US commander spells out Afghan difficulties

LONDON — U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal called on Thursday for a dramatic change in tactics in the faltering war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and said it would be wrong to lower military goals there, despite recent setbacks.

Warning that time is running out as the insurgency gathers strength, he said there is a “huge risk” al-Qaida terrorists will again find safe haven in Afghanistan unless new tactics are put in place in the near future.

McChrystal, commander of both the U.S. and NATO war effort, said conventional military tactics have proven counterproductive and are costing coalition forces support among Afghan civilians who doubt whether the Americans will stay long enough to bring security.

“We don’t win by destroying the Taliban,” he said. “We don’t win by body count. We don’t win by the number of successful military raids or attacks, we win when the people decide we win.”

McChrystal is reported to be seeking an additional 40,000 U.S. troops for Afghanistan and is lobbying European leaders to send more soldiers as well. He said the rules of conventional warfare do not apply in Afghanistan, which has become a counterinsurgency campaign.

The four-star general spoke to a group of British academics and security specialists at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, one day after taking part via video link in a White House Situation Room review of Afghan policy chaired by President Barack Obama.

The plainspoken McChrystal has made waves in Washington and London with his downbeat assessment of the eight-year effort to keep Afghanistan from becoming — again — a safe haven for Taliban extremists and their al-Qaida allies, who used it as a base while planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Asked by the audience if it would be sensible to lower America’s military goals and limit the war effort to eliminating the al-Qaida presence, McChrystal said it would be wrong to give up on the idea of bringing some security to the Afghan population.

“A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a shortsighted strategy,” he said.

With the support of top Pentagon officials, McChrystal is seeking a substantial number of additional troops for the war effort. He said Thursday that more troops would “buy time” as Afghan military and police forces are improved with an eye toward taking control of security by 2013.

But it is not clear if Obama backs this plan, even though he chose McChrystal to lead the war effort earlier this year. He has begun a series of at least five top-level meetings to review all policy options, including those recommended by McChrystal. There are signs of a split among Obama’s top advisers, with some concerned about plummeting public support for a prolonged conflict.

Mike Williams, a foreign policy specialist at Royal Holloway University of London who once advised the Obama campaign on Afghanistan, said it is not yet clear who will win the behind-the-scenes struggle over Obama’s Afghan policy, especially because much-touted national elections have been badly tainted by charges of fraud and vote-tampering.

“The argument is what to do politically versus what to do on the ground,” he said. “They put so much into the Afghan elections, and the elections have obviously gone terribly, so they’re being very careful about what to do next.”

He said McChrystal’s remarks were aimed at the British foreign policy establishment, which has been skeptical about coalition tactics.

“He’s trying to say: ‘Look, I’m the new guy, I’ve been very honest, let’s give this a shot,’” Williams said.

McChrystal, who also met Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, said the war is vital because there is a “huge risk” that the Taliban insurgency could again make the country safe for al-Qaida’s leadership. Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second largest force in the U.S.-led coalition.

“We went there to destroy al-Qaida, and to a great degree that has happened,” McChrystal said. “Now we are preventing its return.”

But military and political leaders had been slow to react in recent years because they failed to recognize the strength of the resurgent Taliban and did not understand the real threat posed by the insurgent movement, he said.

“Why isn’t the situation better after eight years?” he said. “Afghans’ expectations have not been met. It took longer to see the insurgency as serious. We’ve been under-resourced and we’ve underperformed. And we are physically and psychologically distanced from the people we went to protect. We must think in a fundamentally new way.”

McChrystal said a clear change in “mind set” was needed because many current tactics are counterproductive and producing hostility and skepticism among Afghan civilians who must be convinced the coalition forces will improve their safety and quality of life.

He said, for example, that the way coalition forces drive in formation on Afghan roads makes things difficult and dangerous for Afghan motorists who find themselves forced off the roads — with high caliber weapons pointed at them — on a regular basis.

“We must redefine the fight,” he said. “The objective is the will of the Afghan people. We must protect the Afghan people from all threats — from the enemy, from our own actions. We are going to have to do things dramatically differently.”

Brown’s Downing Street office said in a statement that the two men agreed the mission in Afghanistan is at a vital stage.

“On next steps, they agreed that further ‘Afghanisation,’ including accelerated training of Afghan army and police, needed to be at the center of NATO’s counterinsurgency efforts,” the statement added.