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NATO Agrees on Afghan Security Transition in 2013
New York Times By HELENE COOPER and MATTHEW ROSENBERG May 21, 2012
CHICAGO - President Obama and the leaders of America’s NATO allies on Monday agreed to end their guiding role in the decade-long war in Afghanistan next summer, saying it is time for the Afghan people to take responsibility for their own security and for the United States-led international troops to go home.
Declaring that “our forces broke the Taliban’s momentum,” Mr. Obama used the summit meeting of NATO leaders here in his adopted hometown to begin an exit from a conflict he embraced during his first campaign for president as America’s good war.
“We’re now unified behind a plan to responsibly wind down the war in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference after the meeting. He called the decision a “major step” toward the end of the war.
But Mr. Obama acknowledged that “real challenges” remained in dealing with the problems across the border in Pakistan, and that the conference had not resolved the impasse over reopening supply lines or the other tensions about the fight against insurgents operating from safe havens there.
“We think that Pakistan has to be part of the solution in Afghanistan,” he said. “Neither country is going to have the kind of security, stability and prosperity that it needs unless they can resolve some of these outstanding issues.”
Pakistan closed supply lines to Afghanistan after an American airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani solders. Mr. Obama has refused to apologize for the strike, as Pakistan has demanded in negotiations with the Americans, and he pointedly exchanged only a few words with the country’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, during the two-day summit meeting — “very brief, as we were walking into the summit,” he said. The two men also stood and spoke briefly with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, before all three joined the other leaders for a group photograph.
The plans to withdraw from Afghanistan are “irreversible,” Mr. Obama and the world leaders said in their communiqué, a deliberate word choice that underscored the political reality in America and in Europe. After 10 years of war and with the global economy reeling, the nations of the West no longer want to pay, either in treasure or in lives, the costs of their efforts in a place that for centuries has resisted foreign attempts to tame it.
“The Taliban is still a robust enemy, and the gains are still fragile,” Mr. Obama conceded.
“But think about it. We’ve been there now 10 years,” he said. “Ten years in a country that’s very different, that’s a strain, not only on our folks but also on that country, which at a point is going to be very sensitive about its own sovereignty.”
Mr. Obama and his fellow leaders said they were not abandoning Afghanistan. “Afghanistan will not stand alone,” they declared in their formal statement. “We affirm our close partnership will continue beyond the end of the transition period.”
That period begins now. Afghan national security forces will soon be in the lead role keeping the peace for around 75 percent of the population, NATO and Afghan officials said. But significantly, Afghan forces are not in the lead in many heavily contested areas in the south and the east of the country, where Taliban and Pakistan-based insurgents continue to engage NATO troops in day-by-day battles for control.
By next summer, the Afghan forces will have to assume those lead roles even in the heavily contested areas.
How that will come to pass remains to be seen. American military officials, as recently as Sunday, said they fully expected that American troops would continue fighting after next summer. In fact, the American presence in Afghanistan will continue even after 2014. The strategic partnership agreement between the United States and Afghanistan calls for a residual troop presence after 2014 to act in an advisory role.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban released their own statement on the NATO conference. The Taliban commended President François Hollande of France for saying he would bring troops home early, adding that “the mujahedeen of the Islamic emirate will keep proceeding with their ongoing jihad until it attains its goal.”
For Mr. Obama, the NATO agreement is a turning point in an evolving position on how to manage America’s longest war. Mr. Obama staked his first campaign for president in part on his opposition to the war in Iraq; the war in Afghanistan, by contrast, was the one he had said needed American troops and attention. But Mr. Obama forever tied his own legacy to Afghanistan as Americans and his NATO allies were suffering from combat fatigue.
NATO says it will cost about $4.1 billion a year to finance the Afghan forces. Officials at the summit meeting were looking for ways to come up with the money; it is expected that the United States and other donor countries will finance the training and support.
While officials at the summit meeting sought to highlight the progress made in the past two years by Afghan forces, especially the army, many conceded privately that the shift still represented a significant gamble on Afghanistan’s future stability. It is far from certain that the Afghans can hold areas that coalition troops have wrested from the Taliban in recent years, even with close support from Western allies.
The Afghan Army has become a more effective fighting force and less of a threat to its own people — there are far fewer reports these days of soldiers getting high on patrol, for instance. But the force remains “a work in progress,” one American official said, and it lacks almost all the support functions needed to fight the war.
The ranks of the police, meanwhile, are filled with drug users, thieves and “shakedown artists,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he works with the Afghans. If the hand-over strategy is going to work, “it’s going to be on” the Afghan Army, which is going to need a lot of hands-on American support well past the end of the NATO combat mission in 2014, the official said.
American field commanders say they are already pushing Afghan forces to the forefront. Their reasoning: Better to have the Afghans make mistakes while American forces are still thick on the ground rather than a year from now, when there may not be enough backup for the Afghans to recover from battlefield stumbles.
Maj. Gen. James L. Huggins of the Army, the top coalition commander in southern Afghanistan, said in an interview that he was telling his Afghan counterparts: “If you will step forward now, we’ll help back you up. You may learn what you don’t know and stumble somewhere, but it won’t be a catastrophic failure, because we have your back.”
John H. Cushman Jr. contributed reporting from Washington.
NATO Leaders Commit to Afghanistan Transition
Dan Robinson VOA News May 22, 2012
CHICAGO - Leaders of the 28 NATO countries ended their summit in Chicago on Monday, pledging an "irreversible" commitment to transition in Afghanistan. The leaders committed to greater efficiencies, while reaffirming the alliance's defense commitments.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai sat with NATO leaders and representatives of other nations whose support Afghanistan will need if it is to move from war to stability. NATO leaders formally approved the plan to transfer lead responsibility for combat operations to Afghan security forces by the middle of next year.
U.S. President Barack Obama said this is part of a road map to wind down the war and move toward the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
"This will not mark the end of Afghanistan's challenges, obviously, or our partnership with that important country. But we are making substantial progress against our core objective of defeating al-Qaida and denying it safe haven, and helping Afghans to stand on their own," Obama said.
NATO is gathering commitments to pay for long-term training of Afghanistan's military. Annual costs after 2014 are put at a little more than $4 billion and will be reviewed regularly based on the security situation.
President Obama had a brief discussion with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan who was invited to Chicago by NATO. Obama said he believes there has been progress in resolving tensions over NATO supply routes that Pakistan closed last year.
Despite what he called "real improvement" in removing Taliban strongholds, President Obama called the gains in Afghanistan "fragile." But he said the strategy eventually will allow the United States to direct resources to investments needed at home.
"Whereby we can achieve a stable Afghanistan that won't be perfect, we can pull back our troops in a responsible way, and we can start rebuilding America and start making some of the massive investments we made in Afghanistan, here back home," the president said.
NATO also made decisions to ensure the alliance's viability and its capability to respond to future threats in difficult economic times.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that includes a commitment to "smart defense" strategies and resource sharing.
"We have decided to invest smartly in our defense, even in times of austerity, and we have engaged with our partners around the world to address the challenges we all face in the 21st century," he said.
Reporters asked President Obama about the demonstrations by various groups in his hometown that at times turned violent. That is part of what America is about, he said, thanking city residents for enduring traffic jams and drawing laughter when he said this:
"Despite being 15 minutes away from my house, nobody would let me go home. I was thinking I would be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. They said I would cause even worse traffic, so I ended up staying in a hotel -- which contributes to the Chicago economy," Obama said.
The NATO summit capped four days of high-level diplomacy, including Obama's hosting of the G8 summit at Camp David, Maryland.
Exclusive: U.S. envoy to Afghanistan to step down shortly
Reuters By Missy Ryan Mon May 21, 2012
CHICAGO - Veteran U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker is expected to step down soon from his post as President Barack Obama's envoy to Afghanistan, departing the U.S. mission in Kabul as the United States negotiates a host of challenges on its course out of the long, costly war.
The Obama administration is considering Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham to replace Crocker when he leaves the post as early as this month, sources familiar with the matter said.
It was not immediately clear why the widely respected diplomat was leaving.
Crocker, who came out of retirement to become ambassador in Kabul in July 2011, has led diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan at a time when the White House has focused on reducing the U.S. presence there - and on doing so without letting the country slide back into civil war.
Crocker was one of the high-level officials discussing Afghanistan's future at a NATO summit that concluded on Monday in Obama's home town of Chicago. There, Western leaders refined their plans to pull most of their troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and put local forces in charge.
At the core of Crocker's job has been maintaining a difficult, and at times openly hostile, U.S. relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and overseeing civilian efforts to combat corruption and poverty in Afghanistan.
Crocker has anchored the U.S. diplomatic presence at a time when Western sites - and even the American embassy building itself - have been the target by Taliban militants. Crocker has also urged the Afghan government to make reforms that could help it secure billions of dollars in future outside aid.
The appointment of a diplomat of Crocker's stature in 2011 was seen as another sign of Obama's desire to turn around a campaign that was received insufficient attention and resources for years - and of his determination to steer the U.S. mission there toward a conclusion.
News of Crocker's departure comes only weeks after Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, informed his staff he would be leaving his post in coming months.
In yet another diplomatic departure as Obama's current term enters its final stretch, Reuters reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, will soon leave for a top post at the United Nations.
Crocker earned respect in his earlier role as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007-2009, when a surge in U.S. forces was credited with helping to calm a country convulsed by sectarian violence. The post in Baghdad when suicide bombings and mortar attacks were a daily occurrence appeared to tax Crocker's health. He has also served as ambassador to Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.
As a young diplomat, he worked at the U.S. embassy in Beirut when it was bombed in 1982 and when an American Marine barracks was attacked the following year.
Crocker retired from the government in April 2009, becoming dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.
Cunningham, who would need to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate if he were to become the permanent U.S. envoy, was ambassador to Israel before he came to Kabul last year.
(Reporting By Missy Ryan; editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)
NATO summit: Obama's Pakistan gamble falls flat
The White House fails to reach a deal on supply routes to Afghanistan. The summit does produce a formal agreement on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Los Angeles Times By David S. Cloud and Kathleen Hennessey May 22, 2012
CHICAGO - When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan?
But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal.
Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan. The Chicago gathering did produce a formal agreement by the alliance to hand over lead responsibility for security to Afghan forces by mid-2013, and pull out nearly all U.S. and other NATO troops by the end of 2014 even if the Taliban-led insurgency remains undiminished.
U.S. officials insist ample fuel and other supplies are being delivered via much longer and more expensive land routes in Russia and other nations north of Afghanistan. But the Pentagon says reopening the land route in Pakistan will be essential to hauling vast stores of military equipment and vehicles out of Afghanistan during the withdrawal.
Obama's irritation at the impasse was clear Monday when he addressed more than 50 world leaders and publicly thanked Russia and Central Asian nations "that continue to provide critical transit" of war supplies into Afghanistan. Zardari sat only a few feet away, but Obama pointedly did not mention Pakistan.
Later at a news conference that closed the two-day summit, Obama did not try to downplay the strains in a relationship that has spiraled from crisis to crisis since U.S. Navy SEALs secretly flew into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden last May. Nor did Obama suggest, as his aides had done earlier, that a quick resolution was likely.
"I don't want to paper over real challenges there," Obama said. "There's no doubt that there have been tensions between [the NATO military coalition] and Pakistan, the United States and Pakistan over the last several months."
Pakistan closed the main NATO supply route after U.S. airstrikes hit two border posts Nov. 26 and killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Islamabad has demanded an unconditional apology, and more than $5,000 per truck, up from about $250 in the past, to let supplies flow again. The Obama administration has refused to apologize, saying both sides committed mistakes, and it says the new truck toll is far too expensive.
The White House was careful not to let Zardari appear completely snubbed Monday, worried that could worsen tensions. Obama had ruled out a formal meeting with Zardari when it was clear no deal was forthcoming, but aides ensured that the Pakistani leader managed to bump into Obama twice Monday, once for a brief one-on-one chat and later with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The White House quickly told the media of the encounter and tweeted a photo of the three leaders in conversation.
Obama indicated that the discussion was far from substantive, however, describing it as "very brief as we were walking into the summit."
Obama also offered a glimpse of how his thinking has evolved on the use of military force during his three years in office, reflecting on an issue that officials have said increasingly has been on his mind: the tensions that develop when U.S. troops are deployed in distant wars for years on end.
"Frankly, the large footprint that we have in Afghanistan over time can be counterproductive," Obama said. "We've been there 10 years. And I think, you know, no matter how much good we're doing and how outstanding our troops and our civilians and diplomats are doing on the ground, 10 years in a country that's very different, that's a strain. Not only on our folks, but also on that country."
Obama dismissed the notion that the U.S. may be planning for a "premature withdrawal" in Afghanistan, but he also committed to the 2014 timetable regardless of whether the Taliban-led insurgency is defeated. Signaling the shrunken ambitions for the mission, Obama said sometimes you just have to pick a time and leave.
"I don't think that there's ever going to be an optimal point where we say: 'This is all done. This is perfect. This is just the way we wanted it. And now we can wrap up all our equipment and go home,' " he said. "There's a process. And it's sometimes a messy process. Just as it was in Iraq."
Obama indicated that he was so wary of major troop commitments that he had applied clear limits for U.S. special operations and other military units battling groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and other places. The goal, Obama said, is to "stay focused on the counter-terrorism issue, to not overextend ourselves."
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced last week that it had invited Zardari to the long-planned summit. U.S. officials said they had hoped a meeting with Obama might provide an incentive for a deal on resuming supply shipments. When that strategy did not work, they tried to raise the pressure through what appeared to be a series of carefully calibrated slights.
"The invitation was an inducement to get them back into the international fold," said a senior U.S. official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitive issues. "But the Pakistanis couldn't get their own act together" in time for the summit. "The main issue, it seems, is money."
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Sherry Rehman, sought to downplay the dispute during an evening news conference at Chicago's Ritz Carlton Hotel.
"We are seeking to narrow differences," she said, adding, "I don't think there is a haggle going on with the price."
Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Zardari, said negotiations to reopen the supply route were ongoing, but "no timeline can be given."
Earlier, the Pentagon had announced that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta had "expressed his deep appreciation" to officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at a meeting Monday. NATO has trucked more than half its nonlethal supplies through those countries since the Pakistani route closed, and flown the rest in on cargo planes.
Some U.S. officials said the Obama administration's approach could backfire by humiliating Zardari, leaving him politically weaker and even less able to overcome the intense anti-U.S. feeling in Pakistan over the attack on the border posts, years of lethal CIA drone attacks on Pakistani territory and other divisive issues.
Without access to Pakistan, equipment leaving Afghanistan would have to go by cargo plane and by the northern routes, which stretch thousands of miles through Russia and Central Asia to ports on the Baltic Sea or through Georgia to the Black Sea. Many of the countries refuse to allow the U.S. to ship ammunition and other lethal equipment through their territory, forcing those supplies to go by air.
The U.S. military and NATO allies shipped about 260,000 tons of nonlethal supplies into Afghanistan last year. About 40% went through Pakistan, although that had dropped to about 30% by the fall.
Before the summit adjourned, officials said additional countries had promised in closed-door discussions to provide money for Afghanistan's army and police after 2014. The Obama administration has sought to raise about $1.3 billion in annual contributions from allies as part of a plan to provide $4.1 billion to Afghanistan's security forces after foreign troops withdraw.
The U.S. has promised $2.4 billion and Afghanistan has offered $500 million. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Estonia and others had made pledges Monday that added "almost" $1 billion. He said more pledges were expected soon.
david.cloud@latimes.com
kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
Chicago Tribune reporter Wailin Wong contributed to this report.
ISAF to continue combat operations in Afghanistan until 2014: spokesman
KABUL, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led coalition forces in Afghanistan will continue to take part in combat operations against Taliban and other insurgent groups until the end of 2014 when the Afghan forces are expected to take over the security lead across the country, a coalition spokesman said on Tuesday.
"As the NATO Summit in Chicago has just concluded, I would like to again highlight that despite the fact that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are now taking the lead in combat operations, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces will continue to participate in combat operations until the end of 2014," ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson told a press conference in Kabul.
The issue of Afghanistan was at the top of the agenda of the Chicago summit, the biggest of its kind in NATO's history. The leaders of NATO's 28 member nations and their alliances wrapped up the summit on Monday.
"At the summit there was broad agreement that the Afghan security forces are well on track to take full security responsibility across the country by the end of 2014. As the Afghan forces take on more responsibility, ISAF forces can be drawn down gradually and responsibly," NATO civilian representative spokesman Dominic Medley told the same press briefing.
The process of taking over security responsibilities from the over 130,000-strong NATO-led ISAF begun in July last year would be completed by the end of 2014.
The U.S. and NATO forces have already handed over the security responsibilities of eight provinces, 11 provincial capitals and some 138 districts which represent areas where 50 percent of population lives to ANSF since the process began.
According to the third phase of the process, announced by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on May 13, the foreign forces will hand over the security control of remaining 23 provincial capitals, 122 district and three provinces to Afghan forces over the next six months.
"Leaders from NATO's 28 nations and the 22 partners in the ISAF coalition have given Afghanistan a clear, long-term commitment to continue supporting the Afghan forces after the NATO-led ISAF mission is completed in 2014," said Medley.
Agreeing a NATO Strategic Plan for Afghanistan, the state leaders decided on a new NATO-led mission which will focus on training, advising and assisting Afghan forces after they have assumed full security responsibility across the country by the end of 2014, he said.
"The insurgency is under pressure as never before and the Afghan security forces are growing in strength and confidence," he noted.
"They (ANSF) are taking an increasing lead for security and by the middle of 2013 will be providing the lead for security across the country, allowing ISAF forces to shift from leading combat operations to a more supporting role," Medley added.
When asked why there were no pledges of funds at the summit for the Afghan army and police after they assumed full security duties, Medley said, "Chicago was never going to be a donor or pledging conference and we still expect more announcement to be made ... NATO alliance and ISAF partners were on track to meet the 4.1 billion U.S. dollars that is the working model for the financing of the ANSF."
According to NATO plans, the ANSF will achieve a surge strength of 352,000 by this October and remain at that size for two full years. With anticipated improved security, the ANSF forces of 228, 500 will have an estimated annual budget of 4.1 billion dollars.
NATO said the Afghan government has pledged to provide at least 500 million U.S. dollars a year for the ANSF beginning in 2015.
Regarding the reduction of Afghan army and police after 2015, the ISAF spokesman said that the reduction of the forces will depend on the conditions on the ground in coming years.
According to U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10, 000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
Karzai: I will not let congressman into Afghanistan
CNN By Jamie Crawford May 21st, 2012
Editor's note: Read all of Security Clearance's coverage of the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. Follow our reporting and other key NATO tweets with our NATO summit Twitter list.
If Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, an influential member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is looking for a country to visit as a member of a congressional delegation, he can cross Afghanistan off his list.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Rohrabacher have been at loggerheads over the congressman's push for a more decentralized Afghan government. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the disagreement, Karzai said he is against letting Rohrabacher into the country.
"Until he changes his tongue, until he shows respect to the Afghan people, to our way of life and to our constitution ... No foreigner has a place asking another people, another country to change their constitution. Have we ever asked the United States to change its constitution?" Karzai said in an exclusive interview that aired Monday on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
Last month, Rohrabacher was asked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not to travel on to Afghanistan with a congressional delegation that he was part of as it visited the region, after Karzai said the congressman was not welcome.
Both Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Rohrabacher it was not a good idea to travel to Afghanistan based on their own conversations with Karzai. Rohrabacher agreed, and did not travel on with the delegation from its previous stop in Dubai.
As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, Rohrabacher said his past scrutiny of the Afghan government and examination of how U.S. funds are spent in the war-torn nation likely played a role in Karzai's displeasure.
Coming on the heels of revelations of U.S. soldiers burning Qurans, and the alleged killing of Afghan civilians at the hands of a U.S. soldier, Clinton told Rohrabacher the timing of the visit was not right
"She felt that another mini-crisis might erupt," Rohrabacher told Blitzer last month, "because Karzai hated me so much that he would create a crisis, and she just thought it would be disruptive to our ability to get her job done."
Rohrabacher went on to call the mercurial Afghan leader a "corrupt prima donna" in the same interview.
In the interview that aired Monday, Karzai said he is firm on his position on Rohrabacher not because the congressman is "dangerous," but as a "matter of principle."
"Freedom of speech is good, we respect that, but the freedom of speech with regard to other countries is another issue," Karzai told Blitzer.
Rohrabacher later released a statement through his office saying he would not "apologize to Karzai or any other corrupt leader.
"Afghanistan is failing because Karzai and his corrupt clique are incompetent leaders, not because the U.S. hasn't pumped enough money or blood to help the brave people of Afghanistan ... Right now, I'm more concerned with getting American troops out of that country so they won't continue to needlessly die than I am getting myself into Afghanistan to meet with officials like Karzai," Rohrabacher said in the statement.
Thinking Afghan unthinkables
Washington Post By David Ignatius Opinion 21/05/2012
A veteran U.S. diplomat who has helped plan many NATO summits over the years was offering a wager the other day, and the bet was this: How many years after NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 will it take before the government falls and Kabul is once again in the hands of the Taliban?
This is the shadow that hangs over the NATO summit in Chicago today. The leaders are planning their exit strategy from Afghanistan and trying to sell it as a mix of leaving and staying: The main combat forces will turn over the lead role to the Afghans in mid-2013, and leave in 2014; a smaller counterterrorism force will stay for another 10 years to train the Afghans and chase the bad guys.
President Obama expressed the best-case version of the future in a statement Sunday after he met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He talked about a “shared vision that we have in which Afghanistan is able to transition from decades of war to a transformational decade of peace and stability and development.”
But what about the Taliban? Unfortunately, they have a vote, too. If the past is any guide, they’ll go right to the points of greatest U.S. vulnerability — infiltrating their assassins into the Afghan security forces so that the United States stops trusting its allies, and mounting spectacular large-casualty attacks at U.S. bases and international gathering points, to sow fear and demoralization.
CIA analysts, who have been skeptical for years about the prospects for success in Afghanistan, apparently see the Taliban regaining strength — contrary to the U.S. military’s assessment that the insurgents’ momentum has been checked. That’s what I took from the comments of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Rogers, chairs of the Senate and House intelligence committees, respectively, after their visit to Afghanistan this month. “I think we’d both say that what we’ve found is that the Taliban is stronger,” said Feinstein — and she didn’t hear that from Gen. John Allen, the overall U.S. military commander, who is trying to be a good soldier and make the president’s plan work. More likely, the skepticism is a CIA view.
And to ask another meddlesome question, as the Chicago summiteers prepare the upbeat talking points: What about the other ethnic groups and warlords in Afghanistan that have the jitters about NATO’s departure, even as the Taliban is licking its chops? What will the United States do if the Tajiks draw closer to the Northern Alliance militia in northeastern Afghanistan or the Hazaras deepen their alliance with Iran, which is proving a potent force in western Afghanistan?
These other ethnic groups (along with non-Taliban Pashtuns) are as important to the future of Afghanistan as the Taliban leadership hiding out in its Pakistani sanctuaries. So I hope the United States will spend a little more time working on the political transition in Afghanistan, even as it plans for the military transition. The goal should be to form a political alliance for a sane, non-terrorist Afghanistan that can extend beyond the shelf life of the Karzai government, which expires in 2014 (or maybe even earlier, with speeded-up elections).
If there’s one thing that Afghanistan proves, it’s that warlike people abhor a vacuum: If power is up for grabs as NATO forces begin leaving, another shootout will begin. What will the U.S. answer be?
Well, officially (and in fact), we are betting that the Afghan security forces will be strong and cohesive enough to hold Kabul, maybe Kandahar and the ring road that links the country — providing a ragged version of “Afghan Good Enough” for the future. Tajiks and Hazaras will probably be free to have their militias under this scenario, so long as they keep the roads open and feed timely intelligence about al-Qaeda or Taliban terrorism to U.S. counterterrorism operatives.
But what if the center doesn’t hold? What if the Afghan forces collapse under fire and key Afghan government facilities are overrun? I frankly doubt the United States would send major forces back to prop up the government. Which means, I guess, that Plan B is civil war and an eventual partition.
Oh yes, about that bet: My friend the veteran diplomat predicted that two years after the 2014 withdrawal of most NATO forces, the Taliban will be back in control in Kabul.
The Soviets showed the way to leave Afghanistan
Talks with the Taliban and a ceasefire are vital prerequisites to any dignified withdrawal
Guardian.co.uk By Jonathan Steele Monday 21 May 2012
Nato's decade-long military intervention in Afghanistan will soon be over, but western governments will continue their generosity to that benighted country by maintaining their lavish aid programmes for many years to come. That is the reassuring message that was meant to go out from Nato's just-concluded Chicago summit.
With the new French president determined to get his combat troops out by the end of 2012 and two-thirds of the American public in favour of an early withdrawal of theirs, President Obama wanted to suggest that he is listening. So the summit trumpeted the "transition" to Afghan forces while seeking a commitment from Nato members to go on paying the Afghans long after the alliance's own troops have gone.
At the back of many Nato officials' minds is the Soviet Union's Afghan experience. Propaganda about a Soviet humiliation is giving way to awareness that the Russians pulled out in good order and the government of Najibullah, whom they left in charge, survived for three more years. When it collapsed 20 years ago, it was not because of the insurgents' prowess but because Moscow stopped delivering cash, fuel, and weaponry. Nato wants to avoid a similar outcome.
But there are key differences, summed up in two words not much heard in Chicago: talks and ceasefire. The Soviet Union sought to negotiate its exit by persuading Pakistan and the United States to stop arming the insurgents. Najibullah followed the same path by offering to include rebel leaders and monarchists in his government. At the local level his generals negotiated several ceasefires with mujahideen commanders. It was not enough, as Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and the Reagan administration urged the rebels to resist Moscow's and Kabul's offers and keep on seeking victory.
Obama has not learned the lesson. Vague efforts at trying to talk to the Taliban were resisted by hawks within his administration and have not become real. Now Obama is afraid Mitt Romney will beat the macho drum about not "appeasing the enemy". Meanwhile, on the ground, instead of seeking ceasefires American generals are intensifying night raids and missile strikes on suspected Taliban hideouts in Helmand and Kandahar.
Nato's biggest mistake is to go on relying on a garrison strategy. Increasing numbers of Afghan troops will sit in bases and go out on patrols instead of US and British ones, but this is nothing more than "Nato with an Afghan face". Locals see these Afghan troops as occupiers just like the US and British. Less than 4% of the Afghan National Army are southern Pashtuns. Most are Tajiks and Uzbeks who speak a different language and don't know the area. But if you recruit more southerners in a hurry, you just feed the Taliban's latest tactic: join the Afghan army and police, get trained by the Americans and British, then shoot them in the camp or mess hall.
To strengthen the garrison strategy, the US recently signed a partnership agreement with Hamid Karzai. It did not specify how many US troops will remain after combat forces leave in 2014 since Karzai is unwilling to commit himself and Obama wants to blur the issue for electoral reasons. But the plan to keep US troops after 2014 remains on the table. This is a disaster. Whether dubbed trainers or advisers, they will still be armed and uniformed US soldiers.
The Taliban will never accept that. "A lasting occupation means lasting resistance," as they put it on the eve of the Chicago summit, in a statement which distanced themselves from al-Qaida and reaffirmed a willingness to negotiate. "American intelligence networks including the CIA state that members of al-Qaida have all left Afghanistan. So America's military presence is not for its own security but a long-term strategy for turning our country and the region into its colony," it said.
We need a change of course. The US must prepare for a total troop withdrawal, as the Russians did. Some say the Taliban can just sit and wait for 2014, but in the two years before then the ISI must be persuaded to threaten the Taliban leadership, whom they host in Pakistan, with loss of their sanctuaries if they do not negotiate. Another big difference from the 1990s is the emergence of a new player: the Pakistani Taliban. Compromise in Kabul is better for Pakistan than an outright Afghan Taliban victory which would embolden their counterparts south of the border to move against Islamabad.
Two conflicts are ravaging Afghanistan: a war between Afghans and a resistance struggle against a foreign invasion. Both need to be stopped, ideally through negotiations for a government of national unity and a devolution of power to the provinces. Without a strong push to end the Afghan civil war as the foreigners leave, this weekend's stuff about "transition" will change little for most Afghans. Fewer foreign troops will die and Afghanistan will revert to being an unreported war. This will not be ending Nato's intervention with dignity, but with cynicism.
Afghanistan's U.S. Envoy Says NATO Pledge Sends 'Strong Signal' To Region
May 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States says his country is grateful for the support that NATO allies have pledged at their summit in Chicago.
Eklil Hakimi told RFE/RL’s Heather Maher that the agreements reached between President Hamid Karzai and the United States and its NATO partners will send a strong message to the region, and assure the Afghan people that Kabul will not be left on its own after NATO ends its combat mission in the country in 2014.
Hakimi also said that Afghan forces will be ready by the time NATO hands over the lead on fighting by mid-2013.
RFE/RL: Is President Karzai satisfied with the commitments he's gotten from NATO allies about their post-2014 commitment?
Eklil Hakimi: Well, the support that we received from our allies is something that we are grateful [for], and also the support that we have received for the last decades is something that we cherish, and the Afghan people are grateful for that.
So that assurance is there and we are looking forward to an enduring partnership for years to come between Afghanistan and our NATO allies.
RFE/RL: Did you hear anything new about NATO's position here in Chicago that you didn’t know before? Were there any surprises?
Hakimi: We have been consulting with each other as an ally for quite some time and this declaration has been based on a consensus on both sides and not something [that has come as a] surprise.
RFE/RL: Can you talk about what happened during the closed-door meeting this morning [May 21] to discuss the partnership agreement?
Hakimi: We had a very constructive discussion with [NATO and its partners]. As you know, this [is a] partnership that we have agreed with those allies and those countries that have committed [to] an enduring partnership with Afghanistan for years to come.
That gives an assurance to our people, a strong signal to our people, and also countries in the region that Afghanistan’s partnership with our allies will remain intact for years to come.
RFE/RL: What has President Karzai told the allies they can expect in return for their commitments? Did he make any specific pledges?
Hakimi: This is a journey that we have all started together – a democratic society with the values that we both cherish. Common values, a democratic society with the rule of law, good governance, human rights -- particularly women's rights. These are things that we have committed to do through our constitution and this is what we are going to do for years to come.
RFE/RL: Were you asked specifically by the allies about improving transparency and good governance, or did you any hear concerns about whether the money NATO allies will be contributing will be channeled in the right way?
Hakimi: This is a process. We have to have strong institutions in order to be more transparent and this is something that we have been insisting [on] for quite some time -- that the money should be channeled through the Afghan government, [which] will enable us to give information and share information with our own people, and also to build our own capacity to deliver things that our own people and also our partners anticipate from us.
So, as we have done before, we have started it, but it's not something that we are satisfied with. As I said, it's a process. We should continue to build on things that we have already laid a strong foundation [for] -- strong institutions that will be responsible to our own people and also be transparent enough so that we can satisfy our donors and our partners as well.
RFE/RL: Will Afghan forces be ready to take over the lead in fighting by mid-2013, as NATO has decided here to do?
Hakimi: The transition will be completed by the end of 2014 and our security forces should be in the lead by mid-2013, which we are ready [to do].
This is according to the schedule that we have laid out with our partners in Lisbon in 2010. The transition, as we said, is irreversible and it's based on the reality on the ground, and [it's] also gradual. So based on that, we have made that time frame, and we will meet that time frame.
Our security forces -- yes, they are ready, and also yes we need support: support for training, support for political and financial assistance for years to come until we rely on our own resources.
No US-Pakistan Breakthrough at NATO Summit
VOA News May 22, 2012 Brian Padden
CHICAGO - Despite the participation of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the NATO summit in Chicago, neither the U.S. nor Pakistan announced steps to improve relations or to reopen key NATO supply routes to to Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the lines in November following a U.S. airstrike that killed two 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Zardari and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared cordial at their brief meeting at the NATO summit in Chicago. But relations between the two countries remain at an impasse.
Pakistan’s presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said President Zardari came to Chicago to express his country’s support for NATO’s efforts in the region.
“The president also emphasized that Pakistan wants peace and stability in Afghanistan," he stated. "The president dispelled the misperceptions about the alleged links with the groups of militants of Pakistan.”
But there was no breakthrough to reopen the NATO supply route to Afghanistan that Pakistan shut down last November. NATO has since established a more expensive alternative northern supply route through other Central Asian countries.
Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has intensified since the U.S. led airstrike in November and the U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden last May. Pakistan’s parliament has demanded an unconditional apology for the airstrike and an end to drone attacks in the border region with Afghanistan, even though media reports say Pakistani intelligence services are secretly aiding the U.S. to identify militant targets.
The U.S. has expressed regret for the airstrike in November, but defends the drone attacks as essential to fighting al-Qaida and other insurgent groups.
President Obama also met briefly with the President Zardari.
"We need to work through some of the tensions that have inevitably arisen after 10 years of our military presence in that region," he said.
Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker says the underlying issue is a lack of trust both about Pakistan’s commitment to fight Taliban extremists and the U.S. promise to maintain a reduced military presence in Afghanistan after most combat troops leave in 2014.
“Both in the side of Pakistan where they say they want support of a stable Afghanistan but in reality they are working to undermine that, and on the American side where we say we have a long term commitment to Afghanistan but we are massively working on the troops withdraws and talking about ending this war,” said Volker.
U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are close to working out their differences, but the lack of progress at the NATO summit seems to indicate the two sides remain far apart.
6 Taliban dead, 2 Afghan police hurt in clashes
KABUL, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Clashes between Taliban militants and Afghan police left six insurgents dead and two policemen injured on Tuesday, officials said.
In the first incident, according to officials, a group of armed Taliban stormed a police checkpoint in Ghazi Abad district of Kunar province 185 km east of Afghan capital Kabul but police returned fire.
"A group of Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint in Ghazi Abad district at 04:00 a.m. local time today and police returned fire, killing four militants," provincial police chief Awaz Mohammad Nazari told Xinhua.
However, he stated one police constable sustained injury in the firefight that lasted for a while.
In a similar incident, two Taliban insurgents were killed and a police constable injured as gun battle erupted in Shah Walikot district of the southern Kandahar province Tuesday, a police officer Badshah Khan said, adding the militants had fled away.
Taliban-linked militancy usually increases in the spring and summer, commonly known as fighting season in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan.
‘Green on Blue' Attacks Not an Indicator of Taliban Infiltration: Allen
TOLOnews.com Monday, 21 May 2012
Less than 50 percent of so-called "green on blue" attacks are perpetrated by Taliban infiltrators into the Afghan army, the US and Nato Commander General John Allen said Sunday.
The shooting deaths of foreign soldiers by Afghan army personnel, or Afghans in army uniform, were found to not be the work of the Islamic militant group in more than half the cases, according to investigations, Allen said.
"It's important to note that in the analysis that we have done, less than 50 percent of the ones that have perpetrated these attacks were in fact Taliban infiltrators," Allen told reporters at a press briefing in Chicago.
"Many of these folks are self-radicalised. So it's important to understand and be able to recognise the nature of that self-radicalisation in the ranks."
Allen said that each single incident was important and investigated, with serious measures undertaken to prevent such attacks in coordination with Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior and National Directorate of Security.
As a result, as many as 160 individuals planning to attack Isaf forces have been arrested in the last several months, Allen said.
The green on blue attacks have escalated this year, with already 22 foreign soldiers killed in 16 attacks in 2012. In last year's total, there were 35 foreign soldiers killed in 21 attacks, while in 2010 there were 20 soldiers killed in 11 attacks. These figures do not include attacks that did not lead to foreign troop fatalities.
Allen noted that the protection measures were taken "bilaterally, to protect each other".
"It's not well-known that the Afghans suffer nearly as many casualties from insider threats as we do," he said.
Responding to reporters' questions, Allen confirmed that the planned drawdown of 23,000 US troops will go ahead, with that number to return to the US by the end of September.
He said the surge tactic had achieved its aim, meaning those forces were no longer required.
"Part of the importance of the surge was to create conditions under which we could withdraw those troops - and I think those conditions are now underway - and that was to move the Afghan National Security forces to a level and to a confidence where they could begin to assume the role of some of those surge forces in the field," he said.
When asked about France's early withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Allen replied that it was a sovereign decision and to that effect he supports it, but it will not affect Isaf's mission in Afghanistan as Afghan forces are getting stronger and taking the responsibility.
"We have the capacity, using our current force structure to ensure that there is no degradation in security with respect to any decisions that might be made," Allen said.
Allen said the aim was for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to reach their full potential by the end of 2013 - a year Isaf has consequently termed "Milestone 2013".
"We will continue to train and equip and ultimately to field the entire ANSF by the end of 2013. So we'll be approaching a key crossover point in the campaign in 2013 - what's known as the Milestone 2013 - where the ANSF will move into security lead in the context of the counterinsurgency campaign and where Isaf forces will be supporting that move into the lead," he said.
The ANSF currently has about 330,000 troops and is expected to increase to 352,000 by the end of the year.
Regarding the reopening of the Nato supply route in Pakistan, Allen said that there are positive indications that about the reopening of the border and reiterated that it did not affect his mission in Afghanistan,
He also said he had positive negotiations with Pakistani Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani in a trilateral meeting in Islamabad, but did not disclose details.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
New York Times By HELENE COOPER and MATTHEW ROSENBERG May 21, 2012
CHICAGO - President Obama and the leaders of America’s NATO allies on Monday agreed to end their guiding role in the decade-long war in Afghanistan next summer, saying it is time for the Afghan people to take responsibility for their own security and for the United States-led international troops to go home.
Declaring that “our forces broke the Taliban’s momentum,” Mr. Obama used the summit meeting of NATO leaders here in his adopted hometown to begin an exit from a conflict he embraced during his first campaign for president as America’s good war.
“We’re now unified behind a plan to responsibly wind down the war in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference after the meeting. He called the decision a “major step” toward the end of the war.
But Mr. Obama acknowledged that “real challenges” remained in dealing with the problems across the border in Pakistan, and that the conference had not resolved the impasse over reopening supply lines or the other tensions about the fight against insurgents operating from safe havens there.
“We think that Pakistan has to be part of the solution in Afghanistan,” he said. “Neither country is going to have the kind of security, stability and prosperity that it needs unless they can resolve some of these outstanding issues.”
Pakistan closed supply lines to Afghanistan after an American airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani solders. Mr. Obama has refused to apologize for the strike, as Pakistan has demanded in negotiations with the Americans, and he pointedly exchanged only a few words with the country’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, during the two-day summit meeting — “very brief, as we were walking into the summit,” he said. The two men also stood and spoke briefly with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, before all three joined the other leaders for a group photograph.
The plans to withdraw from Afghanistan are “irreversible,” Mr. Obama and the world leaders said in their communiqué, a deliberate word choice that underscored the political reality in America and in Europe. After 10 years of war and with the global economy reeling, the nations of the West no longer want to pay, either in treasure or in lives, the costs of their efforts in a place that for centuries has resisted foreign attempts to tame it.
“The Taliban is still a robust enemy, and the gains are still fragile,” Mr. Obama conceded.
“But think about it. We’ve been there now 10 years,” he said. “Ten years in a country that’s very different, that’s a strain, not only on our folks but also on that country, which at a point is going to be very sensitive about its own sovereignty.”
Mr. Obama and his fellow leaders said they were not abandoning Afghanistan. “Afghanistan will not stand alone,” they declared in their formal statement. “We affirm our close partnership will continue beyond the end of the transition period.”
That period begins now. Afghan national security forces will soon be in the lead role keeping the peace for around 75 percent of the population, NATO and Afghan officials said. But significantly, Afghan forces are not in the lead in many heavily contested areas in the south and the east of the country, where Taliban and Pakistan-based insurgents continue to engage NATO troops in day-by-day battles for control.
By next summer, the Afghan forces will have to assume those lead roles even in the heavily contested areas.
How that will come to pass remains to be seen. American military officials, as recently as Sunday, said they fully expected that American troops would continue fighting after next summer. In fact, the American presence in Afghanistan will continue even after 2014. The strategic partnership agreement between the United States and Afghanistan calls for a residual troop presence after 2014 to act in an advisory role.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban released their own statement on the NATO conference. The Taliban commended President François Hollande of France for saying he would bring troops home early, adding that “the mujahedeen of the Islamic emirate will keep proceeding with their ongoing jihad until it attains its goal.”
For Mr. Obama, the NATO agreement is a turning point in an evolving position on how to manage America’s longest war. Mr. Obama staked his first campaign for president in part on his opposition to the war in Iraq; the war in Afghanistan, by contrast, was the one he had said needed American troops and attention. But Mr. Obama forever tied his own legacy to Afghanistan as Americans and his NATO allies were suffering from combat fatigue.
NATO says it will cost about $4.1 billion a year to finance the Afghan forces. Officials at the summit meeting were looking for ways to come up with the money; it is expected that the United States and other donor countries will finance the training and support.
While officials at the summit meeting sought to highlight the progress made in the past two years by Afghan forces, especially the army, many conceded privately that the shift still represented a significant gamble on Afghanistan’s future stability. It is far from certain that the Afghans can hold areas that coalition troops have wrested from the Taliban in recent years, even with close support from Western allies.
The Afghan Army has become a more effective fighting force and less of a threat to its own people — there are far fewer reports these days of soldiers getting high on patrol, for instance. But the force remains “a work in progress,” one American official said, and it lacks almost all the support functions needed to fight the war.
The ranks of the police, meanwhile, are filled with drug users, thieves and “shakedown artists,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he works with the Afghans. If the hand-over strategy is going to work, “it’s going to be on” the Afghan Army, which is going to need a lot of hands-on American support well past the end of the NATO combat mission in 2014, the official said.
American field commanders say they are already pushing Afghan forces to the forefront. Their reasoning: Better to have the Afghans make mistakes while American forces are still thick on the ground rather than a year from now, when there may not be enough backup for the Afghans to recover from battlefield stumbles.
Maj. Gen. James L. Huggins of the Army, the top coalition commander in southern Afghanistan, said in an interview that he was telling his Afghan counterparts: “If you will step forward now, we’ll help back you up. You may learn what you don’t know and stumble somewhere, but it won’t be a catastrophic failure, because we have your back.”
John H. Cushman Jr. contributed reporting from Washington.
NATO Leaders Commit to Afghanistan Transition
Dan Robinson VOA News May 22, 2012
CHICAGO - Leaders of the 28 NATO countries ended their summit in Chicago on Monday, pledging an "irreversible" commitment to transition in Afghanistan. The leaders committed to greater efficiencies, while reaffirming the alliance's defense commitments.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai sat with NATO leaders and representatives of other nations whose support Afghanistan will need if it is to move from war to stability. NATO leaders formally approved the plan to transfer lead responsibility for combat operations to Afghan security forces by the middle of next year.
U.S. President Barack Obama said this is part of a road map to wind down the war and move toward the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
"This will not mark the end of Afghanistan's challenges, obviously, or our partnership with that important country. But we are making substantial progress against our core objective of defeating al-Qaida and denying it safe haven, and helping Afghans to stand on their own," Obama said.
NATO is gathering commitments to pay for long-term training of Afghanistan's military. Annual costs after 2014 are put at a little more than $4 billion and will be reviewed regularly based on the security situation.
President Obama had a brief discussion with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan who was invited to Chicago by NATO. Obama said he believes there has been progress in resolving tensions over NATO supply routes that Pakistan closed last year.
Despite what he called "real improvement" in removing Taliban strongholds, President Obama called the gains in Afghanistan "fragile." But he said the strategy eventually will allow the United States to direct resources to investments needed at home.
"Whereby we can achieve a stable Afghanistan that won't be perfect, we can pull back our troops in a responsible way, and we can start rebuilding America and start making some of the massive investments we made in Afghanistan, here back home," the president said.
NATO also made decisions to ensure the alliance's viability and its capability to respond to future threats in difficult economic times.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that includes a commitment to "smart defense" strategies and resource sharing.
"We have decided to invest smartly in our defense, even in times of austerity, and we have engaged with our partners around the world to address the challenges we all face in the 21st century," he said.
Reporters asked President Obama about the demonstrations by various groups in his hometown that at times turned violent. That is part of what America is about, he said, thanking city residents for enduring traffic jams and drawing laughter when he said this:
"Despite being 15 minutes away from my house, nobody would let me go home. I was thinking I would be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. They said I would cause even worse traffic, so I ended up staying in a hotel -- which contributes to the Chicago economy," Obama said.
The NATO summit capped four days of high-level diplomacy, including Obama's hosting of the G8 summit at Camp David, Maryland.
Exclusive: U.S. envoy to Afghanistan to step down shortly
Reuters By Missy Ryan Mon May 21, 2012
CHICAGO - Veteran U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker is expected to step down soon from his post as President Barack Obama's envoy to Afghanistan, departing the U.S. mission in Kabul as the United States negotiates a host of challenges on its course out of the long, costly war.
The Obama administration is considering Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham to replace Crocker when he leaves the post as early as this month, sources familiar with the matter said.
It was not immediately clear why the widely respected diplomat was leaving.
Crocker, who came out of retirement to become ambassador in Kabul in July 2011, has led diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan at a time when the White House has focused on reducing the U.S. presence there - and on doing so without letting the country slide back into civil war.
Crocker was one of the high-level officials discussing Afghanistan's future at a NATO summit that concluded on Monday in Obama's home town of Chicago. There, Western leaders refined their plans to pull most of their troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and put local forces in charge.
At the core of Crocker's job has been maintaining a difficult, and at times openly hostile, U.S. relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and overseeing civilian efforts to combat corruption and poverty in Afghanistan.
Crocker has anchored the U.S. diplomatic presence at a time when Western sites - and even the American embassy building itself - have been the target by Taliban militants. Crocker has also urged the Afghan government to make reforms that could help it secure billions of dollars in future outside aid.
The appointment of a diplomat of Crocker's stature in 2011 was seen as another sign of Obama's desire to turn around a campaign that was received insufficient attention and resources for years - and of his determination to steer the U.S. mission there toward a conclusion.
News of Crocker's departure comes only weeks after Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, informed his staff he would be leaving his post in coming months.
In yet another diplomatic departure as Obama's current term enters its final stretch, Reuters reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, will soon leave for a top post at the United Nations.
Crocker earned respect in his earlier role as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007-2009, when a surge in U.S. forces was credited with helping to calm a country convulsed by sectarian violence. The post in Baghdad when suicide bombings and mortar attacks were a daily occurrence appeared to tax Crocker's health. He has also served as ambassador to Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.
As a young diplomat, he worked at the U.S. embassy in Beirut when it was bombed in 1982 and when an American Marine barracks was attacked the following year.
Crocker retired from the government in April 2009, becoming dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.
Cunningham, who would need to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate if he were to become the permanent U.S. envoy, was ambassador to Israel before he came to Kabul last year.
(Reporting By Missy Ryan; editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)
NATO summit: Obama's Pakistan gamble falls flat
The White House fails to reach a deal on supply routes to Afghanistan. The summit does produce a formal agreement on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Los Angeles Times By David S. Cloud and Kathleen Hennessey May 22, 2012
CHICAGO - When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan?
But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal.
Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan. The Chicago gathering did produce a formal agreement by the alliance to hand over lead responsibility for security to Afghan forces by mid-2013, and pull out nearly all U.S. and other NATO troops by the end of 2014 even if the Taliban-led insurgency remains undiminished.
U.S. officials insist ample fuel and other supplies are being delivered via much longer and more expensive land routes in Russia and other nations north of Afghanistan. But the Pentagon says reopening the land route in Pakistan will be essential to hauling vast stores of military equipment and vehicles out of Afghanistan during the withdrawal.
Obama's irritation at the impasse was clear Monday when he addressed more than 50 world leaders and publicly thanked Russia and Central Asian nations "that continue to provide critical transit" of war supplies into Afghanistan. Zardari sat only a few feet away, but Obama pointedly did not mention Pakistan.
Later at a news conference that closed the two-day summit, Obama did not try to downplay the strains in a relationship that has spiraled from crisis to crisis since U.S. Navy SEALs secretly flew into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden last May. Nor did Obama suggest, as his aides had done earlier, that a quick resolution was likely.
"I don't want to paper over real challenges there," Obama said. "There's no doubt that there have been tensions between [the NATO military coalition] and Pakistan, the United States and Pakistan over the last several months."
Pakistan closed the main NATO supply route after U.S. airstrikes hit two border posts Nov. 26 and killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Islamabad has demanded an unconditional apology, and more than $5,000 per truck, up from about $250 in the past, to let supplies flow again. The Obama administration has refused to apologize, saying both sides committed mistakes, and it says the new truck toll is far too expensive.
The White House was careful not to let Zardari appear completely snubbed Monday, worried that could worsen tensions. Obama had ruled out a formal meeting with Zardari when it was clear no deal was forthcoming, but aides ensured that the Pakistani leader managed to bump into Obama twice Monday, once for a brief one-on-one chat and later with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The White House quickly told the media of the encounter and tweeted a photo of the three leaders in conversation.
Obama indicated that the discussion was far from substantive, however, describing it as "very brief as we were walking into the summit."
Obama also offered a glimpse of how his thinking has evolved on the use of military force during his three years in office, reflecting on an issue that officials have said increasingly has been on his mind: the tensions that develop when U.S. troops are deployed in distant wars for years on end.
"Frankly, the large footprint that we have in Afghanistan over time can be counterproductive," Obama said. "We've been there 10 years. And I think, you know, no matter how much good we're doing and how outstanding our troops and our civilians and diplomats are doing on the ground, 10 years in a country that's very different, that's a strain. Not only on our folks, but also on that country."
Obama dismissed the notion that the U.S. may be planning for a "premature withdrawal" in Afghanistan, but he also committed to the 2014 timetable regardless of whether the Taliban-led insurgency is defeated. Signaling the shrunken ambitions for the mission, Obama said sometimes you just have to pick a time and leave.
"I don't think that there's ever going to be an optimal point where we say: 'This is all done. This is perfect. This is just the way we wanted it. And now we can wrap up all our equipment and go home,' " he said. "There's a process. And it's sometimes a messy process. Just as it was in Iraq."
Obama indicated that he was so wary of major troop commitments that he had applied clear limits for U.S. special operations and other military units battling groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and other places. The goal, Obama said, is to "stay focused on the counter-terrorism issue, to not overextend ourselves."
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced last week that it had invited Zardari to the long-planned summit. U.S. officials said they had hoped a meeting with Obama might provide an incentive for a deal on resuming supply shipments. When that strategy did not work, they tried to raise the pressure through what appeared to be a series of carefully calibrated slights.
"The invitation was an inducement to get them back into the international fold," said a senior U.S. official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitive issues. "But the Pakistanis couldn't get their own act together" in time for the summit. "The main issue, it seems, is money."
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Sherry Rehman, sought to downplay the dispute during an evening news conference at Chicago's Ritz Carlton Hotel.
"We are seeking to narrow differences," she said, adding, "I don't think there is a haggle going on with the price."
Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Zardari, said negotiations to reopen the supply route were ongoing, but "no timeline can be given."
Earlier, the Pentagon had announced that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta had "expressed his deep appreciation" to officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at a meeting Monday. NATO has trucked more than half its nonlethal supplies through those countries since the Pakistani route closed, and flown the rest in on cargo planes.
Some U.S. officials said the Obama administration's approach could backfire by humiliating Zardari, leaving him politically weaker and even less able to overcome the intense anti-U.S. feeling in Pakistan over the attack on the border posts, years of lethal CIA drone attacks on Pakistani territory and other divisive issues.
Without access to Pakistan, equipment leaving Afghanistan would have to go by cargo plane and by the northern routes, which stretch thousands of miles through Russia and Central Asia to ports on the Baltic Sea or through Georgia to the Black Sea. Many of the countries refuse to allow the U.S. to ship ammunition and other lethal equipment through their territory, forcing those supplies to go by air.
The U.S. military and NATO allies shipped about 260,000 tons of nonlethal supplies into Afghanistan last year. About 40% went through Pakistan, although that had dropped to about 30% by the fall.
Before the summit adjourned, officials said additional countries had promised in closed-door discussions to provide money for Afghanistan's army and police after 2014. The Obama administration has sought to raise about $1.3 billion in annual contributions from allies as part of a plan to provide $4.1 billion to Afghanistan's security forces after foreign troops withdraw.
The U.S. has promised $2.4 billion and Afghanistan has offered $500 million. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Estonia and others had made pledges Monday that added "almost" $1 billion. He said more pledges were expected soon.
david.cloud@latimes.com
kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
Chicago Tribune reporter Wailin Wong contributed to this report.
ISAF to continue combat operations in Afghanistan until 2014: spokesman
KABUL, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led coalition forces in Afghanistan will continue to take part in combat operations against Taliban and other insurgent groups until the end of 2014 when the Afghan forces are expected to take over the security lead across the country, a coalition spokesman said on Tuesday.
"As the NATO Summit in Chicago has just concluded, I would like to again highlight that despite the fact that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are now taking the lead in combat operations, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces will continue to participate in combat operations until the end of 2014," ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson told a press conference in Kabul.
The issue of Afghanistan was at the top of the agenda of the Chicago summit, the biggest of its kind in NATO's history. The leaders of NATO's 28 member nations and their alliances wrapped up the summit on Monday.
"At the summit there was broad agreement that the Afghan security forces are well on track to take full security responsibility across the country by the end of 2014. As the Afghan forces take on more responsibility, ISAF forces can be drawn down gradually and responsibly," NATO civilian representative spokesman Dominic Medley told the same press briefing.
The process of taking over security responsibilities from the over 130,000-strong NATO-led ISAF begun in July last year would be completed by the end of 2014.
The U.S. and NATO forces have already handed over the security responsibilities of eight provinces, 11 provincial capitals and some 138 districts which represent areas where 50 percent of population lives to ANSF since the process began.
According to the third phase of the process, announced by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on May 13, the foreign forces will hand over the security control of remaining 23 provincial capitals, 122 district and three provinces to Afghan forces over the next six months.
"Leaders from NATO's 28 nations and the 22 partners in the ISAF coalition have given Afghanistan a clear, long-term commitment to continue supporting the Afghan forces after the NATO-led ISAF mission is completed in 2014," said Medley.
Agreeing a NATO Strategic Plan for Afghanistan, the state leaders decided on a new NATO-led mission which will focus on training, advising and assisting Afghan forces after they have assumed full security responsibility across the country by the end of 2014, he said.
"The insurgency is under pressure as never before and the Afghan security forces are growing in strength and confidence," he noted.
"They (ANSF) are taking an increasing lead for security and by the middle of 2013 will be providing the lead for security across the country, allowing ISAF forces to shift from leading combat operations to a more supporting role," Medley added.
When asked why there were no pledges of funds at the summit for the Afghan army and police after they assumed full security duties, Medley said, "Chicago was never going to be a donor or pledging conference and we still expect more announcement to be made ... NATO alliance and ISAF partners were on track to meet the 4.1 billion U.S. dollars that is the working model for the financing of the ANSF."
According to NATO plans, the ANSF will achieve a surge strength of 352,000 by this October and remain at that size for two full years. With anticipated improved security, the ANSF forces of 228, 500 will have an estimated annual budget of 4.1 billion dollars.
NATO said the Afghan government has pledged to provide at least 500 million U.S. dollars a year for the ANSF beginning in 2015.
Regarding the reduction of Afghan army and police after 2015, the ISAF spokesman said that the reduction of the forces will depend on the conditions on the ground in coming years.
According to U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10, 000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
Karzai: I will not let congressman into Afghanistan
CNN By Jamie Crawford May 21st, 2012
Editor's note: Read all of Security Clearance's coverage of the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. Follow our reporting and other key NATO tweets with our NATO summit Twitter list.
If Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, an influential member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is looking for a country to visit as a member of a congressional delegation, he can cross Afghanistan off his list.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Rohrabacher have been at loggerheads over the congressman's push for a more decentralized Afghan government. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the disagreement, Karzai said he is against letting Rohrabacher into the country.
"Until he changes his tongue, until he shows respect to the Afghan people, to our way of life and to our constitution ... No foreigner has a place asking another people, another country to change their constitution. Have we ever asked the United States to change its constitution?" Karzai said in an exclusive interview that aired Monday on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
Last month, Rohrabacher was asked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not to travel on to Afghanistan with a congressional delegation that he was part of as it visited the region, after Karzai said the congressman was not welcome.
Both Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Rohrabacher it was not a good idea to travel to Afghanistan based on their own conversations with Karzai. Rohrabacher agreed, and did not travel on with the delegation from its previous stop in Dubai.
As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, Rohrabacher said his past scrutiny of the Afghan government and examination of how U.S. funds are spent in the war-torn nation likely played a role in Karzai's displeasure.
Coming on the heels of revelations of U.S. soldiers burning Qurans, and the alleged killing of Afghan civilians at the hands of a U.S. soldier, Clinton told Rohrabacher the timing of the visit was not right
"She felt that another mini-crisis might erupt," Rohrabacher told Blitzer last month, "because Karzai hated me so much that he would create a crisis, and she just thought it would be disruptive to our ability to get her job done."
Rohrabacher went on to call the mercurial Afghan leader a "corrupt prima donna" in the same interview.
In the interview that aired Monday, Karzai said he is firm on his position on Rohrabacher not because the congressman is "dangerous," but as a "matter of principle."
"Freedom of speech is good, we respect that, but the freedom of speech with regard to other countries is another issue," Karzai told Blitzer.
Rohrabacher later released a statement through his office saying he would not "apologize to Karzai or any other corrupt leader.
"Afghanistan is failing because Karzai and his corrupt clique are incompetent leaders, not because the U.S. hasn't pumped enough money or blood to help the brave people of Afghanistan ... Right now, I'm more concerned with getting American troops out of that country so they won't continue to needlessly die than I am getting myself into Afghanistan to meet with officials like Karzai," Rohrabacher said in the statement.
Thinking Afghan unthinkables
Washington Post By David Ignatius Opinion 21/05/2012
A veteran U.S. diplomat who has helped plan many NATO summits over the years was offering a wager the other day, and the bet was this: How many years after NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 will it take before the government falls and Kabul is once again in the hands of the Taliban?
This is the shadow that hangs over the NATO summit in Chicago today. The leaders are planning their exit strategy from Afghanistan and trying to sell it as a mix of leaving and staying: The main combat forces will turn over the lead role to the Afghans in mid-2013, and leave in 2014; a smaller counterterrorism force will stay for another 10 years to train the Afghans and chase the bad guys.
President Obama expressed the best-case version of the future in a statement Sunday after he met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He talked about a “shared vision that we have in which Afghanistan is able to transition from decades of war to a transformational decade of peace and stability and development.”
But what about the Taliban? Unfortunately, they have a vote, too. If the past is any guide, they’ll go right to the points of greatest U.S. vulnerability — infiltrating their assassins into the Afghan security forces so that the United States stops trusting its allies, and mounting spectacular large-casualty attacks at U.S. bases and international gathering points, to sow fear and demoralization.
CIA analysts, who have been skeptical for years about the prospects for success in Afghanistan, apparently see the Taliban regaining strength — contrary to the U.S. military’s assessment that the insurgents’ momentum has been checked. That’s what I took from the comments of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Rogers, chairs of the Senate and House intelligence committees, respectively, after their visit to Afghanistan this month. “I think we’d both say that what we’ve found is that the Taliban is stronger,” said Feinstein — and she didn’t hear that from Gen. John Allen, the overall U.S. military commander, who is trying to be a good soldier and make the president’s plan work. More likely, the skepticism is a CIA view.
And to ask another meddlesome question, as the Chicago summiteers prepare the upbeat talking points: What about the other ethnic groups and warlords in Afghanistan that have the jitters about NATO’s departure, even as the Taliban is licking its chops? What will the United States do if the Tajiks draw closer to the Northern Alliance militia in northeastern Afghanistan or the Hazaras deepen their alliance with Iran, which is proving a potent force in western Afghanistan?
These other ethnic groups (along with non-Taliban Pashtuns) are as important to the future of Afghanistan as the Taliban leadership hiding out in its Pakistani sanctuaries. So I hope the United States will spend a little more time working on the political transition in Afghanistan, even as it plans for the military transition. The goal should be to form a political alliance for a sane, non-terrorist Afghanistan that can extend beyond the shelf life of the Karzai government, which expires in 2014 (or maybe even earlier, with speeded-up elections).
If there’s one thing that Afghanistan proves, it’s that warlike people abhor a vacuum: If power is up for grabs as NATO forces begin leaving, another shootout will begin. What will the U.S. answer be?
Well, officially (and in fact), we are betting that the Afghan security forces will be strong and cohesive enough to hold Kabul, maybe Kandahar and the ring road that links the country — providing a ragged version of “Afghan Good Enough” for the future. Tajiks and Hazaras will probably be free to have their militias under this scenario, so long as they keep the roads open and feed timely intelligence about al-Qaeda or Taliban terrorism to U.S. counterterrorism operatives.
But what if the center doesn’t hold? What if the Afghan forces collapse under fire and key Afghan government facilities are overrun? I frankly doubt the United States would send major forces back to prop up the government. Which means, I guess, that Plan B is civil war and an eventual partition.
Oh yes, about that bet: My friend the veteran diplomat predicted that two years after the 2014 withdrawal of most NATO forces, the Taliban will be back in control in Kabul.
The Soviets showed the way to leave Afghanistan
Talks with the Taliban and a ceasefire are vital prerequisites to any dignified withdrawal
Guardian.co.uk By Jonathan Steele Monday 21 May 2012
Nato's decade-long military intervention in Afghanistan will soon be over, but western governments will continue their generosity to that benighted country by maintaining their lavish aid programmes for many years to come. That is the reassuring message that was meant to go out from Nato's just-concluded Chicago summit.
With the new French president determined to get his combat troops out by the end of 2012 and two-thirds of the American public in favour of an early withdrawal of theirs, President Obama wanted to suggest that he is listening. So the summit trumpeted the "transition" to Afghan forces while seeking a commitment from Nato members to go on paying the Afghans long after the alliance's own troops have gone.
At the back of many Nato officials' minds is the Soviet Union's Afghan experience. Propaganda about a Soviet humiliation is giving way to awareness that the Russians pulled out in good order and the government of Najibullah, whom they left in charge, survived for three more years. When it collapsed 20 years ago, it was not because of the insurgents' prowess but because Moscow stopped delivering cash, fuel, and weaponry. Nato wants to avoid a similar outcome.
But there are key differences, summed up in two words not much heard in Chicago: talks and ceasefire. The Soviet Union sought to negotiate its exit by persuading Pakistan and the United States to stop arming the insurgents. Najibullah followed the same path by offering to include rebel leaders and monarchists in his government. At the local level his generals negotiated several ceasefires with mujahideen commanders. It was not enough, as Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and the Reagan administration urged the rebels to resist Moscow's and Kabul's offers and keep on seeking victory.
Obama has not learned the lesson. Vague efforts at trying to talk to the Taliban were resisted by hawks within his administration and have not become real. Now Obama is afraid Mitt Romney will beat the macho drum about not "appeasing the enemy". Meanwhile, on the ground, instead of seeking ceasefires American generals are intensifying night raids and missile strikes on suspected Taliban hideouts in Helmand and Kandahar.
Nato's biggest mistake is to go on relying on a garrison strategy. Increasing numbers of Afghan troops will sit in bases and go out on patrols instead of US and British ones, but this is nothing more than "Nato with an Afghan face". Locals see these Afghan troops as occupiers just like the US and British. Less than 4% of the Afghan National Army are southern Pashtuns. Most are Tajiks and Uzbeks who speak a different language and don't know the area. But if you recruit more southerners in a hurry, you just feed the Taliban's latest tactic: join the Afghan army and police, get trained by the Americans and British, then shoot them in the camp or mess hall.
To strengthen the garrison strategy, the US recently signed a partnership agreement with Hamid Karzai. It did not specify how many US troops will remain after combat forces leave in 2014 since Karzai is unwilling to commit himself and Obama wants to blur the issue for electoral reasons. But the plan to keep US troops after 2014 remains on the table. This is a disaster. Whether dubbed trainers or advisers, they will still be armed and uniformed US soldiers.
The Taliban will never accept that. "A lasting occupation means lasting resistance," as they put it on the eve of the Chicago summit, in a statement which distanced themselves from al-Qaida and reaffirmed a willingness to negotiate. "American intelligence networks including the CIA state that members of al-Qaida have all left Afghanistan. So America's military presence is not for its own security but a long-term strategy for turning our country and the region into its colony," it said.
We need a change of course. The US must prepare for a total troop withdrawal, as the Russians did. Some say the Taliban can just sit and wait for 2014, but in the two years before then the ISI must be persuaded to threaten the Taliban leadership, whom they host in Pakistan, with loss of their sanctuaries if they do not negotiate. Another big difference from the 1990s is the emergence of a new player: the Pakistani Taliban. Compromise in Kabul is better for Pakistan than an outright Afghan Taliban victory which would embolden their counterparts south of the border to move against Islamabad.
Two conflicts are ravaging Afghanistan: a war between Afghans and a resistance struggle against a foreign invasion. Both need to be stopped, ideally through negotiations for a government of national unity and a devolution of power to the provinces. Without a strong push to end the Afghan civil war as the foreigners leave, this weekend's stuff about "transition" will change little for most Afghans. Fewer foreign troops will die and Afghanistan will revert to being an unreported war. This will not be ending Nato's intervention with dignity, but with cynicism.
Afghanistan's U.S. Envoy Says NATO Pledge Sends 'Strong Signal' To Region
May 21, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States says his country is grateful for the support that NATO allies have pledged at their summit in Chicago.
Eklil Hakimi told RFE/RL’s Heather Maher that the agreements reached between President Hamid Karzai and the United States and its NATO partners will send a strong message to the region, and assure the Afghan people that Kabul will not be left on its own after NATO ends its combat mission in the country in 2014.
Hakimi also said that Afghan forces will be ready by the time NATO hands over the lead on fighting by mid-2013.
RFE/RL: Is President Karzai satisfied with the commitments he's gotten from NATO allies about their post-2014 commitment?
Eklil Hakimi: Well, the support that we received from our allies is something that we are grateful [for], and also the support that we have received for the last decades is something that we cherish, and the Afghan people are grateful for that.
So that assurance is there and we are looking forward to an enduring partnership for years to come between Afghanistan and our NATO allies.
RFE/RL: Did you hear anything new about NATO's position here in Chicago that you didn’t know before? Were there any surprises?
Hakimi: We have been consulting with each other as an ally for quite some time and this declaration has been based on a consensus on both sides and not something [that has come as a] surprise.
RFE/RL: Can you talk about what happened during the closed-door meeting this morning [May 21] to discuss the partnership agreement?
Hakimi: We had a very constructive discussion with [NATO and its partners]. As you know, this [is a] partnership that we have agreed with those allies and those countries that have committed [to] an enduring partnership with Afghanistan for years to come.
That gives an assurance to our people, a strong signal to our people, and also countries in the region that Afghanistan’s partnership with our allies will remain intact for years to come.
RFE/RL: What has President Karzai told the allies they can expect in return for their commitments? Did he make any specific pledges?
Hakimi: This is a journey that we have all started together – a democratic society with the values that we both cherish. Common values, a democratic society with the rule of law, good governance, human rights -- particularly women's rights. These are things that we have committed to do through our constitution and this is what we are going to do for years to come.
RFE/RL: Were you asked specifically by the allies about improving transparency and good governance, or did you any hear concerns about whether the money NATO allies will be contributing will be channeled in the right way?
Hakimi: This is a process. We have to have strong institutions in order to be more transparent and this is something that we have been insisting [on] for quite some time -- that the money should be channeled through the Afghan government, [which] will enable us to give information and share information with our own people, and also to build our own capacity to deliver things that our own people and also our partners anticipate from us.
So, as we have done before, we have started it, but it's not something that we are satisfied with. As I said, it's a process. We should continue to build on things that we have already laid a strong foundation [for] -- strong institutions that will be responsible to our own people and also be transparent enough so that we can satisfy our donors and our partners as well.
RFE/RL: Will Afghan forces be ready to take over the lead in fighting by mid-2013, as NATO has decided here to do?
Hakimi: The transition will be completed by the end of 2014 and our security forces should be in the lead by mid-2013, which we are ready [to do].
This is according to the schedule that we have laid out with our partners in Lisbon in 2010. The transition, as we said, is irreversible and it's based on the reality on the ground, and [it's] also gradual. So based on that, we have made that time frame, and we will meet that time frame.
Our security forces -- yes, they are ready, and also yes we need support: support for training, support for political and financial assistance for years to come until we rely on our own resources.
No US-Pakistan Breakthrough at NATO Summit
VOA News May 22, 2012 Brian Padden
CHICAGO - Despite the participation of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the NATO summit in Chicago, neither the U.S. nor Pakistan announced steps to improve relations or to reopen key NATO supply routes to to Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the lines in November following a U.S. airstrike that killed two 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Zardari and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared cordial at their brief meeting at the NATO summit in Chicago. But relations between the two countries remain at an impasse.
Pakistan’s presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said President Zardari came to Chicago to express his country’s support for NATO’s efforts in the region.
“The president also emphasized that Pakistan wants peace and stability in Afghanistan," he stated. "The president dispelled the misperceptions about the alleged links with the groups of militants of Pakistan.”
But there was no breakthrough to reopen the NATO supply route to Afghanistan that Pakistan shut down last November. NATO has since established a more expensive alternative northern supply route through other Central Asian countries.
Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has intensified since the U.S. led airstrike in November and the U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden last May. Pakistan’s parliament has demanded an unconditional apology for the airstrike and an end to drone attacks in the border region with Afghanistan, even though media reports say Pakistani intelligence services are secretly aiding the U.S. to identify militant targets.
The U.S. has expressed regret for the airstrike in November, but defends the drone attacks as essential to fighting al-Qaida and other insurgent groups.
President Obama also met briefly with the President Zardari.
"We need to work through some of the tensions that have inevitably arisen after 10 years of our military presence in that region," he said.
Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker says the underlying issue is a lack of trust both about Pakistan’s commitment to fight Taliban extremists and the U.S. promise to maintain a reduced military presence in Afghanistan after most combat troops leave in 2014.
“Both in the side of Pakistan where they say they want support of a stable Afghanistan but in reality they are working to undermine that, and on the American side where we say we have a long term commitment to Afghanistan but we are massively working on the troops withdraws and talking about ending this war,” said Volker.
U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are close to working out their differences, but the lack of progress at the NATO summit seems to indicate the two sides remain far apart.
6 Taliban dead, 2 Afghan police hurt in clashes
KABUL, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Clashes between Taliban militants and Afghan police left six insurgents dead and two policemen injured on Tuesday, officials said.
In the first incident, according to officials, a group of armed Taliban stormed a police checkpoint in Ghazi Abad district of Kunar province 185 km east of Afghan capital Kabul but police returned fire.
"A group of Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint in Ghazi Abad district at 04:00 a.m. local time today and police returned fire, killing four militants," provincial police chief Awaz Mohammad Nazari told Xinhua.
However, he stated one police constable sustained injury in the firefight that lasted for a while.
In a similar incident, two Taliban insurgents were killed and a police constable injured as gun battle erupted in Shah Walikot district of the southern Kandahar province Tuesday, a police officer Badshah Khan said, adding the militants had fled away.
Taliban-linked militancy usually increases in the spring and summer, commonly known as fighting season in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan.
‘Green on Blue' Attacks Not an Indicator of Taliban Infiltration: Allen
TOLOnews.com Monday, 21 May 2012
Less than 50 percent of so-called "green on blue" attacks are perpetrated by Taliban infiltrators into the Afghan army, the US and Nato Commander General John Allen said Sunday.
The shooting deaths of foreign soldiers by Afghan army personnel, or Afghans in army uniform, were found to not be the work of the Islamic militant group in more than half the cases, according to investigations, Allen said.
"It's important to note that in the analysis that we have done, less than 50 percent of the ones that have perpetrated these attacks were in fact Taliban infiltrators," Allen told reporters at a press briefing in Chicago.
"Many of these folks are self-radicalised. So it's important to understand and be able to recognise the nature of that self-radicalisation in the ranks."
Allen said that each single incident was important and investigated, with serious measures undertaken to prevent such attacks in coordination with Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior and National Directorate of Security.
As a result, as many as 160 individuals planning to attack Isaf forces have been arrested in the last several months, Allen said.
The green on blue attacks have escalated this year, with already 22 foreign soldiers killed in 16 attacks in 2012. In last year's total, there were 35 foreign soldiers killed in 21 attacks, while in 2010 there were 20 soldiers killed in 11 attacks. These figures do not include attacks that did not lead to foreign troop fatalities.
Allen noted that the protection measures were taken "bilaterally, to protect each other".
"It's not well-known that the Afghans suffer nearly as many casualties from insider threats as we do," he said.
Responding to reporters' questions, Allen confirmed that the planned drawdown of 23,000 US troops will go ahead, with that number to return to the US by the end of September.
He said the surge tactic had achieved its aim, meaning those forces were no longer required.
"Part of the importance of the surge was to create conditions under which we could withdraw those troops - and I think those conditions are now underway - and that was to move the Afghan National Security forces to a level and to a confidence where they could begin to assume the role of some of those surge forces in the field," he said.
When asked about France's early withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Allen replied that it was a sovereign decision and to that effect he supports it, but it will not affect Isaf's mission in Afghanistan as Afghan forces are getting stronger and taking the responsibility.
"We have the capacity, using our current force structure to ensure that there is no degradation in security with respect to any decisions that might be made," Allen said.
Allen said the aim was for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to reach their full potential by the end of 2013 - a year Isaf has consequently termed "Milestone 2013".
"We will continue to train and equip and ultimately to field the entire ANSF by the end of 2013. So we'll be approaching a key crossover point in the campaign in 2013 - what's known as the Milestone 2013 - where the ANSF will move into security lead in the context of the counterinsurgency campaign and where Isaf forces will be supporting that move into the lead," he said.
The ANSF currently has about 330,000 troops and is expected to increase to 352,000 by the end of the year.
Regarding the reopening of the Nato supply route in Pakistan, Allen said that there are positive indications that about the reopening of the border and reiterated that it did not affect his mission in Afghanistan,
He also said he had positive negotiations with Pakistani Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani in a trilateral meeting in Islamabad, but did not disclose details.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com