Nato call for troops ‘unheeded for 18 months’
Nato call for troops ‘unheeded for 18 months’
By Rachel Morarjee in Kabul and Daniel Dombey in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 12 2006 01:34 | Last updated: September 12 2006 01:34
Nato staff asked for extra troops in Afghanistan more than a year ago but the request has still not been granted, the alliance’s top commander in the country said on Monday.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Lieutenant General David Richards, the commander of Nato’s 20,000-strong force in Afghanistan, said Nato countries were asked 18 months ago for a reserve battalion of 1,000 soldiers.
His comments were made ahead of a crucial few days for Nato, in which the spotlight will be on member countries’ readiness to send reinforcements to hard-pressed British and Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan. Last week General James Jones, Nato’s supreme commander, rev ealed that he had sought but so far failed to obtain 2,500 extra troops, comprising the reserve battalion plus up to 1,500 air support staff.
Nato officials will meet on Wednesday in an attempt to secure enough pledges to fill the gap. But Gen Richards’s remark indicates the request was more long-standing than was previously thought.
“That reserve . . . is nothing more than nations knew was the military advice that was required for 18 months now, endorsed by the Nato chain of command,” he said.
“That requirement has never been met by nations. The bit it lacked was a hard-hitting reserve of about 1,000 people that I can use wherever I need to use it throughout Afghanistan, although obviously its focus would be the south.”
In recent days Canadian newspapers have reported that Canada is about to send 15 to 20 tanks and up to 300 soldiers to reinforce its soldiers in the Kandahar region, the heart of the battleground against the Taliban.
British officials say that although the UK could send further troops as a last resort, the onus is on other Nato countries.
“Nato is now being tested publicly in a way that it hasn’t been to date,” said one. “Is it or is it not an effective alliance?” Earlier this year John Reid, then the UK defence secretary, argued that since Britain was sending more than 3,000 soldiers to the south, it was reasonable to expect other Nato members to provide the reserve battalion. The UK also announced 1,000 reinforcements in July, although the bulk of these soldiers were engineers.
In his interview, Gen Richards defended Nato’s tactics of confronting the Taliban in head-on clashes, in spite of recent criticism that the approach was misconceived.
The Taliban were beginning to exert an unacceptable psychological grip on Kandahar city and its environs, he said. “They were challenging us and the government of Afghanistan to take them on. This we are successfully doing,” he said.
Controversy followed Nato’s ann ouncement that it had killed hundreds of Taliban since beginning the Kandahar offensive. Gen Richards said: “I am not into body counts but it is a useful means of measuring tactical success in the short term.”
One British officer who has served in Afghanistan, Capt Leo Docherty, of the Scots Guards, has said that the British campaign in Helmand province was “a textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency”.
By Rachel Morarjee in Kabul and Daniel Dombey in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 12 2006 01:34 | Last updated: September 12 2006 01:34
Nato staff asked for extra troops in Afghanistan more than a year ago but the request has still not been granted, the alliance’s top commander in the country said on Monday.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Lieutenant General David Richards, the commander of Nato’s 20,000-strong force in Afghanistan, said Nato countries were asked 18 months ago for a reserve battalion of 1,000 soldiers.
His comments were made ahead of a crucial few days for Nato, in which the spotlight will be on member countries’ readiness to send reinforcements to hard-pressed British and Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan. Last week General James Jones, Nato’s supreme commander, rev ealed that he had sought but so far failed to obtain 2,500 extra troops, comprising the reserve battalion plus up to 1,500 air support staff.
Nato officials will meet on Wednesday in an attempt to secure enough pledges to fill the gap. But Gen Richards’s remark indicates the request was more long-standing than was previously thought.
“That reserve . . . is nothing more than nations knew was the military advice that was required for 18 months now, endorsed by the Nato chain of command,” he said.
“That requirement has never been met by nations. The bit it lacked was a hard-hitting reserve of about 1,000 people that I can use wherever I need to use it throughout Afghanistan, although obviously its focus would be the south.”
In recent days Canadian newspapers have reported that Canada is about to send 15 to 20 tanks and up to 300 soldiers to reinforce its soldiers in the Kandahar region, the heart of the battleground against the Taliban.
British officials say that although the UK could send further troops as a last resort, the onus is on other Nato countries.
“Nato is now being tested publicly in a way that it hasn’t been to date,” said one. “Is it or is it not an effective alliance?” Earlier this year John Reid, then the UK defence secretary, argued that since Britain was sending more than 3,000 soldiers to the south, it was reasonable to expect other Nato members to provide the reserve battalion. The UK also announced 1,000 reinforcements in July, although the bulk of these soldiers were engineers.
In his interview, Gen Richards defended Nato’s tactics of confronting the Taliban in head-on clashes, in spite of recent criticism that the approach was misconceived.
The Taliban were beginning to exert an unacceptable psychological grip on Kandahar city and its environs, he said. “They were challenging us and the government of Afghanistan to take them on. This we are successfully doing,” he said.
Controversy followed Nato’s ann ouncement that it had killed hundreds of Taliban since beginning the Kandahar offensive. Gen Richards said: “I am not into body counts but it is a useful means of measuring tactical success in the short term.”
One British officer who has served in Afghanistan, Capt Leo Docherty, of the Scots Guards, has said that the British campaign in Helmand province was “a textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency”.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 8:52 PM
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