Afstan updates: Brits considering reinforcements/Analysis of the problems

The UK is finding things perhaps a bit tougher than anticipated.

The commander of British forces in Afghanistan today revealed that he had asked for extra equipment and hinted that he may ask for more soldiers to tackle the intensifying battle with the Taleban in the south of the country...

Around 3,300 British soldiers are presently deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in the rugged, hot province of Helmand, with the official task of taking over a Nato mission of peacekeeping and reconstruction. But they have found themselves in a full-time combat situation, with daily ambushes and gunbattles clashes with Taleban militants...

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "If extra resources are needed, extra resources will be found, but that’s first and foremost a matter for military assessment and for military commanders to decide, not for politicians to decide."..

This morning, Brigadier Ed Butler, who commands the UK force, said he had put in a request for more equipment and that troops levels were under constant review. Press reports this morning said that as many as 1,000 extra soldiers could be sent to bolster the mission in Helmand, a province without paved roads four times the size of Wales...

Brigadier Butler was more explicit about the need for more weapons and air support. On Saturday, Lieutenant-General David Richards, commander of the overall Nato force, told The Times that he needed more fixed-wing aircraft and [attack] helicopters...

The Times manages, in true Brit fashion, to forget about the Canadians.

British, American and Afghan soldiers have been involved in almost daily skirmishes with Taleban rebels in Operation Mountain Thrust, which began on June 15. The operation involves 11,000 troops, who are seeking out and hunting down Taleban rebels across the Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces.

Meanwhile, an analysis of how to deal with the growing problems:

The current political and military meltdown [way too strong - MC] in Afghanistan was entirely predictable and avoidable. For the past three years Afghans, their president, Hamid Karzai, and foreign experts have been warning that the failure of the United States and the international community to provide sufficient economic, military and reconstruction resources to the fledgling Afghan government would lead to a Taliban resurgence and disillusionment among the Afghan people. That is exactly what has happened...

...Most Afghans are angry with the United States and the West for ignoring the alleged sanctuary provided to the Taliban by Pakistan, and with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for apparently supporting Karzai and the Taliban at the same time...

Karzai is right when he says that Afghanistan has received less aid than has been dispensed in any recent conflict including nation building, whether in the former Yugoslavia or East Timor. Building a new security apparatus run by Afghans is going too slowly. According to American officials, the U.S.-sponsored police training program is three years behind schedule, although Washington will provide $1.2 billion this year to equip 60,000 police officers nationwide.

A U.S. commitment to build a new Afghan army has been stymied by the irresponsible decision of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mandating an Afghan army that will be smaller than originally planned, with fewer weapons and with the cash-strapped Afghan government, rather than the Americans, having to pay the troops' salaries...

But saving Afghanistan from itself is the world's responsibility, not just that of the United States. The Europeans and the Americans differ on military and economic priorities and on the advice being given to Karzai. As NATO, with its large European [and Canadian] troop contingents, replaces U.S. troops in the south and the east, the United States has to learn to share decision-making responsibilities in Afghanistan with NATO, the European Union and the United Nations, rather than cut its own secret deals in Kabul...

Despite all the dire predictions made in 2001, the Afghans have given the international community, its aid workers and soldiers a large window of opportunity to repair the damage done by 25 years of war. That window, which has stayed open for nearly five years, with amazing good will from the Afghans, is threatening to close unless the world wakes up and deals with the crisis.

Bobbie Rae naturally wants Canada to reconstruct Afstan without doing the fighting to provide the security necessary for that reconstruction. Even the Toronto Star has savaged that line of "reasoning".

Update: Christie Blatchford's Globe article July 4, "Envoy points at Pakistan for deteriorating state of Afghanistan security" (full text not officially online), makes many points similar to the analysis above.