NATO's Jones Urges Focus on Afghan Reconstruction, Rule of Law
25 October 2006
General also seeks to reduce number of restrictions allies place on troops
Washington – Now that NATO forces in Afghanistan have proven their ability to fight and win battles, the alliance’s top commander says it is time to focus on enabling reconstruction, stopping drug cartels, empowering local courts and police and “nurturing the hope” of the Afghan people.
U.S. Marine General James Jones, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, also said international forces in Afghanistan would be more effective if nations contributing troops would eliminate some of their restrictions on where and how those troops can be used. Jones briefed reporters October 24 at the Foreign Press Center in Washington.
Much of the current violence in Afghanistan is supported by money from the narcotics trade, which has grown worse in the past three years and which funds insurgents, bomb-builders and other anti-government efforts, Jones said.
“The key message that I think needs to be delivered for Afghanistan is that Afghanistan’s long-term solution is not only a military problem,” Jones said. “The focus has to be on the right amount of reconstruction at the right place at the right time.” (See related article.)
On July 31, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took control of Afghanistan’s volatile southern provinces, part of a larger plan for NATO to provide security for the entire country. The handover was accompanied by an upsurge of violence against international forces. (See related article.)
On September 2, NATO launched Operation Medusa, an offensive that killed roughly a quarter of the estimated 5,000 Taliban and insurgent fighters who opposed NATO and U.S. efforts to provide stability while the government of Hamid Karzai oversees the reconstruction of the war-shattered country. (See related article.)
The “successful execution of Operation Medusa … answered once and for all whether NATO would have the capacity to stand and fight if challenged,” Jones said. “I think Medusa was a larger defeat for the Taliban than they’re letting on. … They took some pretty serious losses. They will, probably as a result of Medusa, be very careful about a conventional or near-conventional fight and will resort to their normal hit-and-run tactics.”
Until NATO moved in, international troops had not operated widely in the southern provinces, Jones said.
“It was an area that frankly – simply because of the lack of amounts of troops – we didn’t know much about,” he said. When the 9,000 NATO troops moved in, they found “kind of a nest of hornets,” Jones said. “There was drug problems, Taliban problems, crime, corruption, and very little reconstruction.”
Jones stressed that he does not consider the Taliban to be a national power in Afghanistan. “I consider it to be, certainly, at best regional and more localized along the border and in the south,” he said. However, he added, the Taliban is not the only group spreading violence in hope of destabilizing the government. Violence is also caused by criminal groups, tribal infighting and drug cartels, he said.
“The problem is that the increased economic capacity of the drug cartels is fueling some of the economic engine that sustains probably a large part of these violent ‘actors,’” Jones said, “and that’s why the narcotics problem is such a big problem.”
Along with counternarcotics, Jones said, the international community needs to “do much better” in “judicial reform and in the field of training local security, specifically the police in the regions.”
MEMBER STATES’ RESTRICTIONS LIMITING TACTICAL FLEXIBILITY
Jones said many of the 37 nations contributing forces to Afghanistan have placed restrictions on how those troops can be used. Jones said he has identified 50 troop restrictions, known as “caveats,” which he considers significant enough to place limits on NATO’s operations.
“Removing caveats is like providing more troops,” he said. “It’s like a force multiplier.” Jones added that he planned to raise the issue at a meeting of NATO’s 26 defense ministers the week of October 30 in Brussels, Belgium.
Jones said he believes the majority of Afghanistan’s people want the kind of long-term stability that NATO is trying to provide. Their desire for peace and national democracy was demonstrated in two national elections, he said.
“The problem is that while they have voted enthusiastically for the future, when they don't see those expectations being realized rapidly enough, and they’re conflicted by the presence of friendly forces during the day and violent forces at night, and their children are at risk, they don't see jobs coming, they see the narcotics trade booming and they don't see bad people being prosecuted and being put in jail,” Jones said, “then they lose enthusiasm, they lose hope.”
For more information, see Rebuilding Afghanistan.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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