Improving links with the ANA...

...is not as easy as perhaps it should be--and other intelligence challenges:

U.S. intelligence chief in Afghanistan wages battle for resources
Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn encounters military resistance in his task of overhauling U.S. intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan to boost efforts to defeat the Taliban.

The peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains create a stunning backdrop for the U.S. military's Kabul headquarters, but Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn rarely notices. Sheltering Taliban fighters and American combat outposts, the mountains symbolize the old way of fighting. Flynn was sent here to help define a new strategy for the war...

Flynn's boss, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and allied commander, has ordered an overhaul of how intelligence is collected, disseminated and, most of all, used by troops in Afghanistan...

To institutionalize the sharing of intelligence in Afghanistan, Flynn is building new intelligence "fusion cells." These centers are staffed and equipped to gather all available intelligence from video feeds, audio intercepts and other sources and make it available immediately to combat units across the country.

An even bigger hurdle for Flynn is improving how the allies share intelligence with the Afghan security forces. Earlier this year, Flynn proposed installing a secure video connection between the U.S. and Afghan military headquarters to allow officers to share intelligence and plan operations.

The project bumped up against North Atlantic Treaty Organization bureaucrats. In one meeting, Canadian and Polish officers, adeptly staying in their lanes, said Flynn's plan faced serious problems: No money was budgeted for the equipment, installing it would violate NATO rules and there were not enough technicians for the job.

As the meeting dragged on, Flynn became exasperated. "This isn't the Balkans and a peacekeeping mission," he told them. "This is a combat zone."

After the meeting, Flynn stopped the two officers in the gravel courtyard behind the NATO headquarters and tried to enlist them in his cause.

"We are going to move this command into the 21st century as fast as we can," Flynn told them. "If you want to push back, push back. If what I am saying isn't right, tell me. But from my experience, we can do this, and we can do it faster. Do not worry about perfect."

When they seemed to be coming around, he pressed his point. "We are beyond the nonsense," he said. "There is not a lot of time for us to show progress here in Afghanistan."

A few days later, Afghanistan's military command center got its top-secret communications equipment and a direct link to McChrystal's war room in Kabul, the capital...

More on this sort of problem from a post by BruceR. at Flit:

...
3. Force protection measures in a warzone limit our mentoring. Our own unwillingness to risk or lose soldiers works against us, setting at least three huge barriers in our path. It's very difficult within established force protection measures, for mentors in the South to spend continuous time with their Afghan counterparts. Our limited access to them means they're left to their own devices a lot. If you're not living and working with them at all times, that's when the corruption and incompetence will inevitably slip back in. And while we have trouble maintaining a persistent presence in their headquarters, for the same reason, they can't enter our inner sanctums, drastically limiting the sharing of intelligence and operational planning [emphasis added], let alone military culture...

Update: Because of arrangements that have been made with the Pakistani government--as a result of its important place in international counterterrorism efforts--it has been, ironically, considerably easier to share intelligence with the Pakistanis than with the Afghans.