How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad

[Tom Odom]

Good run down on the evolution (de-evolution) of OEF. Most interesting is the section on GEN McNeil's C2 chart--which personnaly sounds just like a UN "Force Commander."

Tom

How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad By DAVID ROHDE and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: August 12, 2007
A year after the Taliban fell to an American-led coalition, a group of NATO ambassadors landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, to survey what appeared to be a triumph — a fresh start for a country ripped apart by years of war with the Soviets and brutal repression by religious extremists.

With a senior American diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, leading the way, they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters, with little fear for their safety. They strolled quiet streets in Kandahar and sipped tea with tribal leaders. At a briefing from the United States Central Command, they were told that the Taliban were now a “spent force.”

“Some of us were saying, ‘Not so fast,’ ” Mr. Burns, now the under secretary of state for political affairs, recalled. “A number of us assumed that the Taliban was too enmeshed in Afghan society to just disappear as a political and military force.”

But that skepticism never took hold in Washington. Assessments by the Central Intelligence Agency circulating at the same time reported that the Taliban were so decimated they no longer posed a threat, according to two senior intelligence officials who reviewed the reports. The American sense of victory was so robust that the top C.I.A. specialists and elite Special Forces units who had helped liberate Afghanistan were packing their guns and preparing for the next war, in Iraq.

Those sweeping miscalculations were part of a pattern of assessments and decisions that helped send what many in the American military call “the good war” off course.

As I mentioned above, of particular note:

In July 2006, NATO formally took responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan. To Americans and Europeans, NATO is the vaunted alliance that won the cold war. To Afghans it is little more than a strange, new acronym. And NATO and the Americans are divided over strategy.

The disagreement is evident on the wall of the office of Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the commander of the 35,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan, where he keeps a chart that is a sea of yellow and red blocks. Each block shows the restrictions that national governments have placed on their forces under his command. Red blocks represent tasks a country will not do, like hunting Taliban or Qaeda leaders. Yellow blocks indicate missions they are willing to consider after asking their capitals for approval.

[wm]

You would think that if anyone could sort out the ISAF command role, General MacNeill would be the guy. He should be able to sort out the forest from the trees since he got his undergrad degree in Forestry. But then maybe I'm just prejudiced since he and I are alumni of the same school.

[Stan]

Aye Tom ?

Nope, Mr. Secretary of Defense, there are no Dragons in Afghanistan

Wouldn't be the first time we discovered the beltway was cruisin' around with blinders on.

The American sense of victory was so robust that the top C.I.A. specialists and elite Special Forces units who had helped liberate Afghanistan were packing their guns and preparing for the next war, in Iraq.

Strange to be on the business end of a firearm..kinda changes your point of view..so to speak.

[Pragmatic Thinker]

“We’re simply in a world of limited resources, and those resources are in Iraq,” the former official added. “Anyone who tells you differently is blowing smoke.”

100% correct...this was evident in late 2002 (less than one year into the war) when they pulled elite SOF out of the country to prepare for war in Iraq. The main effort has remained Iraq ever since and now we've opened a second operational base from which these crazies can train and practice their jihadi skills in killing Americans...

A senior White House official said in a recent interview that in retrospect, putting different countries in charge of different operations was a mistake. “We piecemealed it,” he said. “One of the problems is when everybody has a piece, everybody’s piece is made third and fourth priority. Nobody’s piece is first priority. Stuff didn’t get done.”

Sad reflection of how most of our senior military commanders didn't sound off that unity of effort and unity of command are absolutely necessary for successful military operations. Every soldier wearing a set of ACUs knows that someone has to be in charge and there has to be a common understanding of the mission and objectives to be accomplished for a mission to be successful. This so-called international coalition has no common view of the battlespace. Talk to a Brit, an Aussie, a Canook, or a Dutchman and you will get a different answer from each of them as to what is the priority is in Afghanistan....

“Colleagues in Washington at various levels did not recognize that there was the problem of sanctuary and that this was important,” Mr. Khalilzad said.

This lack of recognition still goes un-noticed and un-addressed...

The disagreement is evident on the wall of the office of Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the commander of the 35,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan, where he keeps a chart that is a sea of yellow and red blocks. Each block shows the restrictions that national governments have placed on their forces under his command. Red blocks represent tasks a country will not do, like hunting Taliban or Qaeda leaders. Yellow blocks indicate missions they are willing to consider after asking their capitals for approval.

Definitely comes into play for our forces operating in the southern provinces when you're trying to get ISAF support and they tell you it's outside their ROE... Sounds like we forgot the lessons of Srebrenica when the Dutch Commander was begging for UN air support against the Serbs, now it appears the Dutch are playing the same games when it comes to the U.S. forces operating in their sector...lack of long term memory doesn't only afflict the U.S. military...

“These are the fundamentals of counterinsurgency, and somehow we forgot them or never learned them,” he added. He noted that “the United States has 11 carrier battle groups, but we still don’t have expeditionary nonmilitary forces of the kind you need to win this sort of war.”

Yeah, this isn't new either....journals and studies were written about this following Vietnam. I am cynical and believe we are incapable of successful counter-insurgency in the modern age, especially if it takes longer than a year or so.

“Symbolically, it’s more the epicenter of terrorism than Iraq,” he said. “If we don’t succeed in Afghanistan, you’re sending a very clear message to the terrorist organizations that the U.S., the U.N. and the 37 countries with troops on the ground can be defeated.”

Roger that....and they're getting the message loud and clear...

PT

[Ken White]

we're now fighting in Iraq were primed to come and would be in Afghanistan now instead of in Iraq and, to a much lesser extent, Afghanistan...

Aside from the fact that we can cover two (or, really, even more, simultaneous) theaters and they cannot, personally, I'd rather fight in Iraq. They'd prefer Afghanistan. Opinions can vary on who's the smart guy.

[tequila]

we're now fighting in Iraq were primed to come and would be in Afghanistan now instead of in Iraq and, to a much lesser extent, Afghanistan...

Aside from the fact that we can cover two (or, really, even more, simultaneous) theaters and they cannot, personally, I'd rather fight in Iraq. They'd prefer Afghanistan. Opinions can vary on who's the smart guy.

I highly doubt that the Iraqi Sunnis or the Mahdi Army would have headed over to Afghanistan to fight us there. Indeed, most of the Arab volunteers would not have been nearly as motivated to go to Afghanistan, a primitive backwater where the native population is neither welcoming nor speaks Arabic. A larger invasion force in Afghanistan might have seen a correspondingly larger increase in Pakistani and Central Asian radicalization, perhaps.

Also given the strains on the Army and USMC simply in occupying Iraq, I don't really think we can cover two or more theaters --- at least not for much longer.

[franksforum]

This report is from the Center for the Study of the Presidency dated 30 January 2008. Co-chairs are Gen. James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering. You can download the report in PDF format at the link below

http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Af...roup_final.pdf

[davidbfpo]

An interesting summary of the problems Afghanistan poses to NATO and others. Once again an American call for more co-operation, primarily from NATO and agreement to an agenda led by the USA. I just cannot see European NATO members falling into line. Not the purpose of the paper, but this reluctance, if not refusal, is not explained - a major error if this paper is to influence policy-making.

davidbfpo