Pentagon Report Cites Gains in Afghanistan
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: November 23, 2010
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WASHINGTON — The United States and its partners are making modest gains in some key areas of Afghanistan, but the insurgency is still strong and expanding across the country, a Pentagon report to Congress this month has concluded.
In cautious findings that mirror recent statements from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, the report said that there were signs of progress in security, governance and development in “operational priority areas.”
That was a reference to Kandahar and Helmand Provinces in southern Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of United States soldiers andMarines are concentrated.
The report also said that the growth and development of the Afghan security forces “are among Afghanistan’s most promising areas of progress,” and that the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police met their target numbers for expansion three months before a deadline of Oct. 31 this year.
Currently, Afghan Army personnel number 134,000 and police officers total 109,000.
On the negative side, the report cited Pakistan’s reluctance to go after insurgents operating from havens on its border with Afghanistan.
In one particularly blunt sentence, the report said that while it recognized the “tremendous effort” Pakistan was making against some insurgents inside its country, “insurgent safe havens along the border will remain the primary problem to achieving a secure and stable Afghanistan.”
In addition, the report said overall violence in Afghanistan increased 65 percent in the third quarter of 2010 compared with that period last year.
The report attributed the increase in part to the more aggressive campaign that United States and NATO forces had mounted against the Taliban.
The report, titled “Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,” is the sixth in a series that the Pentagon is required to submit twice a year to Congress.
Its data will be used in a more comprehensive White House review next month assessing United States strategy in Afghanistan and any need for revision.
Administration officials say they expect the White House review to cite similar progress, but with the same caveats.
The current report is the first since the Obama administration completed a buildup in Afghanistan this fall to nearly 100,000 American troops. It is also the first since General Petraeus took over as the top NATO commander in the country. It covers the period from April 1 to Sept. 30 this year.
The previous report, which covered the period from Oct. 1, 2009, to March 31 this year, came to the conclusion that a “continuing decline in stability” in Afghanistan had leveled off, but it cited little progress against the Taliban.
A senior defense official who briefed reporters about the report at the Pentagon on Tuesday sought to put a positive interpretation on the expansion of the Taliban into other areas of Afghanistan like the north and west.
The official said that as United States, NATO and Afghan forces have put pressure on insurgents in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar and Helmand, the insurgents have been forced out.
“The Taliban have clearly reacted to that by going to more peripheral areas,” the official said, “so while they have expanded to those areas, the importance of those areas is not key, is not central, to their success, or to our ability to defeat them.”
The official said he could not be identified under Pentagon ground rules, but neither he nor other Pentagon officials provided an explanation for those rules.
The anonymous official acknowledged that there were many skeptics questioning the ability of the United States to make progress in Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war.
But he said this was the first time the United States had committed so much in military strength and civilian effort to the country, and therefore the doubters were being “irresponsible” in not looking at the bigger picture.
“Of course there are skeptics, there are always skeptics,” he said
(the newyork times)
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