The Redhunter

I've got a few longer posts about Afghanistan in the works, but for now I want to concentrate on the political drama in Washington with the stimulus bill and Obama's meltdown.

From Col. Spellon's opening remarks:

COL. SPELLMON: ...Broadly speaking, the purpose of our combined operations are to secure the population in these four -- (audio break). Now, to accomplish this with our international partners, we are conducting a counterinsurgency campaign across -- (audio break) -- information and security. And we are seeing success on each one of these.

I'd just like to give you a few brief examples, and I'll begin with security. I would tell you -- I would classify the bulk of my area of responsibility as a semi-permissive environment. And what I mean by that is if you look at the 30 districts that make up these four provinces, we have security challenges in about seven of those districts, and those challenges come from primarily Taliban and Hezb- i-Islami, Islamic party based insurgent groups....

Now, I'll share with you that our partnership, our strong partnership with the provincial governors and their staffs, proved successful during the voter-registration period that we -- (audio break) -- last fall, which was held in these four provinces without a single security-related incident. And we and our Afghan partners are incredibly proud of that accomplishment....

On to the Q & A

Q (Courtney Kube from NBC News) And Colonel, and so it sort of leads to the question of at what point do you think the Afghan security forces in your area will be able to handle the mission on their own without any U.S. presence or French presence there to assist them?

COL. SPELLMON: Well, I will tell you, in two of our provinces they are already doing that. I mentioned Panjshir, but I also mentioned Bamian. The only coalition forces that we have in both of those provinces is our Provincial Reconstruction Team. In fact, in Panjshir, the Provincial Reconstruction Team does not even have an embedded security force. It is all taken care of by the local security forces there. And the governor takes personal ownership of the security of that team while they are out working with his staff and working on improving infrastructure. It is much the same in Bamian.

The news about the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) not having an American security force for protection is very good news indeed. I can't seem to find the link, but I have blogged on this before. For the PRT's to be successful, they have to get out and work with the people. If they're shielded by an American force, or their presence is too heavy handed, the people will be less willing to cooperate.

The questions are whether this practice is widespread in Afghanistan, and more importantly whether the PRT's are becoming more effective.

Before I go on I just have to say it: Col Spellmon is the spitting image of a young Telly Savalis if there ever was one.

Now that I got that out of the way, on to the Q & A:

Q (David Morgan with Reuters) And so where are these seven districts where security is a problem? And how much of a challenge do those problems pose to development in those areas?

COL. SPELLMON: Well, the -- (audio break) -- Kapisa, primarily the Tagab Valley, where I mentioned earlier where we have made significant strides, but also the Alasay Valley and also the southern Nijrab district.

And bombing is primarily in the northeast, in the Kahmard, in the Shibar districts, and then in Parvan -- primarily in central Parvan, in the Ghorband district.

As far as the development challenges, we work very hard to not initiate any major development projects until we are sure that we have enough security in place and enough support from the local population that will allow us to move forward, whether it's a school or it's a road. If there is still security work that needs to be done, more destruction operations in this district, certainly we will continue to do our offensive operations against those insurgent networks, but invest our development dollars elsewhere, where we know it's in a secure environment.

Ok, sort of interesting, but not really much of an answer. In fact, he pretty much avoided answering the question entirely.

Q Colonel, it's David Wood from The Baltimore Sun, with a question about the provincial and district governments that you're working with. The latest DOD report identified corruption and a shortage of human capital, as it were, that's hampering operations of government at all levels. Could you talk about corruption and lack of human capital in governments in -- that you're working with?

COL. SPELLMON: I can. Over the past seven and a half months, I have a seen a number of allegations of corruption in the provincial governments. However, I have yet to see any evidence, as have the governors -- any evidence that would substantiate any of those claims.

The allegations that we do see leveled from -- in this region have primarily been from political opponents of those in office. So again, I have not seen the corruption as reported. The -- (audio break) -- against their staff -- it's an allegation against their staff or a district sub-governor, they have been very aggressive in investigating those claims.

No evidence of corruption? I'm not buying it.

Q Colonel, it's Luis Martinez with ABC News. In the four provinces that you mentioned, Khazars and Tajiks are minority populations. But you said that some of the districts in those provinces are security problems. Given that the insurgency is portrayed as a (Pashtun ?) insurgency, are these Pashtun pockets in those provinces? Or are these Khazar and Tajik insurgencies?

COL. SPELLMON: No, it's not (always ?) -- (audio break) -- to the Pashtun minority in these provinces. For example, in northeast Bamian, some of the security challenges that we are having right now are in a Tajik pocket, but we primarily think that this is criminal activity. In Bamian, in that part of the province, there are a lot of coal mines, and we think some -- a lot of landowner disputes in that region, as this -- these mines continue to be developed, on who should benefit from the profits. So we think some of the violence that has occurred at a low level over the past several months is really related to, more, criminal activity than any insurgent-based organization.

This was one of his more direct answers.

All in all not a very useful briefing. I covered it because I'm determined to cover every briefing by a combat commander that comes out of Afghanistan or Iraq, so that if nothing else I can spot trends. I found this one out of the ordinary for Afghanistan so we shall see how future ones go.

Not withstanding the interesting news about the PRTs, I can't say I came away from this briefing with the idea that we are making progress in Afghanistan. It's only one briefing about one area, so we do need to be cautious though and view it in that context.

I am not attacking or criticizing Col. Spellmon. I'm sure he is a highly qualified and competent officer doing the best he can. He comes across very well as a spokesman. It's more that Afghanistan makes Iraq look easy because the challenges there are much more difficult. Even with the best minds, money, people, and equipment, progress in Afghanistan will come very very slowly. Based on everything I've seen I'd say that for what we achieve in Iraq in a year it'll take ten to do as much in Afghanistan.

More to come in future posts.