Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Los Angeles Times
February 9, 2007
NATO fears it won't be able to counter any spring offensive by the Taliban.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
SEVILLE, SPAIN — The new American commander of NATO on Thursday presented a revised list of military requirements for Afghanistan that includes a request for more combat troops for the country's restive southern provinces.
U.S. officials said Army Gen. John Craddock, who took over as the alliance's supreme commander in December, drew up the list last week amid growing concern that current forces are not sufficient to counter an expected spring offensive by the Taliban. He presented it at a meeting of NATO defense ministers here.
According to a senior Pentagon official traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Craddock's new "statement of requirements" is already about 90% filled by existing forces.
But a European official familiar with Craddock's plan said about 2,000 combat troops and helicopters were still needed. The reinforcements would be used both to increase forces in the south and for a stepped-up effort to interdict fighters and weapons crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
"A lot of it goes back to stuff that still hasn't been filled," the senior Pentagon official said. "There is still a [troop] gap in the south, a battalion-sized theater reserve." A battalion consists of about 1,000 soldiers.
Craddock's requirements statement for Afghanistan was the first to be drawn up by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's military leadership in more than a year and is part of a renewed effort by the Bush administration to breathe new life into the Afghanistan mission, now largely under alliance command.
Other than Britain, however, which recently committed to adding 800 troops to its 5,200-member contingent in the south, several European officials appeared lukewarm to the idea of boosting force levels. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told reporters here from his nation that he thought the alliance should be focusing more on economic and reconstruction efforts.
"I do not think it is right to talk about more military means," Jung was quoted as saying. "When the Russians were in Afghanistan, they had 100,000 troops and didn't win."
NATO officials said the new plan would also move existing troops around the country to provide more forces in the south. Nearly all of the new troops, however, would be provided by the U.S. and Britain.
Gates has ordered a four-month extension for a brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division and sped up the deployment of a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division, giving the U.S. an additional 3,200 soldiers in the country.
The changes would take U.S. troop levels to nearly 25,000, their highest ever.
Most U.S. forces are stationed in eastern Afghanistan, but the European official said Craddock was expected to take one battalion from the 82nd Airborne deployment and move it to the south to bolster British-led combat efforts.
Craddock also is seeking an additional two battalions for the east to slow cross-border aid for Taliban-backed fighters coming from Pakistan, the official said.
Craddock's intent is to disrupt efforts by the Taliban — driven from power by U.S.-led forces in 2001 but showing signs of resurgence — so that any planned offensive will be stymied before it starts, NATO officials said.
"The spring offensive should be our offensive," Gates said.
European allies have made additional commitments to the Afghan mission in recent days, including a German promise to send six Tornado reconnaissance planes, but U.S. officials are concerned that some pledges remain unmet.
Those concerns have filtered back to Washington, where members of Congress pressed Gates to get tougher with the Europeans over their troop commitments in Afghanistan.
"I hope that at this meeting we can talk in a very straightforward manner to our NATO allies that we need a lot more from them than we're getting," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Gates at a hearing shortly before the Defense secretary left for Spain.
NATO officials said the alliance's secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, shared the United States' concerns and had joined it in calling on all members to provide more forces and military equipment to the mission.
Publicly, Gates and Scheffer said they were pleased with the European commitments, with Scheffer noting that since NATO's summit in November, about 5,000 additional troops have been promised to the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO contingent is known.
The vast majority of those troops, however, are British and American.
"That does not mean we're there yet, but we're going reasonably well and doing better than I would have thought two weeks ago," Scheffer said at news conference after Thursday's meeting. Gates, at a separate news conference later, said, "I think the level of commitment from members of the alliance, actually, is extraordinary."
NATO defense ministers also discussed the ongoing "final status" talks on Kosovo, which have entered a crucial stage. Although the U.S. has in the past sought to withdraw some of its 1,600 troops from NATO's security force in the Serbian province to relieve stress on its Iraq deployments, another senior Defense Department official traveling with Gates said Washington had decided to keep levels stable as the talks continue.
February 9, 2007
NATO fears it won't be able to counter any spring offensive by the Taliban.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
SEVILLE, SPAIN — The new American commander of NATO on Thursday presented a revised list of military requirements for Afghanistan that includes a request for more combat troops for the country's restive southern provinces.
U.S. officials said Army Gen. John Craddock, who took over as the alliance's supreme commander in December, drew up the list last week amid growing concern that current forces are not sufficient to counter an expected spring offensive by the Taliban. He presented it at a meeting of NATO defense ministers here.
According to a senior Pentagon official traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Craddock's new "statement of requirements" is already about 90% filled by existing forces.
But a European official familiar with Craddock's plan said about 2,000 combat troops and helicopters were still needed. The reinforcements would be used both to increase forces in the south and for a stepped-up effort to interdict fighters and weapons crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
"A lot of it goes back to stuff that still hasn't been filled," the senior Pentagon official said. "There is still a [troop] gap in the south, a battalion-sized theater reserve." A battalion consists of about 1,000 soldiers.
Craddock's requirements statement for Afghanistan was the first to be drawn up by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's military leadership in more than a year and is part of a renewed effort by the Bush administration to breathe new life into the Afghanistan mission, now largely under alliance command.
Other than Britain, however, which recently committed to adding 800 troops to its 5,200-member contingent in the south, several European officials appeared lukewarm to the idea of boosting force levels. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told reporters here from his nation that he thought the alliance should be focusing more on economic and reconstruction efforts.
"I do not think it is right to talk about more military means," Jung was quoted as saying. "When the Russians were in Afghanistan, they had 100,000 troops and didn't win."
NATO officials said the new plan would also move existing troops around the country to provide more forces in the south. Nearly all of the new troops, however, would be provided by the U.S. and Britain.
Gates has ordered a four-month extension for a brigade of the Army's 10th Mountain Division and sped up the deployment of a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division, giving the U.S. an additional 3,200 soldiers in the country.
The changes would take U.S. troop levels to nearly 25,000, their highest ever.
Most U.S. forces are stationed in eastern Afghanistan, but the European official said Craddock was expected to take one battalion from the 82nd Airborne deployment and move it to the south to bolster British-led combat efforts.
Craddock also is seeking an additional two battalions for the east to slow cross-border aid for Taliban-backed fighters coming from Pakistan, the official said.
Craddock's intent is to disrupt efforts by the Taliban — driven from power by U.S.-led forces in 2001 but showing signs of resurgence — so that any planned offensive will be stymied before it starts, NATO officials said.
"The spring offensive should be our offensive," Gates said.
European allies have made additional commitments to the Afghan mission in recent days, including a German promise to send six Tornado reconnaissance planes, but U.S. officials are concerned that some pledges remain unmet.
Those concerns have filtered back to Washington, where members of Congress pressed Gates to get tougher with the Europeans over their troop commitments in Afghanistan.
"I hope that at this meeting we can talk in a very straightforward manner to our NATO allies that we need a lot more from them than we're getting," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Gates at a hearing shortly before the Defense secretary left for Spain.
NATO officials said the alliance's secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, shared the United States' concerns and had joined it in calling on all members to provide more forces and military equipment to the mission.
Publicly, Gates and Scheffer said they were pleased with the European commitments, with Scheffer noting that since NATO's summit in November, about 5,000 additional troops have been promised to the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO contingent is known.
The vast majority of those troops, however, are British and American.
"That does not mean we're there yet, but we're going reasonably well and doing better than I would have thought two weeks ago," Scheffer said at news conference after Thursday's meeting. Gates, at a separate news conference later, said, "I think the level of commitment from members of the alliance, actually, is extraordinary."
NATO defense ministers also discussed the ongoing "final status" talks on Kosovo, which have entered a crucial stage. Although the U.S. has in the past sought to withdraw some of its 1,600 troops from NATO's security force in the Serbian province to relieve stress on its Iraq deployments, another senior Defense Department official traveling with Gates said Washington had decided to keep levels stable as the talks continue.
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