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Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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24 August 2009
U.S. Military Official Says Afghanistan Still Vulnerable, August 24, 2009
By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer
Washington — Afghanistan is still vulnerable to the threat of insurgents regaining control of the country, and the threat is not going to go away, says Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A major new strategy, including an assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, is due in about two weeks from the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Army General Stanley McChrystal, Mullen said. “His guidance was go out as a new commander, put a new team together and come back and tell us exactly how you assess conditions on the ground,” Mullen said in an interview broadcast August 23.
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and Mullen were interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union and NBC’s Meet the Press August 23. The interviews followed presidential and provincial council elections held August 20 in Afghanistan. Complete election results are pending, but a presidential runoff is expected.
“The assessment that [McChrystal] will submit here in the next couple of weeks won’t specifically deal with requirements for additional resources. We’ll deal with whatever additional resources might be required subsequent to that in the normal process,” Mullen said.
President Obama set the foundation for the new Afghanistan strategy March 27. The strategy will focus on disrupting, dismantling and destroying terrorist networks, but also will employ a wide array of tactics, from strengthening regional security forces to a renewed focus on diplomacy, development and international cooperation.
“We have to ensure that neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan can serve as a safe haven for al-Qaida,” Obama said in a March 29 interview. He called the new plan “a comprehensive strategy that doesn't just rely on bullets or bombs, but also relies on agricultural specialists, on doctors, on engineers to help create an environment in which people recognize that they have much more at stake in partnering with us, and the international community, than giving in to some of these extremist ideologies.”
The new plan was the product of several months of policy review and close consultation with Afghan and Pakistani officials, as well as with U.S. allies taking part in the 41-nation, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
“A central part of our strategy is to train the Afghan National Army so that they are taking the lead,” Obama said.
Eikenberry said the elections were historic, but were also made difficult by an insurgency determined to stop them.
“It was a very difficult election, but it’s an opportunity, then, for renewal of the trust and the bonds between the people of Afghanistan and their government,” Eikenberry said. In the previous 30 or more years, Afghanistan has experienced civil war, an occupation and a complete collapse of governance and the rule of law, all of which set the stage for a state controlled by international terrorism, he said.
Mullen said the United States and NATO forces must begin to turn the security situation around in the next 12 months to 18 months. “I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and … the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics,” he said.
Eikenberry added that the Afghan National Army and National Police are taking much more of the lead on security, are much more capable and are demonstrating that they are increasingly able to provide for the security of their own people.
On March 27, Obama announced his plan to provide additional support to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The United States has about 58,000 troops in the country and the level is expected to rise to 68,000 later this year. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force has about 39,000 troops serving in Afghanistan.
The Taliban regime that supported the al-Qaida terrorist group was routed from the country in late 2001 after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
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