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April 23, 2010 

NATO Moves To Make Afghans 'Masters Of Own House'
April 23, 2010 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Ahto Lobjakas
TALLINN -- NATO has officially set in motion the process that it hopes will eventually allow it to wind up operations in Afghanistan.

NATO Ministers Discuss Afghanistan Drawdown
April 23, 2010 VOA News
NATO foreign ministers are meeting Friday to work out a plan for moving security responsibilities in Afghanistan from international troops to the Afghan military and government.

Nato ministers consider Afghanistan pull-out plan
Friday, 23 April 2010 BBC News
Nato foreign ministers are expected to consider criteria for deciding how and when to hand over responsibility for Afghanistan to the government there.

U.S. military, diplomats at odds over how to resolve Kandahar's electricity woes
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 23, 2010
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - U.S. military commanders and senior diplomats are locked in a dispute over the best way to bring more electricity to Afghanistan's second-largest city, complicating a major campaign to win over the population of Kandahar and push out the Taliban.

Karzai to visit India next week
Press Trust Of India 22/04/2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will undertake a two-day visit here from April 26 during which the two sides will discuss the situation in the violence-torn country and India's role in reconstruction.

Pakistan allows US to question Taliban leader Baradar
April 22, 2010 BBC News
Pakistan's main intelligence agency has eased restrictions for US investigators to interrogate a top Afghan Taliban commander, officials have told the BBC.

Hope trumps hardship as Afghan refugees return home
By Rabia Ali
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, April 23 (UNHCR) – After spending his entire life in exile, 23-year-old Romal can barely contain his excitement at the prospect of getting a fresh start in his real homeland – Afghanistan.

Merkel Tries to Beat Back Opposition to Afghanistan
New York Times By JUDY DEMPSEY April 22, 2010
BERLIN - Faced with solid pubic opposition against the war in Afghanistan, Chancellor Angela Merkel told legislators Thursday that German troops were not yet going to withdraw from the country, but would remain there to prevent the spread of international terrorism.

Once-docile Afghan parliament stands up to Karzai and becomes an ally of U.S.
The Washington Post By Griff Witte 22/04/2010
KABUL - The Afghan parliament, long a bastion of dysfunction and docility, has emerged this spring as a robust check on President Hamid Karzai's power, giving the United States an unlikely ally as it tries to persuade the government here to clean up its act.

Britain needs the Navy to provide firepower – not a ferry service
The Senior Service has been sidelined in Afghanistan but still has a role to play, says Con Coughlin.
Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin 23 Apr 2010
In times of crisis, there is no more reassuring sight than a Royal Navy warship hoving into view. In Victorian times, gunboat diplomacy was regularly employed to protect British citizens from the evil designs of foreign potentates, or to persuade hostile governments
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NATO Moves To Make Afghans 'Masters Of Own House'
April 23, 2010 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Ahto Lobjakas
TALLINN -- NATO has officially set in motion the process that it hopes will eventually allow it to wind up operations in Afghanistan.

After a meeting today of alliance foreign ministers in Estonia, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the allies had reached agreement on basic guidelines for starting to hand over responsibility for security in the country to Afghan forces:

But he said this would be a gradual process, not a "run for the exit."

"I expect that we will start handing over responsibility to the Afghans this year," Rasmussen said. "Today, we took an important decision to help make that happen. We agreed the approach we will take to transition."

Rasmussen said NATO ministers had set out the basic "conditions" that will determine when and in which districts and provinces Afghan forces will take over from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) force.

But he declined to elaborate on the terms or the timeline involved, beyond saying decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.

NATO officials say the allies want to give Afghan President Hamid Karzai the opportunity to "tweak" the conditions during upcoming talks in Kabul with international backers.

Rasmussen did say, however, that any handover of responsibility to Afghan forces did not mean ISAF forces will vacate the area in question. Even if Afghan National Army and police assume the lead, Rasmussen said, they will need ISAF backup "for quite some time."

But, he also noted, NATO "will not stay in Afghanistan forever."

NATO will make a formal decision on the future of security arrangements in Afghanistan at a summit in Lisbon in November.

U.S. Commitment

At a dinner last night, the United States spelt out in broad strokes its vision of NATO's future. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today indicated this involves renewed assurances of a continued U.S. commitment to the security of its European allies. But Washington also expects allies to contribute more toward goals it prioritizes.

This process will find formal reflection in NATO's new strategic concept, to be also adopted at the Lisbon summit. The strategic concept is being drafted by a task force headed by the former U.S. secretary of state, Madeleine Albright.

Clinton said today Washington wants NATO to reform and adapt better to 21st-century challenges. "We now have an opportunity to build on their [the task force's] work and construct a more effective, efficient and flexible NATO, better prepared and ready to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the 21st century," she said.

The United States made it clear during the meeting that it will retain a nuclear arsenal on the European continent, dispelling fears its missile-defense initiatives are designed as an alternative.

Reaching Out To Russia

The ministers today also discussed relations with Russia. A customary NATO-Russia Council meeting was cancelled after Russia declined to participate. Officials attributed this to Moscow's fraught relations with host Estonia and its general opposition to NATO expansion.

Rasmussen today dismissed Russia's views of NATO as out of date. "The Russian military doctrine does not reflect the real world," he said. "It states that NATO constitutes a major danger -- at the least -- which is not the reality."

Rasmussen urged Russia to engage in practical cooperation with NATO on issues of mutual interest such as Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism, counternarcotics work, counterpiracy operations, and various arms-control issues.

The NATO chief also repeated his invitation for Russia to join NATO in developing a joint missile shield.

Rasmussen today also clarified the circumstances surrounding the granting of a Membership Action Plan last night to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He said that the plan will be implemented "only when some clearly identified defense property is formally transferred from the entity level to the [federal] Ministry of Defense." Bosnia has two entities, the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

In other words, Rasmussen said, Bosnia will not be put on the road to accession before it meets NATO's concerns regarding its defense sector.
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NATO Ministers Discuss Afghanistan Drawdown
April 23, 2010 VOA News
NATO foreign ministers are meeting Friday to work out a plan for moving security responsibilities in Afghanistan from international troops to the Afghan military and government.

The ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are meeting in Tallinn, Estonia.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Afghan police and military needed more training before the transfer of power can take place.

He called for an additional 450 trainers to be sent to the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama has set a goal of beginning to withdraw American troops by July 2011.

Rasmussen said Thursday that the alliance may need a nuclear deterrent against what he calls irrational countries and others armed with nuclear weapons.

He called for a move towards nuclear disarmament, but said allies should discuss whether conventional weapons can serve as a deterrent against terrorists.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Nato ministers consider Afghanistan pull-out plan
Friday, 23 April 2010 BBC News
Nato foreign ministers are expected to consider criteria for deciding how and when to hand over responsibility for Afghanistan to the government there.

The foreign ministers, and their partners in the international coalition in Afghanistan, are meeting in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

The Nato-led force has some 90,000 troops from 40 nations in Afghanistan.

At the heart of the alliance's strategy is creating the conditions to hand it over fully to the Afghan government.

Now, the ministers are ready to endorse the framework - the security, governance and development criteria - for how to manage the process of transition, the BBC's defence and security correspondent Nick Childs reports.

'As long as it takes'

The criteria should, according to Nato sources, help form the basis for assessing the performance of the Afghan security forces and the ability of the government to maintain the rule of law.

But just what the timetable will be is another matter, our correspondent says.

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen insists the process will be based on conditions in the country and not on the calendar.

"We all want to see a stable and secure Afghanistan - an Afghanistan that is no longer a threat to its region and to the rest of the world," he said in a speech before the two-day meeting in Tallinn began.

"We will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to achieve that goal. We want to continue to empower the Afghans. And gradually hand over to them greater responsibility for the security of their own country when conditions permit."

Mr Rasmussen also said earlier this week that 450 military and police trainers are still needed to help build up the Afghan security forces.

Aides to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton say she intends to appeal to alliance members to help provide the required trainers.
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U.S. military, diplomats at odds over how to resolve Kandahar's electricity woes
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 23, 2010
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - U.S. military commanders and senior diplomats are locked in a dispute over the best way to bring more electricity to Afghanistan's second-largest city, complicating a major campaign to win over the population of Kandahar and push out the Taliban.

The standoff has reached the top two U.S. officials in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, illuminating the sometimes-sharp differences between the military and civilian officials over how to stabilize this nation.

Convinced that expanding the electricity supply will build popular support for the Afghan government and sap the Taliban's influence, some officers want to spend $200 million over the next few months to buy more generators and millions of gallons of diesel fuel. Although they acknowledge that the project will be costly and inefficient, they say President Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011 has increased pressure to demonstrate rapid results in their counterinsurgency efforts, even if it means embracing less-than-ideal solutions to provide basic public services.

"This is not about development -- it's about counterinsurgency," said a U.S military official at the NATO headquarters in Kandahar, advocating rapid action to help Afghan officials boost the power supply. "If we don't give them more fuel, we'll lose a very narrow window of opportunity."

U.S. diplomats and reconstruction specialists, who do not face the same looming drawdown, have opposed the military's plan because of concerns that the Afghan government will not be able to afford the fuel to sustain the generators. Mindful of several troubled development programs over the past eight years, they want the United States to focus on initiatives that Afghans can maintain over the long term.

"Proposals to buy generators and diesel fuel for Kandahar would be expensive, unsustainable and unlikely to have the counterinsurgency impact desired," Eikenberry wrote in a cable to the State Department in Washington this month.

Embassy officials contend that they have won the battle because their plan, which calls for small-scale improvements but no diesel or generator acquisitions, received tacit approval at a planning session in Kabul this month from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to the region. Both men would have to sign off on any large purchases.

But military officials have not given up. McChrystal and his top deputies still are considering a variety of proposals to increase the power supply in Kandahar, including the purchase of more generators and fuel, according to senior military officials. The military is also examining ways to provide more diesel to the municipal generators already in place. Those units are operating at about 40 percent of capacity because the Finance Ministry in Kabul has not given the city enough money to buy the fuel it needs.

As a consequence, Kandahar residents fortunate enough to have their homes and shops connected to the city's rickety network of electricity wires typically receive about six hours of power a day. But there are days and nights without a flicker of light, the whir of a fan, the distraction of television. Frequent blackouts have shut down factories and kept people locked indoors after sunset.

"We keep praying for some light at night," said Mohammed Jan, a carpet merchant in the main bazaar. "If there was more electricity, there would be more security."

Dam upgrade a solution?

Instead of buying new generators, the U.S. Embassy wants the United States and its NATO partners to focus on refurbishing the Kajaki Dam, a large hydroelectric power plant in the mountains of Helmand province that has been a symbol of unfulfilled American ambition in Afghanistan from almost the day it was inaugurated half a century ago.

The dam, about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar, was built in the early 1950s by the U.S. construction firm Morrison-Knudsen. In 1975, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) installed two generators in the dam's spillway, but they fell into disrepair after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

By the time U.S. experts returned to the dam in 2002, it was barely running. The chief engineer at the time, Rasul Baqi, was cobbling together spare parts from scrap metal and using barbed wire to splice electrical lines.

In 2003, USAID hired the Louis Berger Group, a Washington-based engineering firm, to rehabilitate the two turbines. The agency later hired a state-owned Chinese firm to install a third. But the Chinese did not start working on the project in earnest until 2007, and by then it was too dangerous to move the turbine parts up the 30-mile road to the dam, which USAID officials began to call "Hell's Canyon."

In September 2008, 4,000 British troops were reassigned to Kajaki to escort a large convoy of trucks bearing parts of the turbine. After the British left, security deteriorated along the road, preventing delivery of the cement needed to emplace the turbine. The Chinese contractors departed soon thereafter, and Louis Berger was forced to use helicopters to bring in the supplies to finish its work.

The dam produces about 33 megawatts of electricity with the two rehabilitated turbines, of which about 30 percent reaches Kandahar. As much as 40 percent of the electricity is lost to theft and transmission inefficiencies.

Frank Kenefick, a former USAID project manager who worked on the dam, said the agency rejected a proposal from a German firm to install the third turbine before violence closed the road. USAID, which has spent $47 million on the dam thus far, also did not take advantage of the relative calm in the early part of the decade to put up new transmission lines needed to convey the additional electricity -- something the agency wants to do now but cannot because of security concerns.

"The strategic planning was a complete failure," Kenefick said.

Although military officials support efforts to fix the dam once violence abates in the area, they view a reliance on repairs as incongruous with the prevailing security situation.

"The dam may be the answer at some point in the future," said a U.S. reconstruction expert advising the NATO headquarters in Kandahar. "But right now, you'll get killed if you try to drive up there."

Different perspectives

USAID officials have asked military commanders to deploy more troops to the Kajaki area so construction can resume. But the question of whether the dam should be a focus for military forces centers on different interpretations of what it means to protect the population, the buzz phrase of counterinsurgency strategy. To the military, it means concentrating troops where the people are -- in and around Kandahar. But to some civilians, it makes sense to put forces in less-populous areas if they can secure an important public resource.

Military and civilian officials also remain divided over whether increasing electricity in Kandahar will have a substantial effect on the security situation there. Military officers in southern Afghanistan maintain that if residents' power supply increases, they will have a better opinion of their government and employment will increase, which will help to marginalize the Taliban.

The top NATO commander in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, said increasing power in the city will produce a "head-turning moment" among residents and will lead them to rally behind the Afghan government.

But embassy and USAID officials contend that Kandahar residents are more concerned about the lack of a credible justice system and the dearth of employment. Civilian officials say small generators could be used to reopen factories and run cold-storage facilities, but they worry that increasing electricity across the board will lead more people to buy air conditioners and refrigerators, resulting in a continued shortage.

Instead of buying fuel, Eikenberry and other embassy personnel want the electric utility in Kandahar to do a better job of collecting fees and to use the money to buy fuel for the generators it already has, which would increase supply but not eliminate the shortage. USAID is offering help through its Afghanistan Clean Energy Program, a $100 million effort to promote "green" power in the war zone. The agency plans to install solar-powered streetlights in the city this year. It is also paying for repairs to some of the existing generators, but it will not buy diesel for them.

The city, which is home to about 850,000 people, receives about 16 megawatts of power. Military officials estimate demand at about 50 megawatts, a target they think they can achieve within three months by buying new generators and more fuel.

By contrast, generators at the sprawling NATO base at the Kandahar airport produce more than 100 megawatts of power, which is used to operate thousands of air conditioners, computers and floodlights.

If the embassy and USAID will not pay for generators and fuel, military officials want to ask other nations, particularly oil-rich Persian Gulf states, for help. But the embassy has opposed a separate entreaty out of concern that it will compete with other requests for reconstruction assistance.

As he sat in a well-lit pizzeria on the base, a stabilization expert working for the NATO command in Kandahar called the lack of electricity in the city "the principal symbol of the government's inability to deliver services to the people."

"We've been here for eight years, and we've been building things like this," he said, pointing around him. "It's time we helped the people inside the city."
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Karzai to visit India next week
Press Trust Of India 22/04/2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will undertake a two-day visit here from April 26 during which the two sides will discuss the situation in the violence-torn country and India's role in reconstruction.

Security of Indians engaged in developmental projects in Afghanistan is also expected to figure in the talks that Karzai will have with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the backdrop of terror attacks and looming threats to them.

"President Karzai's visit carries forward the sequence of high-level interaction between the two countries and would contribute to strengthening the strategic partnership between India and Afghanistan," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

It said the visit would provide an opportunity for both sides to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest.

For India, it would be an opportunity to express its firm commitment and support to the Government and people of Afghanistan as they build a peaceful, democratic, pluralistic and prosperous Afghanistan, the statement said.

India has committed assistance worth USD 1.3 billion to development of Afghanistan and around 3,500 Indians are engaged in various projects in this connection.

However, their safety is a major concern as terrorists have been frequently carrying out attacks on Indian assets and personnel with an aim of forcing India out of Afghanistan.

Highlighting the dangers, terrorists struck on February 26 at two hotels in Kabul, which were homes for Indians engaged in developmental projects, killing nine of them and injuring 10 others.
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Pakistan allows US to question Taliban leader Baradar
April 22, 2010 BBC News
Pakistan's main intelligence agency has eased restrictions for US investigators to interrogate a top Afghan Taliban commander, officials have told the BBC.

Security sources say the Americans began getting "limited access" to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar last month.

He was caught in late January during a raid on a madrassa near Karachi.

Mullah Baradar's capture came amid a major Nato-led offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and was hailed as a significant breakthrough.

US media reports suggest the Americans are satisfied with the information they are getting from the detained Taliban leader.

Correspondents say that direct US access to Mullah Baradar was minimal at first.

But since the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) eased restrictions on American investigators, they have been participating regularly and directly in interrogation sessions for at least a month, US officials say.

"These things take time," one US military official told the Reuters news agency. "It takes time to get the information and it takes time to check out that information."

"He started sharing information that is useful," another US official said.

The BBC's Haroon Rashid in Islamabad says the Pakistani authorities are eager to dispel suggestions by some US officials that it orchestrated the arrest to derail Afghan government efforts to talk with the Taliban.

That charge has been flatly rejected by Pakistani officials.

"They [the Americans] wish to look for controversies where there is none. It was they who led us to arrest him," one told the BBC.

The official said Pakistan has a clearly defined policy to arrest all militants it can find on its soil: "The operative word here is find," he said.

'Game-changing'

Former United Nations envoy Kai Eide told the BBC soon after the arrest that it had put an end to UN attempts to talk to the Taliban.

There were conflicting reports that before his arrest Mullah Baradar had been talking to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan has denied these claims.

But the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, described the arrest as a potential game-changing development after eight years of war.

Mullah Baradar is believed to have been second-in-command to the Taliban's reclusive chief, Mullah Omar. He was said to be the main day-to-day commander in charge of attacks - including suicide bombings - against US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Correspondents say that many questions remain about his capture - in particular Pakistan's motivations in carrying it out, the intelligence that led to his whereabouts and what prompted the ISI to act against its long-time Taliban allies.

According to Interpol, Mullah Baradar was born in 1968 and served as deputy minister of defence for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before it was toppled in 2001.

He has been subject to UN sanctions including a travel ban, an arms embargo and the freezing of assets.

Mullah Baradar was reported to have engaged in an e-mail exchange with Newsweek magazine in July 2009, in which he vowed to "inflict maximum losses" on US forces in Afghanistan.

"In every nook and corner of the country, a spirit for jihad is raging," the magazine quoted him as saying.

MULLAH BARADAR

Second-in-charge behind Taliban founder Mullah Omar
In charge of Taliban's military operations and financial affairs
Born in Dehrawood district, Uruzgan province, in 1968
Former deputy defence minister for the Taliban regime
Source: Interpol, news agencies
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Hope trumps hardship as Afghan refugees return home
By Rabia Ali
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, April 23 (UNHCR) – After spending his entire life in exile, 23-year-old Romal can barely contain his excitement at the prospect of getting a fresh start in his real homeland – Afghanistan.

Eagerly boarding a bus headed for the Pakistan-Afghan border, he joins the ranks of 22,000 Afghans who have opted to return home from Pakistan since repatriation resumed a month ago, after the winter recess.

"My uncle returned two years ago to Kabul and is now asking me to help him run his business," he says at UNHCR's voluntary repatriation centre. "I will be working in his small restaurant in Kabul."

Romal's parents fled Afghanistan before he was born and settled near Peshawar, where the young man has recently been working in a grocery store to help support his family.

He's been to Afghanistan to visit a few times, but "this time the feeling is different," he says with a broad smile as he struggles to secure a place for himself, his parents, two brothers, and a sister amidst the mattresses, pots, televisions, and refrigerators crammed onto the colorfully-decorated bus.

Despite his eagerness to go home, he confesses to a twinge of early nostalgia as he leaves behind the life he built in exile: "I am already missing my friends in Pakistan and have invited them to visit me in Kabul."

While Romal is lured home by the sense of opportunity, other refugees passing through UNHCR's voluntary repatriation centers in Peshawar or Baleli, Balochistan, in recent weeks cite rising living costs, scarce jobs and the difficult security situation in Pakistan as key reasons for return.

Fifty-year-old Musa Khan has lived almost thirty years in Pakistan, most recently in the Punjabi city of Taxila where he has eked out a living as a daily wage laborer. Now, he says, it is time to go home.

"Things are getting very expensive day by day. Every day I go to the market but cannot find work. I cannot afford to pay rent anymore," he says as he marshals his wife, two sons and three daughters through the deregistration procedures at the Chamkani voluntary repatriation centre in Peshawar.

His economic woes have been compounded by the difficult security situation, he says. "Sometimes the Pakistani police stop us [Afghans] while we are going to work and they ask many questions. Once my brother was put in a cell but was later released."

Musa is heading back to his village in Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan, where he owns a piece of land in his village. "I plan to sell a small portion of it and use the money to build a two-roomed house," he says. "My two sons are also going to help me in rebuilding my house."

Whatever their reasons for return, these Afghans will need all the resilience they've shown as refugees to rebuild their lives at home, says Mengesha Kebede, UNHCR's representative in Pakistan.

"Afghanistan has absorbed a fifth of its population in returning refugees over the past nine years and many still face shortages of housing, jobs, schools and clinics as well as security problems," he said.

"To ensure their return is sustainable, the refugees will need the support of their government and international donors to provide reintegration opportunities," Kebede added.

Each Afghan returning with UNHCR's assistance receives a cash grant averaging about $100, depending on the distance to their areas of origin. The grant is given out to returning refugees at one of four UNHCR encashment centers in Afghanistan.

Now in its ninth year, UNHCR's voluntary repatriation programme to Afghanistan is the agency's largest return operation around the world. Since it began in 2002, more than 3.5 million Afghans have returned home from Pakistan and 865,000 from Iran with UNHCR's help.

Some 1.7 million registered Afghans remain in Pakistan. Last month, the Pakistan government agreed to the extension of their temporary stay in the country until the end of 2012.
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Merkel Tries to Beat Back Opposition to Afghanistan
New York Times By JUDY DEMPSEY April 22, 2010
BERLIN - Faced with solid pubic opposition against the war in Afghanistan, Chancellor Angela Merkel told legislators Thursday that German troops were not yet going to withdraw from the country, but would remain there to prevent the spread of international terrorism.

“We cannot expect our soldiers to be brave if we lack the courage to do what we decided,” Mrs. Merkel said in a speech to Parliament, which was followed by a long debate about why German troops were serving there. If Germany withdrew its troops now, it would be “irresponsible,” she said, and Afghanistan would sink into chaos and anarchy.

“Our mission is not to be there permanently, but to be reliable,” said Mrs. Merkel, adding that Germany’s goal was to hand over security to the Afghan police and army. She did not say when the 4,500 troops would leave the country.

Afghanistan has become Mrs. Merkel’s biggest and most difficult foreign policy challenge since taking office five years ago. But it is only recently that she has begun to speak about the issue publicly.

With two out of three Germans opposed to the war, according to a recent poll in Stern magazine, and with casualties increasing — seven soldiers were killed in the past three weeks — Mrs. Merkel had been criticized not only by her own conservative Christian Democrats, but also by the highly influential mass circulation Bild newspaper for failing to explain to the public why German troops are based in Afghanistan.

Bild also criticized her for never attending a commemoration ceremony for dead soldiers. Only after Bild pointed that out a few weeks ago did Mrs. Merkel, for the first time, attend such a ceremony this month.

In her speech Thursday, Mrs. Merkel was unusually frank about the shortcomings in Afghanistan since NATO troops were sent there in 2002. “There has been some progress but there has been too many steps backwards and our goals were either unrealistically high or partly wrong,” she told legislators. She even questioned whether it would be possible to have a Western-style democracy in Afghanistan.

She did not mention that Germany’s efforts to train the Afghan police have been criticized by the United States and other allies because the training program was considered too academic, too long and ill-suited to Afghan circumstances. Germany has since handed over the training program to the European Union.

Her speech won some support from the opposition Social Democrats, who are in a quandary because when they were in government from 1999 to 2005, they supported sending troops to Afghanistan.

Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the Social Democrats whose grass roots are traditionally pacifist, is staunchly against Germany remaining in Afghanistan. He called for a an independent assessment that would determine whether the new U.S. counter-insurgency strategy would succeed.

Mrs. Merkel’s speech was roundly criticized by the Left Party, which has consistently called on the government to end its mission in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, General Stanley McChrystal, commander of American and NATO forces told legislators in Berlin that the U.S. strategy entailed working much more closely with the Afghan security forces, but also engaging much more with the Afghan public, which he admitted carried more risks for the troops because they would be more exposed.
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Once-docile Afghan parliament stands up to Karzai and becomes an ally of U.S.
The Washington Post By Griff Witte 22/04/2010
KABUL - The Afghan parliament, long a bastion of dysfunction and docility, has emerged this spring as a robust check on President Hamid Karzai's power, giving the United States an unlikely ally as it tries to persuade the government here to clean up its act.

Although the United States and the parliament do not appear to be directly coordinating their strategies, their interests coincide. Both are pushing the increasingly erratic Karzai to become more accountable, to allow fair elections, and to reduce the corruption that has withered support for the government, feeding the Taliban's rise.

But unlike the United States, which had to retreat this month after public rebukes of Karzai backfired, many members of parliament say that openly defying the president makes for good election-year politics.

In recent months, the parliament has rejected Karzai's budget, much of his cabinet and, most important, his proposal to overhaul the nation's election law. Karzai's proposed changes would have, among other things, given him control of a commission assigned to investigate fraud allegations. The United States, the United Nations and many Afghans viewed the proposal as an attempted power grab and were relieved when the lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly against it. Even Karzai's staunch supporters defied him, waiving red cards to signify their opposition to the president's maneuver.

"We were all surprised at the unanimity of opinion in the lower house," said one Western diplomat. "It's really unprecedented."

Despite the vote, Karzai had insisted that his version of the law take effect. But on Saturday, he backed down, agreeing to a compromise with the United Nations under which two of five members of the fraud commission will be foreigners, with each given veto power over commission decisions. Karzai also appointed a chief election commissioner who is seen as more independent than his predecessor.

The changes are important because Afghans are due at the polls in just five months for the country's first parliamentary elections since 2005. Karzai's critics say his original election law proposal would have enabled him to stock the parliament with allies and further consolidate authority in a government that lacks rival centers of influence. They say that after the fraud-marred presidential vote last year, the country's fragile democracy would not survive similarly tainted parliamentary elections.

"The parliamentary election is a matter of life and death in terms of democracy in Afghanistan," said Mirwais Yasini, the parliament's deputy speaker and a losing candidate in last year's presidential vote.

Yasini said he was pleased with the compromise reached Saturday. But parliament members remain wary of attempts by Karzai and his allies to try to rig the outcome of the elections.

A powerful president

Despite Afghanistan's long history of decentralized power, the constitution that the United States helped craft for the post-Taliban era gives the president vast sway at all levels of government. That has caused problems for the Obama administration as it has become disenchanted with Karzai and has sought unsuccessfully to work around him.

Afghanistan's ministers, governors and district chiefs all ultimately answer to the president, giving Washington little leverage in Afghanistan when Karzai chooses not to cooperate with U.S. plans. The parliament, however, is relatively independent. Karzai appoints some members of the upper house but has no direct authority over those in the more influential lower house, who are popularly elected.

Until now, the parliament was more notorious than influential, rarely challenging the president and gaining notice only for its unorthodox legislation. Last year, it passed a law that requires minority Shiite women to seek permission from their husbands before leaving the home and to submit to their husbands' sexual demands unless ill or menstruating.

Reformist lawmakers

The parliament remains a rogues' gallery of drug barons, criminals and warlords. Many members are uneducated and even illiterate. But the complexion of parliament has shifted over the past year, as the warlords lost interest and a group of reformers -- including many women -- coalesced into a working group of approximately 30 that increasingly drives the body's agenda, members say.

Many of the reformers are strongly in favor of the U.S. role here and have been unsettled by Karzai's recent statements that appeared to attack the foreign presence. "We need U.S. support. If they don't support us for one day, we cannot survive to the next day," said Moeen Marastial, a parliament member who advised Karzai's reelection campaign last year.

Karzai's allies say he is convinced that parliament and Washington are working together to undermine him. After the election law changes were rejected, he angrily told a group of parliament members that "I expect you to act like Afghans, but you're behaving like Americans," according to one member present.

That member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, adamantly denied that the parliament takes direction from the United States but said members do occasionally consult the U.S. Embassy here.

It would be difficult for anyone to dictate an agenda to the parliament, which includes communists, tribal elders, former Taliban members and Western-educated technocrats. Because there are no formal political parties in Afghanistan, coalitions are loose and shifting. The speaker of the lower house, Yunus Qanooni, is one of Karzai's chief rivals, but he does not command a majority.

Fawzia Koofi, one of 68 female members of the lower house, said the four-year-old parliament has become more assertive as members have come to recognize their powers. She said members also know that Karzai is deeply unpopular and that "when you talk against this government, people will vote for you."

Among the parliament's powers is the ability to impeach the president. Analysts say that is unlikely to happen because Karzai has significant leverage over members through the billions of dollars in U.S. assistance that his government directly or indirectly controls.

Still, Haroun Mir, the director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies, said the parliament can have a significant impact on Karzai's agenda, which is why he is working hard to influence the next elections. "Karzai has been very smart about making the political opposition irrelevant over the past eight years," Mir said. "The only way to have checks and balances in Afghanistan is through the parliament."
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Britain needs the Navy to provide firepower – not a ferry service
The Senior Service has been sidelined in Afghanistan but still has a role to play, says Con Coughlin.
Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin 23 Apr 2010
In times of crisis, there is no more reassuring sight than a Royal Navy warship hoving into view. In Victorian times, gunboat diplomacy was regularly employed to protect British citizens from the evil designs of foreign potentates, or to persuade hostile governments to think twice before taking on the might of the British Empire. More recently, the Navy's contribution was vital to the success of the Falklands campaign, while British warships have seen active service in many of the world's major conflict zones, from the Gulf to Sierra Leone.

So the arrival of HMS Albion at the northern Spanish port of Santander this week, to rescue hundreds of stranded Service personnel and tourists, serves as timely reminder of how important it is for this island nation to have a well-resourced and effective Navy.

In terms of the long and noble tradition of our Senior Service, rescuing a school football team, a Girl Guide troop and the Mayor of London's father hardly compares with the feats of the past. But, then, the fact that the Royal Navy can only get into the headlines these days by providing an emergency ferry service for fractious holidaymakers is indicative of just how little public attention is paid to it. Indeed, its role in the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan has been so peripheral that many people might be surprised to discover that we still have a navy at all.

In fairness, it is not the Navy's fault that the two major wars Britain has fought in the early 21st century have been in countries with little or no access to the sea. These conflicts have been low-intensity, where the overwhelming priority has been force density – boots on the ground – rather than the hi-tech stuff, such as cruise missiles and anti-aircraft batteries, at which the Navy excels. As with the RAF, the Navy has been mainly reduced in Afghanistan to providing a support role for the movement of troops and equipment to and from the conflict zone. The only contribution of real note has come from the Royal Marines, who have fought heroically.

The Navy has also been badly hit by Gordon Brown's insistence on footing the bill for the war in Afghanistan by slashing expenditure on other parts of the defence budget, with the result that it has often had more ships moored at Portsmouth than on active service. Yet it must share some of the blame for its decline in the military rankings, given its less than impressive showing on those rare occasions when its expertise has been called upon.

Senior naval officers are still on the receiving end of cruel barbs from the other Services about the 15 personnel kidnapped by Iran's Revolutionary Guards three years ago, after the crew of HMS Cornwall failed to intervene. When they appeared, weeping, on Iranian television, the young sailors seemed more concerned about losing their iPods than the humiliation their capture heaped on the Navy. There was further embarrassment last year with the failure to prevent an elderly British couple being abducted from their yacht by Somali pirates, even though armed personnel were nearby.

But even if it appears that the Navy has seen better days, it still has a crucial role to play – a factor that will need to be given serious consideration when the next government begins the long-overdue defence review. Just because most of our military effort today is focused on fighting a war in a landlocked country does not mean that the wars of the future will be fought in similar circumstances. Prior to the September 11 attacks, one of our most successful overseas interventions was in Sierra Leone. The aircraft carrier Illustrious made a crucial contribution: with its Harrier jets providing vital air cover for the Paras fighting on the ground. The carrier's presence also allowed helicopters to fly troops and supplies to and from the combat zone.

Sierra Leone could provide the model for future operations, where the three Services pool whatever resources are needed. Certainly, the need for greater flexibility is likely to increase after the general election, as none of the three main parties appears to have an appetite for committing to the type of open-ended intervention we have seen in Afghanistan. After more than a decade of fighting Blair's wars, the last thing Labour wants is another overseas adventure. The Tories seem keen to revert to Douglas Hurd's policy of keeping out of any conflict that does not directly impinge upon Britain's national interests, while the pacifism of the Liberal Democrats makes them constitutionally unsuited for the prosecution of modern warfare.

That means that the next government will be more inclined to use the Sierra Leone model than the Afghan one if it became necessary to launch military action against Islamist terrorists in Yemen or Somalia. And to guarantee success, we will need all the naval firepower we can muster.
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