Fledgling Afghan army is threatened by Afghanistan traditions

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 9, 2002 | by Martin Edwin Andersen

The backbone of Afghanistan's security apparatus, U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte told the U.N. Security Council on July 19, "must ultimately be the Afghan national army. The development of a comprehensive plan for the demobilization of regional militias and the absorption of some of those soldiers into a national army is a critical step."

It also appears to be a very difficult one. Well-placed sources tell news alert! that U.S. efforts to help create a multiethnic, apolitical and battle-ready Afghan National Army (ANA) are stalled and in serious disarray. These sources add that for weeks the ANA has been the topic of frantic, high-level, interagency meetings in Washington, with the long-term goal of creating a 60,000-strong force in increasing jeopardy.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a Department of Defense insider reports, is "furious" at the delays and demanding quick and thoughtful action to shore up the assistance effort. The training program is seen as key to an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and a guarantee against a return to power of Taliban-supported groups hiding in Pakistan.

Recent news reports from Kabul have focused on continuing tension between Afghan President Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun, and Minister of Defense Mohammed Fahim, who as head of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance also controls the country's Soviet-inspired intelligence network. Knowledgeable observers say that the Karzai-Fahim rivalry threatens to wreck efforts to form a viable central government. The ANA training program--which is to create up to 18 battalions of infantry soldiers--is seen as an essential cornerstone for the success of that government.

"Security is everything," says a military officer intimately involved in the planning operation headed by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). "The longer we're there, the more likely our presence will become politicized, and the sooner American soldiers will become targets once again."

According to reports, Afghan recruiters for the ANA oversold the benefits of signing up. Many recruits became disillusioned with the low pay--$30 a month during training, $50 a month once in service. Others joined believing that they were becoming part of regional militia forces--whose continuing existence is a major headache for the Karzai government--but refused to serve after learning they could be posted far from their homes. "I have heard there have been some misunderstandings with individuals being recruited," says Navy Cmdr. Dan Keesee, a CENTCOM public-affairs officer stationed in Tampa, Fla.

While admitting that defections among the recruits are a problem, a State Department official suggests that the numbers themselves resulted in a certain exaggeration. "A lot of them have left against orders to take their salaries to their families--then they return," he says. Other sources say interagency discussions have focused heavily on whether the pay is sufficient. "Thirty to fifty dollars may not sound like much in the States," one says, "but in Afghanistan it is substantial." Another countered: "We spent billions winning the war, so why are we scrimping on paying them?"

Sources say the CENTCOM assumed paymaster duties for the training operation amid concern that money given to Fahim's defense officials likely would be siphoned Off. Keesee notes that all of the money spent from the $50 million first-year U.S. budget has been "payment in kind," and another official said that there was a reluctance to "dump valuable U.S. assets into paying salaries." Meanwhile, the United Nations reportedly is in the process of setting up a trust fund to make up for the shortfall by the Afghan government, which originally promised to take care of the military pay.

Heated interagency discussions in Washington also have focused on providing serviceable weapons for training and finding equipment for an embryonic force that must compete for resources with Fahim's 18,000-strong personal army. Other problems include observance, in rigorous field conditions, of strict rules governing U.S. payments to persons suspected of human-rights violations or involvement in the drug trade.

Rumsfeld is reported to remain highly confident in the leadership of CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks, who has won top marks for his performance in a difficult situation. In an effort to address human-rights concerns, news alert! has learned, Franks not only has invited inspection visits by the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) but is considering allowing ICRC to train the Afghan army in the law of war, as recognized by the Geneva Conventions.

The lessons from Afghanistan, a diplomat says, are being carefully studied by policymakers wrestling with another sticky issue--the rebuilding of post-Saddam Iraq. "If we can't do this in Kabul, what makes us think we will be able to do it in Baghdad?"