McChrystal sees bloody climax in Afghanistan
General Stanley McChrystal says Taliban will have "significant capacity for violence" in 2010/11
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Monday, 25, Jan 2010 05:03
By Matthew Champion.
The senior US commander overseeing the Nato mission in Afghanistan has admitted that the Taliban will still have a capacity for significant violence in 2011, the year in which Barack Obama wants to begin withdrawing US troops.
General Stanley McChrystal's comments come three days before the London Afghanistan Conference, a leaked communiqué from which reportedly reveals British troops will still be in the country until 2015.
Last year President Obama responded to a request from Gen McChrystal, commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), for 40,000 US troops with a deployment of 30,000 soldiers. But attached to his Afghan surge was a disclaimer that the bulk of the reinforcements would be withdrawn by summer 2011.
Gen McChrystal told the Financial Times he anticipated a "very significant effort" from the Taliban this year in response to coalition attempts to limit the effectiveness of their insurgency.
"They will still be here, they will still have significant capacity for violence, they will still be able to intimidate much of the population than we want," he said.
"I think they will be on the defensive military, not wiped out: next year we could have significant levels of violence at this time, and challenges."
But Gen McChrystal, who said he was "too old a soldier to predict dates", said the summer of next year would coincide with an improvement in security, not reduction, due to US withdrawals, "because reductions in coalition forces will be, in my view, largely over-matched by increases in Afghan security capacity".
"That's Afghan national security forces plus governance," the four-star general continued.
"So we don't anticipate that there will suddenly be a reduction in security. We believe it will just continue to improve."
The communiqué leaked to the Times reportedly set to be agreed upon on Thursday envisages bribing Taliban and insurgency figures to renounce violence and join the administration of president Hamid Karzai.
It calls on the Afghan national army being trained by coalition soldiers "taking the lead and conducting the majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years".
In his Financial Times interview, Gen McChrystal said that anyone who "dedicates themselves to the future and not the past" could be partners in an Afghan national government.
"The first strategy is to strengthen the Afghan army and police," Gordon Brown elaborated at a Downing St press conference.
"The way in which we can ensure the future of Afghanistan as a stable country is this: We have to strengthen and civilian and military authorities of Afghanistan. If at the same time we can bring others previously associated with the Taliban; by them renouncing violence and agreeing to join the democratic process - that is of value to the peace process."