Afghan training gains may speed transitions
WASHINGTON – With training of Afghanistan’s army and police ahead of schedule, American officials now believe the U.S.-led military coalition could begin transferring some security responsibilities to Afghan forces as early as next spring.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview that faster-than-expected progress in training army units made it likely that those forces could assume primary responsibility for security sooner in less violent areas of the country, freeing up NATO troops for operations elsewhere.
“With more Afghan forces, we can be on a path to transition in more places around the country,” Gates said. “The success with the (Afghan) army in particular, I think bodes well for in fact beginning to have some transitions maybe as early as this spring, but certainly beginning in the summer.”
Gates was referring to the recent announcement by the NATO training command in Afghanistan that it had reached its 2010 goal of 134,000 Afghan troops two months early.
His comments are part of an effort by senior civilian and military officials to counter growing doubts in the U.S. and Europe about the war. In separate interviews, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Afghanistan, also pointed to what he called “small pockets of progress” in several areas.
Gates and Petraeus played down the possibility of rapid cuts in U.S. force levels starting in July 2011, when President Barack Obama said the 30,000-troop increase he ordered late last year would start to reverse.
“There is no question in anybody’s mind that we are going to begin drawing down troops in July of 2011,” Gates said in the interview Thursday. But so far, he said, “there hasn’t even been a discussion of a steep decline quickly” at the top levels of the administration.
Despite the gains in numbers, the Afghan National Army remains heavily dependent on the U.S. for logistics, air cover and planning of operations, which are usually conducted with U.S. advisers or jointly with NATO units.