In practice, this approach was a disaster. Assessments from the Pentagon were scathing. “This ‘lead nation’ strategy produced mixed results, but overall it was a failure,” acknowledged Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, specifically calling attention to the “efforts of the British, Germans, and Italians.”4
Afghans were equally critical. Daoud Yaqub, the director for security sector reform at the Afghanistan National Security Council, bemoaned the challenges of coordination. To get everything done, officials had to negotiate along four tracks: between Afghan government ministries, between international donors, between donors and the Afghan government, and within donors’ own agencies. “When disagreements broke out between the donors and us, the donors would come to me and say quite matter-of-factly: ‘It’s our money. We’ll do with it what we want.’ There was little I could do.”5
The justice system was perhaps the most significant challenge. To be fair, no formal justice system existed in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion in 2001. The United Nations Development Program announced shortly after the overthrow of the Taliban regime that “the physical infrastructure of [the justice] institutions has been destroyed.” Even more critically, it fretted that “the country’s legal ‘software’—the laws, legal decisions, legal studies, and texts of jurisprudence—are largely lost or scattered across the world.”6 The December 2001 Bonn Agreement called for the interim Afghan government to establish a judicial reform commission to “rebuild the domestic justice system in accordance with Islamic principles, international standards, the rule of law, and Afghan legal traditions.”7 Consequently, Karzai’s government established the Judicial Reform Commission to oversee and coordinate reconstruction of the justice system.8
As the lead nation for justice-sector reform, Italy had the job of helping to establish a body of laws; train prosecutors, lawyers, and Ministry of Justice officers; build physical infrastructure; and improve detention and prison capacity. But assistance was fractured and Italian policymakers had difficulty coordinating the disparate range of aid pouring in from nations, the UN, the World Bank, and nongovernmental organizations. One study concluded that the “overall coordination and cooperation in the justice sector [was] lacking.” The Italian government also “maintained distance from the Afghan institutions. Rather than support Afghan-led decision-making, the Italian effort…preferred to choose and implement its projects with limited consultation.” 9
Even if the Italians had done everything right, they still needed to overcome severe divisions among the Afghan justice departments. President Karzai had created the Judicial Reform Commission to coordinate reforms, but by empowering the commission, Karzai also removed authority and control of foreign assistance from the permanent institutions. The commission was meant to set policy and priorities for the justice sector, and, in practice, to determine where donor funds would be directed. From the start, the commission had no capacity, funding, or political cover to manage this significant task. Without intervention from the presidency, a turf war raged among the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice, the Office of the Prosecutor General, and the commission.
Under Secretary Feith and other Pentagon officials complained incessantly about the Italians. “Italy made the underperforming Germans look good,” Feith noted sarcastically, referring to the German effort to train the Afghan National Police. “For well over a year the Italians failed to send to Afghanistan a team of experts; in fact, they did not send a single person. When I raised the problem with Italy’s Defense Minister, Antonio Martino—as thoughtful and reliable an ally as one could hope for—he said he would try to help, but judicial matters were not handled by his ministry.”10
Needless to say, the Italian reforms did not earn Afghanistan’s justice system high marks. The World Bank ranked Afghanistan in the top 2 percent of most corrupt countries worldwide every year between 2002 and 2006, with little difference between the late Taliban years.11 And Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization based in Berlin that monitored corruption, ranked Afghanistan almost at the bottom—172 out of 179—of its corruption index. Only a few countries, such as Haiti, Iraq, and Somalia, were more corrupt than Afghanistan.12 In fact, the World Bank judged that Afghanistan’s justice system had worsened over the period of Italy’s tenure. By 2007, for example, Afghanistan ranked in the top 99.5 percent of most ineffective justice systems worldwide. It compared poorly even with other countries in the region, such as Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.13
There was little improvement in other areas, including the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants. The United States, the UN, and the Afghan government, with Japanese funding, collected a significant number of heavy weapons. But Afghanistan was still awash in weapons and ammunition, and there was an increase in the number of insurgent and other illegal groups. Warlords such as Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad retained large militia forces. Even Ismail Khan, who was brought to Kabul by President Karzai to serve as minister of water and energy, still commanded a formidable militia force in western Afghanistan. “The disarmament program was not successful,” remarked NSC staffer Daoud Yaqub; it only “went after low-hanging fruit.” The more powerful leaders refused to disband their militias. Since Coalition forces offered rewards for disbanding militias, commanders frequently demobilized “ghost soldiers” who never existed. This was one of many monetary inducements that proved counterproductive. An Afghan could turn in an AK-47 and get as much as $200 from the government. Some entrepreneurial Afghans realized that this was “profitable since AK-47s could be purchased in Pakistan for less than half that price.”14
NATO’s Expansion
With the lead-nation approach stumbling, it seemed NATO would be given a second chance to play a more serious part. The United States had occasionally discussed an increased NATO role in Afghanistan in the early years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime. On a trip to Gardez in 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had told senior U.S. military officials in Afghanistan, including General Eikenberry, that he was tired of being blamed for preventing NATO from expanding its mission in Afghanistan. Now he wondered whether it was worth putting NATO to the test.15
In 2003, General James Jones, who had recently become NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, was at an ambassadors’ lunch at the British Embassy in Brussels. He had prepared extensively to answer questions on a range of NATO issues, especially Bosnia and Kosovo. But he was surprised to hear one question repeatedly from the group: “How do we get NATO to Afghanistan?” After the meeting, he went back to his staff and began to put together an operational plan for Afghanistan. In August 2003, NATO officially took command of the International Security Assistance Force. It was based in Kabul, with its chain of command extending directly to NATO headquarters in Brunssum, Netherlands, and Mons, Belgium. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the NATO mission beyond Kabul.16 On October 24, 2003, the German Bundestag voted to send German troops to the quiet, northern province of Kunduz. A stronghold of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan during the late 1990s, the region was remarkably diverse. Tajiks, Uzbeks, Pashtuns, and Hazaras lived in relative peace, farming wheat, rice, and millet. About 230 additional soldiers were deployed by NATO, marking the first time that ISAF soldiers operated outside of Kabul.17
General Jones presented a detailed operational plan to NATO defense ministers in February 2004. The plan that was eventually developed, illustrated in Figure 14.1, called for a series of phased expansions beginning in Kabul and then working counterclockwise to the north, west, south, and the east. Over the next eight months, NATO completed Stage 1 of its expansion to the north. On June 28, 2004, NATO proclaimed the creation of four new Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in northern Afghanistan: in Mazar-e-Sharif, Meymaneh, Feyzabad, and Baghlan. Stage 1 was completed in October 2004. NATO’s takeover had begun.18
With the Iraq insurgency worsening, senior U.S. policyma
kers decided to hand off more responsibility to NATO in Afghanistan, thus freeing up U.S. forces to go to Iraq. In 2005, during a series of video teleconferences with senior U.S. military officials, including Lieutenant General David Barno, Secretary Rumsfeld argued that the United States needed to “reduce the amount of money it was spending in Afghanistan and the number of troops it had deployed there.” With losses mounting in Iraq, Rumsfeld said these numbers were “not sustainable.” At the time, the United States was spending between $600 million and $1 billion per month in Afghanistan and had roughly six battalions of infantry soldiers stationed there. NATO was a perfect organization to fill in the gaps left by redirected U.S. troops. NATO was looking for a twenty-first-century mission, and Afghanistan would suit the bill.20 Other senior military officials supported the secretary.
FIGURE 14.1 Stages of NATO Expansion, 200719
One of the strongest advocates for NATO’s increased involvement was John Abizaid, who had been head of U.S. Central Command since July 7, 2003. Abizaid was born in Coleville, California, to a Lebanese-American father and an American mother. He learned Arabic and earned the nickname “the mad Arab.” His faculty adviser at Harvard University, where he received a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies, praised his intellect, stating that his 100-page paper on Saudi Arabia’s defense “was absolutely the best seminar paper I ever got in my 30-plus years at Harvard.”21 Abizaid had been tapped for great responsibility early in his career. In 1983, during a briefing at Fort Knox, Army Vice Chief of Staff General Max Thurman turned to his colleagues and exclaimed: “Let me tell you, there is this young captain who’s going to be one of the Army’s future leaders.” Thurman then meticulously went through the captain’s past record and said he would be a general unless he screwed up somewhere along the line. “His name is John Abizaid. Watch out for him.”22
With support from influential Americans such as Rumsfeld and Abizaid, Stage 2 of NATO’s expansion followed in September 2005, when NATO expanded to the west under the regional command of Italy.23 It established Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Badghis, Farah, Ghor, and Herat Provinces. Abizaid remarked in late 2005: “It makes sense that as NATO forces go in…we could drop some of the U.S. requirements somewhat.”24 While NATO countries began to ramp up activities in Afghanistan, the United States continued to discuss downsizing. In December 2005, for example, Rumsfeld signed orders to reduce American troop levels in Afghanistan. Under the plan, the number of U.S. forces would decrease from 19,000 in December to 16,000 by the spring of 2006. The fourth brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, would send a battalion task force of 1,300 soldiers instead of the entire unit of more than 4,000 troops.25
For some NATO countries, Afghanistan presented a chance to rejuvenate the alliance that had been torn apart by the war in Iraq. On January 22, 2003, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had issued a joint declaration opposing the Bush administration in Iraq.26 The date commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the Franco-German Treaty negotiated by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer as a bulwark against American hegemony. During his 2002 reelection campaign, Schröder ran on a political platform that emphasized German opposition to the U.S. war against Iraq.27 When the United States and Britain pushed for a second United Nations Security Council resolution in March 2003 that would effectively authorize military action, Berlin and Paris were opposed. As Chirac explained on French television, his government would oppose the resolution “quelles que soient les circonstances” (whatever the circumstances).28 Both countries also refused to offer significant political and military support to the reconstruction effort after major combat ended, even as U.S. casualties began to mount.29
There was nearly universal consensus among member countries that this was one of the most serious schisms between Europe and the United States since the formation of NATO. “The road to Iraqi disarmament has produced the gravest crisis within the Atlantic Alliance since its creation five decades ago,” concluded former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.30 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell remarked: “Who’s breaking up the alliance?…The alliance is breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities.”31 Ivo Daalder, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington and former director for European affairs in the Clinton administration’s National Security Council, argued that one consequence of the war in Iraq “is the effective end of Atlanticism—American and European foreign policies no longer center around the transatlantic alliance.”32 Nevertheless, there was broad consensus among NATO members that Afghanistan was a conflict worth engaging in. Some members felt they could make up for their lack of support in Baghdad by committing to Kabul.
Contrary to some arguments, most NATO governments understood that this would involve deploying some soldiers to conduct counterinsurgency operations, not just peacekeeping. Canadian Colonel S. J. Bowes, who headed a Canadian civil and military reconstruction team, went on record in 2005 saying that his country would use the same rules of engagement used by American forces. “In Canada, it’s clear that this is not a peacekeeping mission,” he remarked. “We understand that there is an active insurgency.”33 As 5,000 British troops were preparing to deploy to Helmand Province in 2005, British Defense Secretary John Reid stated: “The Taliban are still active in the area. So are the drug traffickers. We must be prepared to support—even defend—the provincial reconstruction team.” When asked by a journalist whether British troops would be placed in danger, Reid bluntly replied: “Yes, it is going to be [dangerous] and that is why we should be so proud of our servicemen and women.”34 Several months before the official handoff of operations in Afghanistan’s south from the United States to NATO, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer argued that “people have to realize that there are spoilers, that roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices can be put along a road.”35
In July 2006, NATO formally expanded its mission to the south, thus completing Stage 3 of its initial plan. British General David Richards assumed command of what became known as ISAF IX. The expansion involved the deployment of 12,000 NATO soldiers to six southern provinces: Helmand, Kandahar, Nimroz, Oruzgan, Zabol, and Day Kundi. The largest contingent in this force was British, which included 3,600 soldiers based in Helmand Province. Canada also deployed a fairly large contingent. By a close vote in the Canadian Parliament in May 2006, the government designated 2,300 troops for Afghanistan, most of whom were sent to Kandahar Province. The debate in the Dutch Parliament was also contentious, but after initial opposition, the government chose to assign between 1,400 and 1,700 troops for duty in NATO’s Stage 3. Most went to Oruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan. The principal town was Tarin Kowt, with a population of 10,000 on the eastern shore of the Tirinrud River.
By 2007, international forces in Afghanistan were divided into five Regional Commands (RCs): Regional Command Capital headquartered in Kabul, Regional Command North in Mazar-e-Sharif, Regional Command West in Herat, Regional Command South in Kandahar, and Regional Command East in Bagram.
NATO’s Paradox
With NATO forces trying to cover most of Afghanistan, the organization soon found itself underresourced. NATO leaders had approved the operational plan for Afghanistan, but they deployed forces outside of Kabul without forcing member nations to fulfill their matériel requirements. They were short staffed, and the soldiers lacked maneuver battalions and aircraft—especially attack helicopters, dedicated fixed-wing close air support, and heavy-and medium-utility helicopters. “Yet NATO pushed ahead.36 Suddenly, NATO found itself in the position of fighting its first foreign war without the resources to win. The shortfalls became increasingly problematic as the levels of violence rose in 2006 and 2007.
In 2007, NATO was still at least 3,000 troops short of its manpower goal in Regional Command South, and its ability to sustain force levels and capabilities over the longer term was tenuous. As NATO General Richards argued in testimony before the British Hous
e of Commons, the number of troops was his most significant concern: “Simply being able to move [NATO] troops from the North to the South would not have been a solution to me at all because we have got just about the right number of troops in the North to contain the situation there, which is broadly stable…. What I was really after was…an increase in the overall number of troops.”37 There were roughly 47,000 troops in Afghanistan in mid-2007: approximately 36,000 were under NATO command and 11,000 were under U.S. command through Operation Enduring Freedom. There were also a handful of Special Operations units under U.S. command—teams from Canada, United Kingdom, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Italy, and Jordan.38
What made matters worse was the refusal of most NATO countries to become involved in combat operations. Indeed, the most significant split involved not whether to go into Afghanistan but what to do there. Some allies, including Germany, vehemently opposed expanding NATO’s role to include riskier combat missions. Germany’s defense minister, Peter Struck, had argued at NATO defense meetings in Berlin in September 2005 that merging NATO’s peacekeeping mission with the American combat operation in Afghanistan would fundamentally change NATO’s role and “would make the situation for our soldiers doubly dangerous and worsen the current climate in Afghanistan.” Furthermore, he acknowledged that “NATO is not equipped for counterterrorism operations” and “that is not what it is supposed to do.”39
In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan Page 29
