My Share of the Task(184)
Coalition forces in RC-North were not routinely attacked, but they were stretched thin and unable to adequately secure threatened areas from Taliban infiltration. Such infiltration had by then begun in earnest, particularly in the province of Kunduz. Sitting astride Afghanistan’s critical line of communication to the north, which included the vulnerable Salang Tunnel near Kabul, an unsafe Kunduz felt like someone choking the nation’s windpipe. I quickly sensed the need to expand and strengthen our ability to secure key areas in the north.
Our trip to the north included a meeting, on June 22, with Balkh Province’s governor, the Tajik former high school teacher turned mujahideen commander, Atta Mohammad Nur. This was the first of the contentious meetings I encountered, as Governor Atta, in his “welcome” speech to a room of about forty local leaders and my command team, pointedly complained about Western leaders classifying him as a warlord.
“We and the people of Balkh Province have removed narcotics from our province but no one praised us, supported us or lent us a hand,” he complained. “Meanwhile, we are stepping up efforts to prevent the trafficking of narcotics throughout Balkh Province every year.”
As Atta continued his speech, my translator whispered in my ear. “He’s not happy . . . He’s saying Western officials unfairly criticize him, even though he’s doing the right things for his province and Afghanistan.” I clenched my teeth to avoid smiling, amused by Atta’s posturing to a new commander.
Atta’s on-again, off-again support for President Karzai became a constant source of intelligence reporting and I viewed it as one barometer of Northern Alliance thinking. It also highlighted the domestic political maneuvering President Karzai needed to execute in order to build and maintain often fragile coalitions of support.
We’d traveled to and from Atta’s provincial center in a ground convoy. Experiencing how an ISAF unit drove in populated areas of Afghanistan disappointed me. Even in a peaceful city like Mazar-e-Sharif, our units drove in an aggressive way they believed was essential to protect against car bomb attacks. But in reality, by forcing Afghan drivers off the road and pointing weapons at an Afghan family, we endangered and insulted the population whose support we needed. It was another practice we needed to fix.
That week, on Tuesday, June 23, I suspended our listening tour for a day for a visit by retired general Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, accompanied by reporter Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. In a morning meeting in an ISAF conference room, with Woodward present, I was surprised when the national security adviser said that the administration would not consider further American forces until the full effects of the currently arriving units could be evaluated. Because the last units approved thus far were due to arrive in September, I judged it would be the end of 2009 before we could realistically assess their effect. I was working on what I thought was different guidance from Secretary Gates, to conduct a detailed assessment and an analysis of required resources, which I would submit in the middle of August.
In retrospect, I should not have been surprised. President Obama had voiced strong support for the effort in Afghanistan during his campaign, pledging to add two brigades, which he did. But since the inauguration, despite the partial approval of existing troop requests, and a thorough strategy review of the war culminating in the White House’s spring announcement prescribing a better resourced, better coordinated counterinsurgency campaign, the administration had signaled that the U.S. commitment needed careful assessment. They felt we needed to recalibrate the strategy and objectives. I didn’t disagree with that. In fact as I deployed to Afghanistan my gut feeling had been that we needed a new approach, not additional forces. But this early in assessing the situation, before I could draw fully informed conclusions, the delayed time line National Security Adviser Jones articulated worried me.
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The final leg of our listening tour took us to RC-West, commanded by an Italian paratrooper, Brigadier General Rosario Castellano. RC-West had traditionally been more secure than either the south or east, but had also been the site of the two most significant civilian casualty incidents within the past year. I was concerned about the relatively weak force levels there, the limited interaction they had with Afghan security forces, and the rise of some seemingly intractable resistance in several areas.