Soldiers were to be recruited and trained, and armed with new equipment. A new commander, trumpeted as visionary and clean of corruption, was appointed to rebuild and reform the unit, which was a shambles just a year after taking charge of security in Helmand from the American-led NATO coalition. Casualties were at a record high, the leadership was corrupt, and many of the soldiers existed only on paper.
But as winter set in, it became clear that the plan had not worked.
Over the course of the year, the Taliban gained more territory; the militants now largely control seven of 14 districts in Helmand and contest another five, according to local officials. Casualties among government forces in the province broke records again.
And that new, clean commander? He was arrested on charges of stealing food and fuel intended for his beleaguered soldiers.
With large swaths of the Afghan countryside under Taliban control and several cities threatened, American and NATO leaders are growing increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of security reforms that they see as necessary to battle the insurgency.
A major problem is the rampant corruption of the Afghan security leadership, which is profiting from the chaos even as soldiers die in record numbers.
“Most of that work was rapidly undone, because of corruption and inept leadership,” says Maj. Gen. Richard G. Kaiser, in charge of the Combined Security Transition Command in Afghanistan, referring to efforts to reform the 215th. . . .
This year’s fighting comes as the country’s coalition government remains stagnated by infighting and struggling to deal with the realities on the battlefield. . . . “The American military has tried for 15 years to help Afghanistan build a professional army,” said Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired American general who commanded coalition forces in Afghanistan and later was the American ambassador to Kabul. “It has always assumed that its own goal of defeating the insurgency is shared by Afghan Army leaders.”
But, he added, “this is often not so.”
Mr. Eikenberry said that for many Afghan commanders, the Taliban were just one concern in an uncertain political and economic environment.
“Others are ensuring the welfare of his family and supporters, staying aligned with political patrons, and avoiding combat so as to preserve his unit, which is a source of revenue,” he said, referring to commanders in general. . . .
But,
from interviews with about two dozen security officials across the
country, it is clear that of the improvements that General Nicholson
said were urgently needed in several vital areas — leadership,
retraining struggling units and combating corruption — little has been
achieved on the ground.
Western officials said that in the first three months of the year, Afghan forces were almost entirely on the defensive. In a clear indication of concern, General Nicholson has asked the White House to send thousands of additional American troops to help the roughly 10,000-strong coalition force that remains on the ground. . . .
Officials say President Ashraf Ghani is increasingly aware that his military commanders have been lying to him on the state of their units and on the adoption of changes charted in Kabul. But there is also skepticism among Western and Afghan officials about just how committed he is to keeping the security overhaul free from patronage politics.
After prodding by coalition leaders, a board appointed by the president was supposed to purge corrupt and incompetent security leaders during the winter and create a system of merit-based promotions. The winter is over, and that work has yet to begin.
Even though the military reform has been far from satisfactory, the support keeps coming.
According to General Kaiser, the United States has since October provided about 900 new Humvees, new weapons sufficient for about 14 battalions, fuel for a fleet of more than 100,000 vehicles, winter clothing for 25 percent of the Afghan Army and the police, and three-quarters of a year’s supply of ammunition.
“I can give you everything all day, but it doesn’t mean anything if you have poor leadership taking it away from you,” General Kaiser said.
Coalition leaders have had to resort to drastic measures to jolt their Afghan partners into action. Last year, General Kaiser’s team pulled the fuel contract from the Afghan Ministries of Defense and Interior Affairs, which adds up to about $250 million, because it could not trust the agencies with that much money. Then, to get Afghan leaders to update their systems with biometrics of existing soldiers to ensure there were no “ghost soldiers” on the payroll, they held back pay for tens of thousands of army soldiers funded by the United States.
The pressure tactics appeared to work: The army increased the number of its properly enrolled soldiers by 20,000 over just two months. . . .
One reason for the leadership problems is a widening gap between soldiers and commanders. One senior Afghan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly express his concerns, described what he called a caste-based system within the ranks.
At the top, he said, is a class of often incompetent generals, many of them from the Communist or the civil war period who had strong political ties. The soldiers and police officers are treated as an “untouchable” class, dying at an average of close to 20 a day. The leaders show little concern for their men, the Afghan official said, a view that is widely held by Western officials.
“We hear story after story of commanders who steal the fuel, sell it to the Taliban, who take the weapons we — you — pay for and sell it to the Taliban,” John Sopko, the United States special inspector general for Afghanistan, said in a recent speech. “The irony of it is, the terrorists are at the end of our supply chain.”
In the interview, General Kaiser, whose son is an Army lieutenant, clearly felt frustrated by the lack of empathy shown by Afghan leaders for their soldiers. . . .
– The New York Times, April 9, 2017
Update, April 13, 2017 from the Spy's Continuous News Desk: We dropped a big bomb so everything's great again.
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