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| Science Forum Index » Military - Naval Forum » Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces... |
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| Jack Linthicum... |
 Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:55 am |
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Deserters, members who don't speak the local language, illiteracy
suggest goal of an Afghan army is not feasible. Major problem is the
lack of competent leadership, a factor that was not noticed for the
past eight years.
November 6, 2009
Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces
By THOM SHANKER and JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
WASHINGTON — A series of internal government reviews have presented
the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s
military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious
goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy — to speed up
their training and send many more Afghans to the fight.
As President Obama considers his top commander’s call to rapidly
double Afghanistan’s security forces, the internal reviews, written by
officials directly involved in the training program or charged with
keeping it on track, describe an overstretched enterprise struggling
to nurse along the poorly led, largely illiterate and often corrupt
Afghan forces.
In September, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied
commander in Afghanistan, recommended increasing the Afghan Army as
quickly as possible — to 134,000 in a year from the current force of
more than 90,000, instead of taking two years, and perhaps eventually
to 240,000. He would also expand the police force to 160,000. The
acceleration is vital to General McChrystal’s overall
counterinsurgency plan, which also calls for more American troops but
seeks more protection against the Taliban for the Afghan population
than the Pentagon could ever supply.
While General McChrystal knew of the latest assessments when he wrote
his plan, their completion just as President Obama considers the
general’s proposal has given fresh ammunition to doubters.
“Nothing in our experience over the last seven to eight years suggests
that progress at such a rapid pace is realistic,” said Representative
John F. Tierney, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the
House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national
security.
The latest reports offer new details that show just how tough it will
be to meet General McChrystal’s training goal. Among the previously
undisclosed conclusions: one out of every four or five men in the
security forces quit each year, meaning that tens of thousands must be
recruited just to maintain the status quo. The number of Afghan
battalions able to fight independently actually declined in the past
six months.
“The most significant challenge to rapidly expanding the Afghan
National Security Forces is a lack of competent and professional
leadership at all levels, and the inability to generate it rapidly,”
concluded one of the reviews, a grim assessment forwarded to
Washington in September from the American-led training headquarters.
Another September report, the Pentagon inspector general’s annual
review of the training program, warned that any acceleration “will
face major challenges. ”
A third assessment, a quarterly report sent to Congress last week,
revealed that despite the formation of new army battalions, fewer of
them were capable of operating independently. One reason may be that
the Afghan Army’s jerry-built logistics system, a relic of the Soviet
era and one of the training program’s orphans, has become a drag on
the combat forces.
The problems have been a recurring topic during Mr. Obama’s policy
review, broken out for separate discussion among the president and his
top advisers. Accelerated training has been one of the constants among
the various options before them. “We’re aware that it’s an enormous
challenge,” one senior administration official said. “We feel, though,
this is essential for any strategy going forward.”
Among other problems, one of the reports found, the United States
military’s training headquarters simply does not have enough people to
do all it is already being asked to do, a flaw that “has delayed and
will continue to delay” building the Afghan forces and that unless
corrected would only prolong the American presence in Afghanistan.
Construction is also falling behind, leaving recruits living in tents
and making a boom in barracks-building problematic, since there are
not yet enough qualified engineers. And attempts to draw Afghan
businesses into the war effort have backfired. One local start-up
company assigned to do basic weapons maintenance for the Afghan Army
tried to use hammers and nails to hold grenade launchers together and
ultimately had to be trained by an American contractor.
The Americans are sometimes stymied by delays in training that sprout
unexpectedly from profound cultural differences. Costly delays in the
building of barracks for new recruits, for example, are a result not
just of scarce labor and materials, but also of time-consuming repairs
of damage that occurs as soon as the troops move into their new
quarters. Afghan soldiers reportedly ripped sinks from barrack walls
and used them to wash their feet before praying, an important custom.
They also built fires on barrack floors for heating and cooking, even
in buildings with furnaces and kitchens, according to the reports.
Despite the obstacles, few disagree that Afghanistan’s forces must
eventually become bigger and better. And senior Pentagon and military
officials insist that it can happen faster, too. But it may take
10,000 to 15,000 more trainers from the United States and NATO, which
have just agreed to overhaul the training program.
Even that decision required a concession to European sensitivities:
the creation of a wholly new NATO training effort to operate alongside
the American forces who currently dominate the training program and
who typically accompany the Afghans they train into combat. Some
European governments balk at that practice.
A three-star Army general, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, will soon
take command of the new NATO training mission — and overhaul the
American-led program. General Caldwell, a West Point classmate of
General McChrystal, was previously in charge of the influential Army
schools and training programs at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and he will
command both the American and allied training headquarters.
“Our NATO allies have been an active participant in Afghanistan from
the very beginning, but with this new NATO structure, we perhaps will
see even more involvement by partner countries,” General Caldwell said
in an interview.
At a meeting of defense ministers in Slovakia on Oct. 24, Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates won from the alliance an agreement that the
NATO training mission “will need to be fully resourced in order to
build the capacity necessary.”
Pentagon planners consider NATO’s contribution essential — if overdue
— given the strains on the American force as it builds up.
Because of those strains, the Pentagon has failed to provide fully
qualified trainers even when they have managed to hit their own
numerical goals, officials said. The Pentagon’s top generals have
resisted bleeding the combat ranks to field permanent, full-time
training units. But using combat forces as ad hoc trainers has proved
less effective, according to Pentagon analysts.
Maj. Gen. Mike Ward, the Canadian two-star officer who will serve as
General Caldwell’s deputy for the allied training mission, said in an
e-mail message that NATO’s bigger role “will invite a much broader
community of expertise and practice.”
One example is the brigadier general who will join them from Italy’s
Carabinieri — the national police force that is a part of the military
— as the American military has nothing comparable.
Today, only about one in 10 Afghan police units is capable of
operating wholly independently, according to the latest report to
Congress. Despite that, the police force is constantly attacked and is
taking casualties at an even greater rate than the Afghan or American
military, it said.
The Afghan National Police currently fields 92,000 people, but only
24,000 have actually completed formal training, according to Pentagon
records. The attrition rate is 25 percent, the training command in
Afghanistan reported. The situation is not much better in the army,
with 19 percent attrition.
“Clearly we will have to continue generating new forces at the small-
unit level,” General Caldwell said. “But leader development also has
to be a priority. For us to have enduring and sustainable Afghan
security forces, we have to put commensurate time and effort into the
leader portion of the training effort.” |
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