Afghanistan’s Pentagon Paper-Country's Tragic State Caused By Years Of BUSHCO Neglect

[kpete]

Afghanistan’s Pentagon Papers
By: David Dayen Wednesday December 30, 2009 6:28 pm
The tragic state of Afghanistan today was cultivated by years of neglect

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/world/asia/31history.html

The 422-page history, called “A Different Kind of War” and prepared by senior US Army commanders to teach future generations about the Afghanistan conflict, shows pretty definitively that the strategy for the post-war period conflicted with the demand for a “light footprint,” to the extent that 800-man battalions were covering areas in the country as large as the state of Vermont. Among the specific reasons cited by this official Army document for that light footprint is the siphoning away of manpower and resources by the invasion of Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 9/11 and represented no material threat to the United States.

In the fall of 2003, the new commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, decided on a new strategy. Known as counterinsurgency, the approach required coalition forces to work closely with Afghan leaders to stabilize entire regions, rather than simply attacking insurgent cells.

But there was a major drawback, a new unpublished Army history of the war concludes. Because the Pentagon insisted on maintaining a “small footprint” in Afghanistan and because Iraq was drawing away resources, General Barno commanded fewer than 20,000 troops <...>

“Coalition forces remained thinly spread across Afghanistan,” the historians write. “Much of the country remained vulnerable to enemy forces increasingly willing to reassert their power.”

That early and undermanned effort to employ counterinsurgency is one of several examples of how American forces, hamstrung by inadequate resources, missed opportunities to stabilize Afghanistan during the early years of the war, according to the history, “A Different Kind of War.”

For almost six years of the Bush Presidency, their commanders in Afghanistan were trying to fight a counter-insurgency war on the cheap, with practically no troops and no attention from the civilian leadership. The Defense Department knew by 2003 that their effort would amount to nothing without additional resources. And they did nothing. The lack of manpower led to bandaging the war through airstrikes which generated civilian casualties and ill will from the population. The lack of funds for development ceded ground to a Taliban willing to provide for the people. The Pentagon did not plan in any meaningful way for how to achieve stability in the political or economic sphere in Afghanistan after the war ended. The mandate was clear, as put by Gen. Jack Keane, one of the intellectual fathers of the surge in Iraq, in 2002: “We are in and out of there in a hurry.”

Simply put, the tragic state of Afghanistan today was cultivated by years of neglect.

..............

Instead of merely transcribing the opinions of Dick Cheney, maybe the media could force him to come to terms with the mess he caused. Afghanistan is but one example. But the release of this historical document, along with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report on Tora Bora and the escape of Osama bin Laden (as well as Peter Bergen’s authoritative account), is robust enough to really challenge the notion that anyone should listen to a word that a Dick Cheney could say about terrorism or foreign policy.

Lest you think that the current Administration should be let off easy for their own assumptions in the wake of a failed 8-year effort to secure Afghanistan, take a look at a separate leaked report http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/30/820467/-A-Leak-About-the-Phantom-Army from the Pentagon about the state of the Afghan National Army. Punchline: there is none.

The 25-page study obtained by NBC News says senior Afghan commanders are, quote, “not at war. Many ANA leaders work short days, are often absent and place personal gain above national survival.” The report says Afghan troops simply aren’t leading the fight, but remain dependent on US forces, and show few signs of wanting to take off the training wheels. But what’s striking about the report is that it goes to the heart of President Obama’s argument about the war. When announcing the surge, the president said Afghan forces must be trained and equipped quickly, so American troops can return home. But the report’s section on the Afghan army’s personnel says, “Corruption, nepotism and untrained, unmotivated personnel make success all but impossible.”

more:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/12/30/afghanistans-pentagon-papers/

[MisterP]

1. invasions devastate countries? who'da thunk?! nt