of pitch that Petraeus would have a hard time turning down, in part out of a sense of duty, in part because he, too, has a personal and professional stake in the mission's success.

By taking the assignment, Petraeus also gains enormous leverage, should he decide to use it. A year ago, Obama, at the urging of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, relieved Gen. David McKiernan of command in Afghanistan in order to hire Gen. McChrystal, who seemed more suitable for the new strategy. Obama would find it extremely difficult to fire Petraeus, who is much more of a household name, a year hence, even if he had good reason to do so.

The good news is that Petraeus and his entourage have displayed, over the years, nothing of the contempt for civilian control that the Rolling Stone piece revealed was running rampant in McChrystal's shop. (One Pentagon official, who knows both generals, said yesterday, well before it was clear that McChrystal would go, much less who would replace him, "It's unimaginable that Petraeus and his people would act this way, even without a reporter standing around.") Petraeus is much more disciplined, much more politically attuned, in every sense of the phrase.

One question still open is whether McChrystal's is but the first shoe to drop. In his Rose Garden speech, Obama emphasized the need for "unity of effort" within the U.S. national-security team and across the multinational alliance. Given McChrystal's trash talk toward both, Obama said he couldn't achieve that unity, and thus couldn't meet success in Afghanistan, "without making this change."

Still, canning McChrystal doesn't end the dysfunctional disunity that has plagued the war effort for many months. The U.S. ambassador, Gen. Karl Eikenberry, is on record as stating that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is an unsuitable partner for a counterinsurgency campaign. He may be right—he almost certainly is right—but, since counterinsurgency cannot succeed without a suitable partner heading the national government, Eikenberry is in essence disagreeing with the policy. His relations with McChrystal were exacerbated by the fact that the two men are longtime rivals; but those personal animosities clouded a professional tension that is probably untenable. If U.S. policy isn't going to change, Eikenberry, too, should go.

Richard Holbrooke should be sent packing, as well. He's the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but after he screamed at Karzai at one of their meetings, he's no longer welcome at the palace in Kabul. (It took a trip by Sen. John Kerry and 300 cups of tea to settle the Afghan president down.) Holbrooke would have been canned a while ago, were it not for special pleading by his immediate boss and longtime friend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But, as Obama said today, "War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president." He should expand the list to include "a special envoy."

A final word: On Tuesday, I predicted that Obama would stick with McChrystal, in part because the general's dissings of civilian authority didn't extend to a dispute over policy, in part because losing him as commander might be seen as jeopardizing the mission. It turns out that the president took his constitutional responsibilities, and his obligations as commander in chief, more seriously than I thought he might—and figured out a way to do so without compromising the mission in the slightest. Who wouldn't be impressed?

Wait till the next US elections when he will Speak out as Afghan war will be a big issue .

 

[fatman17]

AMERICAS, THE
Date Posted: 24-Jun-2010


Jane's Defence Weekly

McChrystal replaced by Petraeus as ISAF chief

Daniel Wasserbly JDW Staff Reporter - Washington, DC

Key Points
ISAF chief General Stanley McChrystal has been relieved of his command for pejorative comments in a magazine article

General David Petraeus has been nominated to take over military leadership in Afghanistan


US President Barack Obama announced on 23 June that he had accepted the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, because of insubordination.

Obama nominated as a replacement General David Petraeus, who currently heads US Central Command and is often credited with successfully implementing counterinsurgency strategy as commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

Gen McChrystal and his staff were quoted in Rolling Stone magazine speaking derisively about Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden.

The article also includes quotes from Gen McChrystal's staff harshly criticising senior administration officials such as US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and National Security Advisor Jim Jones.

The US Uniform Code of Military Justice calls for the punishment of any officer who uses "contemptuous words" against the president or other senior administration members. Obama said Gen McChrystal's behavior did not "meet the standard for a commanding general".

Obama added: "This is a change in personnel but this is not a change in policy." He said that Gen Petraeus had fully participated in an Afghan strategy review in 2009 and "both supported and helped design" the currently employed strategy.

However, changing the command of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan at this point in the war could result in some setbacks or controversy, particularly in the run-up to a major offensive in Kandahar and as violence continues to increase in the country.

A population-centric counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan has been in place for about a year and the additional 'surge' of 30,000 troops called for by Gen McChrystal and sanctioned by Obama has not fully arrived. Moreover, an operation to push Taliban and insurgent forces out of Kandahar - billed by the US as a critically important mission - is facing delays.

Replacing Gen McChrystal now means the US has changed its command in Afghanistan three times during the past three years. Gen Petraeus is also likely to need time to re-establish a relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

A spokesman for Karzai said the Afghan president had contacted Obama to express "confidence" in Gen McChrystal and his concern that a leadership change could be harmful to ISAF operations. Karzai and Gen McChrystal were known to have a good relationship.

The Rolling Stone article has also highlighted discord within Obama's national security team for Afghanistan. Specifically, it has reignited anxiety in the US regarding distrust or infighting between Holbrooke and Eikenberry on the one hand and ISAF on the other.

Meanwhile, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the UK's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, resigned over policy differences on 21 June.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in May 2009 recommended Gen McChrystal to replace General David McKiernan, then the top general in Afghanistan, who was seen as a capable commander but was not achieving results fast enough. At the time Gates said new military leadership was needed to implement a new strategy.

Gen McChrystal was appointed ISAF commander in June 2009. He submitted a strategic reassessment of ISAF operations to Gates on 30 August 2009 that warned that "failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum" could see the mission fail within 12 months. Subsequent adoption of the general's new population-centric strategy has been credited with significantly reducing the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

From 2006 to 2008 Gen McChrystal headed Joint Special Operations Command Forward, where he was responsible for tracking and engaging high-priority insurgent and Al-Qaeda targets in Iraq.

Obama urged the Senate to quickly confirm Gen Petraeus for his new command in Afghanistan. The four-star general is well known in Washington from his time in Iraq and is largely viewed as a popular commander.

 

[Mansanpk2009]

McChrystal The Victim

There were some more factors which lead to eventual demise of McChrystal's position in the war on terror

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

The general in his labyrinth

By Thomas Ruttig

Update: U.S. President Barack Obama relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his post as top U.S. commander in Afghanistan in Wednesday, replacing him with Gen. David Petraeus. Obama described his decision as a “a change in personnel but ... not a change in policy.” Before the decision was made, Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network filed this dispatch from Kabul arguing that whoever’s in charge, it’s that policy that needs changing.

Great, General, that was really helpful! The austere, Bud Light Lime-only, non-plus-ultra ‘Jedi’ commander has spoken to the Rolling Stone, him and his population-centric "handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs" (and gay-haters, as the author of the famous Rolling Stone story cautiously implies), badmouthing people with whom they should be working. The Boss is "angry," says the BBC. Result: Everyone within the Beltway, i.e. the whole world, is speculating whether The General will be MacArthured. Think tankers are already demanding his head. That seems to be what really what matters. Not Afghanistan.

The Boss should be angry -- or better: concerned -- about something else: here, on the ground, things are on fire. Violence is even increasing, ‘attributable,’ as the latest UN report on Afghanistan puts it, "to an increase of military operations in the southern region during the first quarter of 2010" but also to the Taliban’s counter-surge. A government lacking legitimacy by half-way decent elections, apparently concerned mainly for their families’ and friends’ business interests and even considering an unprincipled embrace of the insurgent leaders in order to cling to power, is creating fears of an all-Pashtun coalition, deepening the ethnic divide, acutely risking the alienation of half of the population for good while, by the same action, strengthening warlord rule in the North even further. The U.S. military is happily looking forward to the withdrawal of the ‘sissy Dutch’ and Canadians so that they can ‘kick ***’ and dismantle all the cautiously built respect with local tribal leaders who straddle the blurred frontline between ‘us and them.’ And finally, Pakistan leading the U.S. and its Kabul ally by the nose -- having made clear that a political settlement will only happen on ISI terms.

Actually, from the start, it didn’t look like the brilliant new U.S. strategy was working. Has anyone, including The General, really expected that he could bomb and black-op the Taliban to shreds, in Marjah, that "bleeding ulcer," Kandahar or elsewhere while there still is an unchanged, predatory government in place in the provinces? (Probably they did, considering their successes in Ramadi and Falluja.) With figures at the top of the government who are regularly visited by the top-most U.S. military and civilians or bolstered with contracts worth millions, while there is full knowledge (not only since the latest congressional report, ‘Warlord, Inc.’) that are involved in all kinds of stuff that undermines the ‘nation-building’ which, according to some, the US is still attempting in Afghanistan? Remember all the media stories from Uruzgan, Spin Boldak, Kandahar and the forgotten one from Kunduz (only mentioned so that we do not forget that this is not only about the south).

This strategy has been too little too late from the start. Hearts and minds were lost long ago across Afghanistan and they cannot be won back by throwing money at them. See the -- really -- brilliant Andrew Wilder, deservingly quoted in the Rolling Stone story: "A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we’re picking winners and losers." And The General’s strategy has another major flaw: It is dominated by the military. It "cannot by itself create governance reform," as CFR’s Stephen Biddle puts it in the same Rolling Stone story. Remember that also outgoing Kai Eide had warned against a ‘militarization’ of ‘our’ effort in Afghanistan?

For most Afghans who usually do not read Newsweek or the Rolling Stone, The General was just another general saying what other generals have said before. What reason could they have that he would actually change things? Yes, the percentage of civilian casualties caused by the NATO troops went down but still The General tells his black ops guys, as the Rolling Stone relates, "[y]ou better be out there hitting four or five targets tonight" but that he also will "have to scold you in the morning for it." Only joking?

At the same time, all his Special Forces and Local Defence militias, not to mention the ANA and ANP, are not able to save the lives of those who are supposed to be building on the military ‘successes’: Kandahar’s deputy mayor Azizullah Yarmal, Abdul Majid Babai the head of the province’s culture and information department, Abdul Jabbar the district governor of Arghandab and Haji Abdul Hai an Abdul Rahman Tokhi the tribal elders -- all killed in the past few months. Not to talk about Matiullah Qate the provincial police chief killed by the thugs of a guy who calls himself the ‘Nancy Pelosi of Kandahar’ and the uncounted other Afghans. In Kabul, committed Afghans are discussing whether they should pack their bags again and leave. Even in the North, people mentally prepare for a possible return of the Taliban. Meanwhile, the ‘strategic communication’ people try to alter the ‘negative’ narrative into a direction even they themselves probably do not believe in.

Furthermore, the question again comes up (as put to me by al-Jazeera yesterday) whether Karzai has been ‘the right man’ to work with. I did not give them my bad-mood answer that even a combination of Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Jesus Christ reborn couldn’t have pulled the thing off singlehandedly.

Wrong question: It’s the system, stupid.

The over-centralized, presidential, non-prime minister system created in God’s -- pardon, the U.S. system’s -- own likeness, resulting in a sidelined parliament, a non-impartial Supreme Court, the lack of a Constitutional Court and, not least, a marginalized civil society and democratic forces.

During all the fuss between the Karzai-bashing Obama pre-election team and the Karzai-endorsing Obama post-elections team and all the policy reviews, the moment was missed when the whole thing could possibly have been stopped: when it became clear during the voter registration for the 2009 election that millions of voters (mainly women) were blatantly invented for an exercise in fraud which the Guatemalan generals who used to register the dead from the cemeteries would have been proud off. The power whose "exclusive property" Afghanistan is according to the Rolling Stone, should have said enough and started working for a Bonn II, which, this time, would be inclusive: with the Taliban, yes, and Jalaluddin and Gulbuddin for God’s sake but also with the pro-democratic civil society forces kicked out of Bonn I one its eve.

The worst that can happen now is that the Afghanistan war skeptics and the down-sizers of aims and expectations get their way and The General’s media blunder is used as an excuse to slam on the break and even accelerate the withdrawal. Am I arguing for The General -- and the troops -- to stay? Ask me another time.

But I am sure of one thing: If this happens, AAN’s chairman of the Advisory Board, an former UN and EU envoy, Francesc Vendrell is right when he says in today’s issue of the Australian The Age:

" Having failed dismally to make the Afghan people our allies, we will inevitably abandon them to a combination of Taliban in the south and the warlords in the north and - having somehow redefined success - we will go home convinced that it is the Afghan people who have failed us."


From Dr. Hook’s lyrics:

We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll get you when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Thomas Ruttig is the co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, where this was originally published. He speaks Pashtu and Dari.

General McChrystal's Misstep - By Thomas Ruttig | The AfPak Channel

 

[alibaz]

Wait till the next US elections when he will Speak out as Afghan war will be a big issue .

Yes you are right but right now its game over for him

 

[GUNNER]

The last post: McChrystal's bleak outlook

President Obama lost patience with Runaway General's failed strategy

By Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady

Sunday, 27 June 2010

Sacked US General Stanley McChrystal issued a devastatingly critical assessment of the war against a "resilient and growing insurgency" just days before being forced out.

Using confidential military documents, copies of which have been seen by the IoS, the "runaway general" briefed defence ministers from Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) earlier this month, and warned them not to expect any progress in the next six months. During his presentation, he raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration.

Details of General McChrystal's grim assessment of his own strategy's current effectiveness emerged as the world's most powerful leaders set the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, a five-year deadline to improve security and governance in his country.

The G8 summit in Toronto called for "concrete progress" within five years on improving the justice system and for Afghan forces to assume greater responsibility for security. David Cameron said a "political surge" must now complement the military one.

But the "campaign overview" left behind by General McChrystal after he was sacked by President Barack Obama last week warned that only a fraction of the areas key to long-term success are "secure", governed with "full authority", or enjoying "sustainable growth". He warned of a critical shortage of "essential" military trainers needed to build up Afghan forces – of which only a fraction is classed as "effective".

He pinpointed an "ineffective or discredited" Afghan government and a failure by Pakistan "to curb insurgent support" as "critical risks" to success. "Waning" political support and a "divergence of coalition expectations and campaign timelines" are among the key challenges faced, according to the general.

It was this briefing, according to informed sources, as much as the Rolling Stone article, which convinced Mr Obama to move against the former head of US Special Forces, as costs soar to $7bn a month and the body count rises to record levels, because it undermined the White House political team's aim of pulling some troops out of Afghanistan in time for the US elections in 2012. In addition to being the result of some too-candid comments in a magazine article, the President's decision to dispense with his commander was seen by the general's supporters as a politically motivated culmination of their disagreements.

General McChrystal's presentation to Nato defence ministers and Isaf representatives provided an uncompromising obstacle to Mr Obama's plan to bring troops home in time to give him a shot at a second term, according to senior military sources. The general was judged to be "off message" in his warning to ministers not to expect quick results and that they were facing a "resilient and growing insurgency".

It came as mounting casualties added to US and UK discomfort. June has been the bloodiest month for coalition forces since the conflict began, with 88 killed. A soldier from 4th Regiment Royal Artillery died yesterday in hospital in Birmingham of wounds sustained in an explosion on 10 June. He had been on patrol with members of the Afghan National Army in Nahr-e Saraj North District, Helmand Province. He was the 308th British soldier killed since the start of the war nine years ago. The death toll is escalating, with 62 deaths this year – almost double the 32 that died in the same period last year.

Nato played down the chances of success. "I don't think anyone would say we're winning," said a Nato spokesman. The revelations provide context to the disagreements between Mr Obama and his general, highlighted in the article in Rolling Stone in which senior White House figures were criticised.

The reality, according to a senior military source, is that General McChrystal's candour about the reality of the situation was an obstacle to Mr Obama's search for an "early, face-saving exit" to help his chances in the 2012 presidential elections. "Stan argued for time, and would not compromise. Rolling Stone provided an excuse for Obama to fire the opposition to his plan without having to win an intellectual argument," he said.

General McChrystal knew "his time was up" and had been told by White House aides his "time-frame was all wrong", with the general thinking in years while the President was thinking more in months, he added.

The general's departure is a sign of politicians "taking charge of this war", a senior Whitehall official said. "The Taliban are feeling the pressure, but we're not harvesting it politically," he said. "Obama sacking McChrystal was a show of strength. What we are seeing on both sides of the Atlantic, at long last, is the politicians starting to take charge of this war. Wars are won when you have a Churchill and an Alanbrooke, when you have a proper balance between political direction and military leadership."

Mr Cameron asked for a political settlement to be mapped out at a special cabinet meeting held at Chequers earlier this month, he said. "Cameron doesn't want to make Brown's mistake of getting bogged down in details instead of doing grand strategy."

He said General McChrystal had been urging Washington to "start the political track as soon as possible" while his replacement, General Petraeus, has argued "that we need to get the upper hand militarily and regain the military initiative, and then negotiate from a position of strength". He said it would take time to recover from General McChrystal's loss, "particularly if Petraeus just ploughs on with trying to get the upper hand militarily".

Admiral Mike Mullen met with President Karzai yesterday to assure him that the new Nato commander will pursue the same strategy followed by his predecessor. He pledged that General Petraeus would also do his best to reduce civilian casualties.

General McChrystal said progress in the next six months was unlikely. He raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration. Only five areas out of 116 assessed were classed as "secure" – the rest suffering various degrees of insecurity and more than 40 described as "dangerous" or "unsecure".

Just five areas out of 122 were classed as being under the "full authority" of the government – with governance rated as non-existent, dysfunctional or unproductive in 89 of the areas. Seven areas out of 120 rated for development were showing sustainable growth. In 48 areas, growth was either stalled or the population were at risk. Less than a third of the military and only 12 per cent of police forces were rated as "effective".

A strategic assessment referred to in the presentation revealed just how close the strategy in Afghanistan is to failing. It stated that the campaign was "on track temporarily" – but this was defined as meaning that there was "a low level of confidence that positive trends will be sustained over the next six-month period". It also said the Afghan people "believe that development is too slow" and many "still generally mistrust Afghan police forces". Security was "unsatisfactory" and efforts to build up the Afghan security forces were "at risk", with "capability hampered by shortages in NCOs and officers, corruption and low literacy levels".

A general's damning report...

Afghan security forces

General McChrystal says both the Afghan police (ANP) and army (ANA) were "critically short on trainers – the essential resource required for quality". Out of 2,325 required, only 846 were already on the ground and 660 more were promised.

Governance

The Afghan government was assessed as having "full authority" in only five districts; in 45 more, governance was "unproductive", in 29 "dysfunctional" and in 15 "non-existent". In the "Critical risks" section of his presentation, General McChrystal listed "Governance: ineffective or discredited". ISAF accepted that "governance needs improvement and lags security efforts".

Security

Nato informed that "violence and security varies regionally... focused in localised areas", and "assessments of key district security are improving slightly". However, only a third of 122 "key terrain areas" were regarded as "secure" or suffering "occasional threats". In key areas, 47 per cent of the population were assessed as secure.

Corruption

General McChrystal noted the need to "address principal sources of corruption and grievance" in Kandahar. Nato warned that "corruption remains an impediment to connectivity between the government and its people". Echoes earlier US concerns that the "lack of Afghan government will and the capacity to prosecute narco-corrupt officials continues to undermine development of governance and security".

Justice

Referred to President Karzai's early pledge to "further the reform process within our justice system". But US Department of Defense has since complained courts are "chronically corrupt". McChrystal's recommendations on "Detention operations and rule of law" include "transition to Afghan lead" and "promoting transparency across spectrum of detention activities".

Development/reconstruction

Emphasised need to "create conditions for development", particularly in the south. But there are worries that the government "has become increasingly dependent on contributions from the international community". Although satisfaction with the local electricity supply has risen, many remain without access and the general warns of the need to "significantly expand electrical supply to meet rising demand".

 

[no_name]

Copied opinion of a poster on another forum:

"General Stanley MaChrystal is a senior General and therefore; one would assume, a man with a talent for making strategy. To whit, able to take the available forces and resources and make a plan of action that deploys them and undertakes a series of manoeuvres which aim not only to anticipate the reaction of the enemy, but also dictate to him the place, time and nature of that reaction and to effectively repeat this process until the ultimate objective is achieved. Is it not strange then that someone with such talent and responsibility should suddenly have such a lapse of judgement with regards the Rolling Stone article?

Lets also look at Rolling Stone magazine itself, as people are asking with raised eyebrows why the General would use this magazine for such an expose. Well Rolling Stone is a widely read magazine with a broad readership, but it always had (and I guess still has) a large readership segment made up of young guys with a taste for very heavy rock and that a goodly proportion of these young guys could indeed be Enlisted Men and that it is propably one of the most widely read publications in the military. In other words by letting his (and his top brass colleagues) discontent known in Rolling Stone, he had found an almost perfect unofficial and back channel publication with which to communicate with the ranks.

The General wanted out, this seems pretty likely as he makes clear that he has no confidence in his civilian leaders and probably little confidence that he would be allowed to proceed with his strategy without serious interference and that after such interference when the tatters of his strategy failed, that same civilian leaders would be lining up to blame him for it."

Could it be therefore that a General who is popular and much respected by his military colleagues and general public alike, has engineered a situation where a weak and waning President has to fire and apparently humiliate a national hero at a time, and under the circumstances of the General,s choosing?

The Republicans are looking for an effective and credible candidate for the next Presidential elections in 2012. Could they just have found their man and has he just ensured that he is available?"

 

[fatman17]

McChrystal downbeat on Afghan war before sacking: report

LONDON: US General Stanley McChrystal issued a highly critical assessment of the war in Afghanistan just days before he was sacked by President Barack Obama, a British newspaper reported on Sunday. The Independent on Sunday said leaked military documents showed McChrystal had briefed defence ministers from the countries involved in the war earlier this month and warned them to expect no progress in the next six months. McChrystal was forced to step down as commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan due to disparaging remarks about administration officials, including Obama, in an explosive Rolling Stone magazine article. But the newspaper suggested the article was only one reason why the general quit, saying his candour about the reality of the situation in Afghanistan was an obstacle to plans for an early US withdrawal. “Stan argued for time, and would not compromise. Rolling Stone provided an excuse for Obama to fire the opposition to his plan without having to win an intellectual argument,” it quoted an unnamed senior military source as saying. According to the paper, McChrystal had said corruption and security remained serious issues as foreign forces battled a “resilient and growing insurgency.” He said the Afghan security forces were “critically short on trainers – the essential resource required for quality”, while the Afghan government had little control over the country. afp

looks like nothing has changed in Afghanistan!!!

 

[fatman17]

INTERVIEW
Date Posted: 28-Jun-2010


Jane's Defence Weekly

Interview: General Stanley McChrystal, former Commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan

Peter Felstead JDW Editor - Kabul

US Army General Stanley McChrystal was sacked as the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan on 23 June. President Barack Obama accepted his resignation after unguarded comments made by the general and his staff to Rolling Stone magazine were revealed to be critical of the Obama administration.

The new strategy resulting from Gen McChrystal's population-centric reassessment of the situation in Afghanistan, however, is now entering a crucial phase. In this interview, conducted a month prior to his controversial departure, the general discussed with Jane's the current progress of the ISAF mission.

"In the near term what we're clearly focused on, our strategic main effort, is the building of Afghan capacity," said the general. "It's the Afghan National Security Forces - army and police; that's the foundation for security [and] sovereignty that they'll build over time.

"The operational main effort," the general explained, "has been in Regional Command South, and the key focus of that main effort has been to protect key parts of the population, starting in the Helmand River Valley and now expanding into Kandahar, because we believe that if we can protect key percentages and key locations of population, production, cities, different parts, we can make the insurgency have a very difficult time being relevant and credible." He continued: "Insurgencies have to have access to the people for recruiting, for taxation, for coercion, and the degree to which we can make the insurgent the outsider trying to penetrate in puts the insurgent in the position of the person who disrupts their lives.

"What we have done so far in the Helmand River Valley is to come in, prove security [and] push out the vast majority of the insurgents. But it's not complete, and it's gonna take time to complete establishing increasingly durable security," he said. "It will take even more time to establish credible governance because ... you have to bring it in and make it work. In many cases those are muscles that haven't been exercised for a long time or didn't exist for a long time. So that's the next step."

Gen McChrystal continued: "But then the last phase is: you have to make people confident in [the government]. And the people in an area like this ... it takes time for them to have confidence that the change is reality. And if they vote wrong, they can be killed; if they move too fast, if they support the government too quickly, they can be executed. And of course that's the cold-bloodied but effective tactic that the insurgents use. The people resent it, but coercion is effective," he said.

"What I think we needed to do, in a limited timeframe, was several-fold. I think first we needed to convince the Afghan people that we were deadly serious about how we were going to operate differently. We needed to convince them that our effort was going to be something they could believe in. We also needed to reorganise our effort; we needed to make a number of changes in how we operate.

"We reorganised the intermediate joint command, we stood up Joint Task Force 435 to transition detention ops. We're changing the very fabric of our capacity in the way we operate and in our partnership with the Afghans, which now is much richer than it was 11 months ago."

Gen McChrystal continued: "I think that in that first period, and you can say it's a year, we need to convince people that we are a very effective effort now and that that effort is working. It doesn't have to have worked, it doesn't have to be successful, but we need to be proving to people that we are making absolute progress because I think that that's what builds confidence in the Afghan people, and in the international community they need to believe that, I guess you could say, we're a 'corporation that makes money' - a viable, credible, effective effort."

Asked if, with casualties continuing to be taken among the ISAF contingents, the West was becoming impatient with regard to the ISAF mission, the general said: "I think we are. The problem with a counter-insurgency [campaign] is: it's a process; it's not an event. It's something that happens over time ... I think that it's our responsibility, and largely mine, to try to communicate that more clearly to people," he said.

The recent Peace Jirga in Kabul sought to build a framework for possibly bringing some insurgents back into the political process in Afghanistan. Asked about this process the general replied: "Wars can end two ways: one side wipes the other side out, or you come to some kind of political settlement. And wiping the other side out is not the way to end the war. It's not necessary and it creates a war in the future.

"I think negotiations, whatever form they take, must be between Afghans, between the government of Afghanistan and those people that want to come back into the Afghan political sphere, and [they] must be defined by them."

Gen McChrystal continued: "I think other players can help: we can help provide a secure environment; we can help [provide] reassurance [and] resources. But ultimately it's an Afghan right to do this and it's an Afghan responsibility to do this. If an external peace settlement was established I don't think it would be durable; I don't think anybody but Afghans can get it right .... It's the fabric of Afghanistan that has been so badly torn, that needs to be considered and helped to be rewoven by Afghans."

 

[GUNNER]

ISLAMABAD, June 30, 2010 (AFP) - Pakistan's military chief Wednesday welcomed the appointment of General David Petraeus as commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said he thought Petraeus' "experience and expertise in similar conditions is likely to add value to a complex situation," according to a statement issued in Islamabad.

"He (General Petraeus) is somebody that I have known over the last two years... he has full understanding of Pakistan's perspective and is acutely appreciative of Pakistani sacrifices," Kayani said.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chief of the US military held security talks with Pakistan's president and top military officers on Saturday as he toured the region after the sacking of the top US commander in Afghanistan.

Mullen was visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan to reassure leaders that Washington's war strategy would be unaffected by the departure of the head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

McCrystal was sacked after a magazine article appeared in which he and his aides made disparaging comments about civilian members of Barack Obama's administration.

Pakistan, which has a porous border with Afghanistan, is an increasingly important part of the US strategy to defeat Islamist extremists.

 

[GUNNER]

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2010 (AFP) - General David Petraeus cruised Wednesday to US Senate confirmation as commander of the faltering Afghan campaign in a unanimous vote despite deep US divisions over the nearly nine-year-old war.

The 99-0 vote was a rare display of unity between President Barack Obama's Democratic allies and Republican foes as both sides hoped Petraeus, credited in Washington with turning the Iraq war around, could do the same in Afghanistan.

"General Petraeus is a pivotal part of our effort to succeed in Afghanistan -- and in our broader effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda -- and he has my full confidence," Obama said in a statement.

"The Senate's quick action and General Petraeus's unrivaled experience will ensure we do not miss a beat in our strategy to break the Taliban's momentum and build Afghan capacity," he added.

US officials have fretted over rising casualties, strategic setbacks like a delay in a key offensive, as well as allies announcing an end to their operations in a war launched in October 2001 to capture or kill Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who remains at large.

"Afghanistan is not a lost cause," insisted Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called the task of defeating Taliban insurgents and their Al-Qaeda allies "hard but not hopeless." Petraeus "has served his country with distinction at a time of great need. We are fortunate that once again he has answered his nation's call," said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, the committee's chairman.

 

[fatman17]

EUROPE
Date Posted: 06-Jul-2010


Jane's Defence Weekly


French general attacks US policy in Afghanistan

J A C Lewis JDW Correspondent - Paris

A prominent French General could face disciplinary action for stating in an interview that US President Barack Obama's policy in Afghanistan was a "half-way measure that isn't working" and that the "situation on the ground has never been worse".

After the interview in the French newspaper Le Monde , dated 2 July, General Vincent Desportes, head of the Collège Interarmées de Défense, was called in on the same day by France's new armed forces chief of staff, Admiral Edouard Guillaud, for a dressing down. Guillaud later told a Paris radio station that Gen Desportes' comments had been "irresponsible" at a time when French forces were fighting in Afghanistan.

The episode has echoes of the fallout following US General Stanley McChrystal's profile in Rolling Stone Magazine , which resulted in his resignation.

Guillaud sent a report on the meeting to Defence Minister Hervé Morin, who will decide whether to take disciplinary action that could go as far as forcing the general to retire. However, Gen Desportes is due to retire officially in August so military circles believe he will probably escape with a reprimand.

Separately, Adm Guillaud told the French Senate's defence committee in late June that France would shortly boost its troop levels in Afghanistan from 3,750 personnel to 4,000. He gave no exact date for the increase. He also reported that the French Army currently clashed with insurgents "five to seven times a week".