As Washington talks, Afghan troops stumble

MASOOD, Afghanistan — Seven thousand miles away from Capitol Hill, where Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on Tuesday delivered his anticipated plea for more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Afghan Border Police (ABP) are feeling the strain.

Owing to slim government resources, many soldiers filling the ranks of a fledgling ABP unit in the Garmsir district of Helmand Province are forced to patrol with no body armor and little weaponry.

It is ABP units like this that stand to benefit from an influx of the 2,000 to 4,000 additional military trainers from the United States and its NATO partners, that Mullens — appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee — said would be needed to "jump-start" the expansion of the Afghan security forces. "A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably needs more forces," Mullen said.

The Garmsir district troops told their U.S. Marine Corps mentors during a recent foot patrol here that the unit had not been paid in more than two months. They used this to justify a toll imposed on locals to pass through a number of checkpoints.

During one late-August patrol out to an ABP checkpoint, Marines also found a bed, “which means they’re going to sleep rather than standing their post,” said Sgt. Nathan Brannan. “The commander wasn’t in his uniform, so you know he’s not maintaining good discipline. The locals say they patrol sometimes, they see ABP sometimes. It’s an issue of, they’re not getting out. I asked them when was the last time they got paid. Two months ago."

Brannan continued: "Hell, if I didn’t get paid for two months, I’d go [unauthorized absence].”

Steve Woods, a civilian law enforcement advisor working with Afghan police units in the region, echoed the sentiment: “How long would you work if you weren’t getting paid?”

The readiness of Afghan security force was thrown in the spotlight over the weekend, before Mullen took to the Senate floor, with U.S. lawmakers urging training to be expedited as an alternative to surging additional American troops.

A top Senate leader argued Friday that Afghans should be the ones to "surge" rather than U.S. forces. In order to achieve the goal of successful Afghan force training, the U.S. “should increase and accelerate our efforts to support the Afghan security forces in their efforts to become self-sufficient in delivering security to their nation — before we consider whether to increase U.S. combat forces above the levels already planned for the next few months,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on the Senate floor Friday.

Levin, who recently returned from Helmand, said Marines outnumbered Afghan troops five to one. Afghan security forces could grow rapidly through the deployment of additional trainers, as well as a “rapid infusion” of equipment relocated from Iraq. Lower level Taliban fighters should also be reintegrated into Afghan society, Levin said.

His stance was joined by a chorus of other lawmakers over the weekend who also argued that an Afghan troop buildup should proceed an increased American effort.

Responding to Levin, Mullen acknowledged the importance of the training effort but said that such a mission could not quickly provide the level of security required by a new counterinsurgency strategy focused on protecting the population and preventing the Taliban from destabilizing the country.

"I share your view that larger and more capable Afghan national security forces remain vital to that nation’s viability," Mullen said. "We must rapidly build the Afghan Army and police."

But, he said, “sending more trainers more quickly may give us a jump start, but only that."

“Quality training takes time and patience,” he continued.

Components of a well-trained Afghan force are there, according to one Marine officer on the ground. “They’ve built it up with the size. Now they just have to develop the logistical side,” said Lt. Colin Duffy, team leader of the unit of about a dozen Marines mentoring ABP troops.

ABP troops’ lack of basic military gear, such as body armor, creates a hurdle when they’re alongside U.S. troops, according to Duffy. “They don’t want to go out and fight if they don’t have the same type of stuff,” Duffy said. “It creates a challenge every time.”

While Marines are attempting to help them organize the flow of resources from higher command, there are limits to what they can do, the 24-year-old officer said.

“If we hand them a bunch of radios, then they think we’ll keep handing them to them,” Duffy said. “If we just hand them stuff, then they’re not going to use their chain of command and they’re not going to develop their logistical system.”

In a region where homemade explosives are increasingly used to target both Afghan and NATO security forces, the equipment issue carries over to foot patrols and convoys as well, with ABP troops typically resisting to take the lead, Duffy explained.

“It’s understandable considering our vehicles are MRAPs [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected] and their vehicles are Ford Rangers. They want to follow behind us, but we’re trying to put on an Afghan face,” Duffy said. “They’re supposed to be leading and we’re supposed to be supporting them. In the end they end up doing it, but it takes a lot of reasoning and arguing with them to get them to take the front.”

A more developed ABP unit deployed in the northern areas of the Garmsir region is doing just that, Duffy said. They’ve developed a rapport with locals, who are now starting to inform them of buried bombs, he said. 

Marines can train them without them having any resources, as long as they’re willing to train, Duffy said. “Our biggest thing is trying to get them the resources that they perceive that they need so that they’re happy, and then give them the tactics and confidence so when they go out that they’re not afraid of handling any situation.”

In the meantime, in a report released Monday calling for an integrated civil-military strategy, a defense analyst, Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., called Levin’s proposal "a narrow approach to the war that can only lose it."

"It is not a strategy, but rather an effort to avoid a commitment of more U.S. troops and resources by rushing the development of Afghan forces as a substitute that can somehow solve all of the complex problems that are making us lose the war," he wrote.