BRATISLAVA - Corruption, doubts over Afghan leadership and faltering public
support have emerged as the main stumbling blocks to a demand for more North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan.
NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, had wanted NATO defense
ministers meeting in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava on Thursday and Friday
last week to agree to raise troop numbers in Afghanistan. The United States and
NATO troops commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has asked for
40,000 more troops.
Rasmussen made energetic appeals to NATO states to endorse the general's plan,
which also calls for a shift in strategy to do
more to protect the Afghan population, and to train local forces and police.
At the end of the meeting, Rasmussen said defense ministers had given their
broad support for the McChrystal report. But it was clear that there would be
no commitment from most European countries to send more troops while doubts
remain over Afghan President Hamid Karzai's regime.
"The plan for NATO is to get the central government to take control of the
country and get institutions up and functioning and then leave," Tomas Valasek,
director of foreign policy and defense at the Center for European Reform in
London told Inter Press Service (IPS).
"But the problem is that the government for whom the Western powers are doing
all this is increasingly seen by ordinary Afghans as more and more incompetent,
and Karzai is bringing in former warlords into his government while people
complain of widespread corruption.
"It makes no difference how many troops NATO sends in - it could send in 10
soldiers for every Afghan - if the government does not have the backing of the
people. As soon as the troops left it would all fall apart."
There are 65,000 US troops in Afghanistan and a further 39,000 from allied
states. More than 1,000 allied troops have been killed in Afghanistan since the
start of military operations in 2001.
McChrystal's report calls for priority for protecting Afghan civilians ahead of
killing insurgents. The United Nations has reported 1,013 civilian deaths in
the first six months of 2009, a rise from 818 over the corresponding period
last year. The UN says NATO troops or Afghan forces were responsible for 30.5%
of the deaths.
The White House has been mulling McChrystal's request since late August, and
experts say the call for more troops at a time of rising allied casualties has
exposed divisions among NATO member states.
Public opinion in much of Europe is now against the war. Experts say it is hard
for governments to persuade voters to support sending more troops to help a
regime in Kabul that is increasingly seen as corrupt. The alleged fraud in
recent presidential elections and accusations that Karzai's government has
turned a blind eye to drug running will have done little to change that view.
While Britain has pledged more soldiers, France has said it will not send any
more troops. Senior figures at the Bratislava conference told IPS that they
believe German officials have privately told US leaders they will not send any
more soldiers.
Franz Josef Jung, the German defense minister, said at the Bratislava meeting
that there would definitely be no increase in German troop levels until after a
planned NATO conference on Afghanistan expected early next year.
Officials from the Netherlands and Denmark said they would not send more troops
until a legitimate government was formed in Afghanistan after a re-run
presidential election next month.
Some analysts say it is uncertain that any agreement from European allies on
raising troop commitments will be reached. "It needs a consensus, and that will
not happen on this issue with so many members," Ivo Samson, defense analyst
with the group Slovak Foreign Policy, told IPS.
Danish Defense Minister Soeren Gade told media at the Bratislava meeting that
if and when NATO allies sent more troops, they were likely to make it
contingent on the Afghan leadership making clear commitments to dealing with
problems in the country.
"We have to make sure the new government in Afghanistan is committed to its job
before we send any more troops to Afghanistan," he said.
Analysts say NATO is now facing a crucial decision on Afghanistan after the
re-run presidential elections early next month.
Valasek told IPS, "The White House is carrying out a review of its Afghanistan
strategy, and other NATO members are waiting to see what the US, the largest
troop contributor in Afghanistan, is planning to do. Until then, they cannot
really do anything."
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