Bin Laden still free and al Qaeda still potent. In the wake of al
Qaeda's attacks on America on September 11, Democrats and
Republicans joined together to give President Bush the authority to
use military force to bring Osama bin Laden to justice and to defeat
al Qaeda. Nearly 30 months after the onset of the war in
Afghanistan, CIA Director Tenet has testified that al Qaeda is still
capable of carrying out attacks against the United States and our
allies around the world. The recent attacks in Madrid and Riyadh
have both been linked to al Qaeda or al Qaeda supporters. Although
the Bush Administration has brought some al Qaeda leaders to
justice, Osama bin Laden and several of his senior lieutenants
remain at large. And just as troubling, public reports indicate that
al Qaeda's ranks have grown and it enjoys more support in the
Muslim world today than it did before 9/11. As a result, Richard
Clarke recently suggested, "If we catch [bin Laden] this summer,
which I expect, it's two years too late. Because during those two
years when forces were diverted to Iraq...al Qaeda has
metamorphosized into a hydra-headed organization with cells that
are operating autonomously, like the cells that operated in Madrid
recently." (Meet the Press, 3/28/04)
Security tenuous and worsening in many areas. The security
situation in Afghanistan remains tenuous, especially along
Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Many believe the security
situation is significantly worse in these areas and some others than
at the same time last year. "Much of the south and south-east of the
country is now effectively off limits to the United Nations, the
assistance community and central Government officials, except
under special escort." (Report of the United Nations Secretary
General on the situation in Afghanistan, December 30, 2003)
Attacks on aid workers peaked last fall, and a March 2004 Center for International
Cooperation (CIC) report suggests that, "taking into account seasonal variation, such
attacks show no sign of abating in 2004." Richard Clarke put it best in an interview with
The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh: "the U.S. has succeeded in stabilizing only two or
three cities. The President of Afghanistan is just the mayor of Kabul." (4/12/04)
Taliban resurgent. A March 2004 United States Institute for Peace (USIP) study
reports that, "nearly two years after their defeat by U.S. and allied Northern Alliance
forces, the Taliban has re-emerged as a growing security threat along Afghanistan's
southeastern border with Pakistan." The Taliban is reportedly becoming better financed
and thus more capable of attracting insurgents. Human Rights Watch explains this
disturbing trend: "Flush with income from the drug trade (which previously the Taliban
seems to have avoided and actively combated), the Taliban can now outspend and
outman not just the weak central government in Kabul, but even the U.S. forces: In
areas around the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban is reportedly paying their
fighters as much as $70 a week, going up to $120 a week for fighters who attack
American forces. The United States is reportedly paying its local warlord allies $60 a
week. Not surprisingly, the Taliban now claims to hold large portions of several
southern and southeastern provinces." (World Report 2004)
Opium production skyrocketing. After decreasing dramatically under the Taliban
regime, Afghanistan now produces nearly 3/4 of the world's opium. CIC found that
"opium production, processing, and trafficking have surged, with revenues equaling
roughly half of the legal economy of Afghanistan." It is estimated that 1.7 million
people, or 7 percent of the total population now grow poppies. In its 2003 Opium
Survey of Afghanistan, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found
that opium cultivation is spreading to new areas, and that farmers are growing
opium-producing poppies in 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. And the future does not
look brighter: UNODC reports that 69 percent of Afghani farmers in poppy-producing
regions expect to increase their poppy cultivation in 2004, while only 4 percent plan to
decrease it. (Farmers' Intentions Survey, February 2004)
Warlords remain powerful. Large parts of Afghanistan are under the control of
warlords rather than the central government. Though the U.S.-led coalition has
pledged to disarm the warlords and their militias, CIC reports that "little progress has
been made in the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of militias,"
and "local commanders (warlords) maintain control over large areas of the country,
exploiting the illicit economy as a substantial tax base for their activities." USIP reports
that, "other than in the southern and eastern areas, the blame for the lack of security in
Afghanistan falls on a number of heavily armed regional warlords and their subordinate
militia commanders. These local leaders also remain a major impediment to national
unity." (March 2004) After noting that opium production and trade, Taliban resurgence,
and stalled reconstruction progress pose the three greatest threats to Afghanistan's
security, a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report finds that
"the continued existence and legitimacy of warlords throughout Afghanistan compounds
all three of these security problems." (The Road Ahead, 3/30/04)
Afghanistan at risk of becoming terrorist breeding ground again. The United
Nations Development Program recently told an international donors conference that the
country is "in danger of reverting to a terrorist breeding ground" unless the international
community redoubles its commitment to reconstructing and stabilizing Afghanistan.
(Financial Times, 3/28/04) Given Afghanistan's skyrocketing opium production, UN
officials and other experts have expressed fears that the nation will become a
narco-terrorist state similar to Colombia. An even more disturbing possibility is that
Afghanistan's failure to extend the authority of the central government into the majority
of the countryside will leave a chaotic, lawless, and unmonitored region ideally suited
for terrorists to find a safe haven to plan and launch future operations.
Bush Administration Mistakes Exacerbate Problems
Defense Department's misguided tactics undermined success against al Qaeda
and Taliban. It is widely believed that many senior al Qaeda and Taliban officials who
were present in Afghanistan at the start of the conflict were able to avoid capture
because there were not enough U.S. troops on the ground to cut off escape routes to
Pakistan. As the conflict as dragged on, the Pentagon failed to adjust its tactics to the
changing circumstances on the ground. Retired Army Colonel Hy Rothstein, who was
commissioned by the Defense Department's office of Special Operations and Low
Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) to report on the planning and execution of the Afghanistan
campaign, concluded that "what was needed after December 2001 was a greater
emphasis on U.S. special operations troops, supported by light infantry, conducting
counterinsurgency operations. Aerial bombardment should have become a rare
thing...The failure to adjust U.S. operations in line with the post-Taliban change in
theater conditions cost the United States some of the fruits of victory and imposed
additional, avoidable humanitarian and stability costs on Afghanistan...Indeed, the war's
inadvertent effects may be more significant than we think."
Bush Administration diverted scarce resources from fight against al Qaeda to
Iraq. Despite the fact that much remained undone against al Qaeda and the Taliban,
Special Forces and other critical intelligence and military personnel were pulled from
Afghanistan in 2002 to prepare for missions in Iraq. USA Today has reported that, "in
2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were
pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next
assignment: Iraq...The CIA, meanwhile, was stretched badly in its capacity to collect,
translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan. When the White House
raised a new priority, it took specialists away from the Afghanistan effort to ensure Iraq
was covered." (USA Today, 3/29/04).
In addition, deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz admitted that the Defense
Department diverted hundreds of millions of dollars appropriated for the war on
terrorism to plan for a war in Iraq, in contravention of the spirit if not the letter of the law.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary Wolfowitz
acknowledged that, before Congress authorized the use of force in Iraq, the Defense
Department used $178 million from the Fiscal Year 2002 supplemental appropriations
bill designed to fund the global war on terrorism (GWOT) in the Middle East. The Wall
Street Journal reported that this money was used to fund "21 military-related projects in
the Mideast...that were culled from a larger list prepared for Gen. Tommy Franks...who
was charged with secret planning for the [Iraq] war," with "at least 11 of the projects in
Kuwait, which became the major-jumping off point for U.S. troops in the 2003 Iraq
invasion" (4/22/04) Secretary Wolfowitz also testified that "after [Congress authorized
force in Iraq on] October 25th, some $800 million was made available over the following
months to support Iraq preparatory tasks," meaning that a total of nearly $1 billion from
the GWOT supplemental funding bill was used to plan a new war in Iraq instead of
fighting the primary front of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.
Bush Administration has failed to keep reconstruction promises. Despite
promises of a "new Marshall Plan" and a sustained commitment to democracy and
stability, the Bush Administration has failed to devote the attention and resources
necessary to stabilize Afghanistan. President Bush's former ambassador to
Afghanistan James Dobbins called reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan "the least
resourced, large-scale American reconstruction program ever." (Al Jazeera, 3/1/04)
The numbers bear out Dobbins's claim: between January 2002 and March 2003,
Afghanistan has received only $67 per capita per year in reconstruction assistance, as
compared to an average of $814 in Kosovo between 1999 and 2001, or $256 in East
Timor during the same time frame. CIC states "the low level of funding for the
reconstruction of Afghanistan remains astonishing." Writing in The Washington Post,
Arthur Levine, Presidnet of Teachers College of Columbia University, which is helping
to rebuild the Afghan school system, comments, "Afghanistan has little money for
reconstruction of any kind; the funds that nations and philanthropies promised soon
after the fall of the Taliban in large part failed to materialize."
Bush Administration's cooperation with regional warlords: a devil's bargain. One
of the most questionable actions taken by the Bush Administration was its decision to
forge alliances with regional warlords and their militias. This policy has been a devil's
bargain: while providing uneven assistance in the war on terror, these warlords have
destabilized Afghanistan's central government, undermined reconstruction efforts,
contributed to the resurgence of narcotics production and trafficking, and committed
numerous human rights abuses against the Afghan people. Yet, the U.S. "continues to
provide these regional commanders with financial support and to rely upon their forces
to engage Taliban remnants." (USIP, March 2004)
Particularly frustrating about the Bush Administration's policy regarding warlords is that
it reestablished a threat that had been effectively dismantled by the Taliban. Current
Afghan Deputy Defense Minister Rahim Wardak explains, "a lot of these warlords,
before Sept. 11, did not exist or had no power...They were created by the United States
after 9/11, and it is their responsibility to deal with them." (Los Angeles Times, 4/11/04)
Human Rights Watch elaborates: "the American attack assumed a military strategy that
avoided ground combat and the resulting threat to U.S. forces...To carry out this task,
the United States needed local troops, and for this the United States physically brought
back the warlords, rearmed them, financed them, supported them militarily, and
reinstalled them in power. The CIA simply handed suitcases of cash to warlords around
the country. This investment allowed local commanders to resume their former
positions and rearm themselves, ostensibly to take on the Taliban. It also gave them
the seed money to become self-sufficient by engaging in smuggling, drug trafficking,
and general criminal activity. Predictably, their rule has been nasty and brutal, as
grimly documented in numerous accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch
researchers and others from throughout Afghanistan over the past two years." (World
Report 2004)
Bush Administration pushes for elections despite mistakes and unrest. Despite
warnings from many observers on the ground in Afghanistan that the country is not
ready for elections, the United States continues to push the country to meet an arbitrary
deadline to hold national elections. The most recent UN Voter Registration Update for
Afghanistan notes that "as of Wednesday 25 March, 1,585,814 voters have been
registered." This number represents only about 15 percent of Afghanistan's total
population of potential voters. Moreover, nearly half of these registered voters -
696,403 - are in the capital city Kabul, one of only a handful of major cities that coalition
forces have actually managed to stabilize, and less than one-third (28 percent) of these
registered voters are women. Moreover, UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping
Jean-Marie Guehenno has reported that "without improvements in the security
situation, the elections will be threatened." (AP, 4/8/04) As CIC notes, "poorly
conducted elections could weaken rather than strengthen the [Afghan] government."
Nevertheless, the Bush Administration continues to insist that Afghanistan hold national
elections by this fall.
