Gates Says Anger Over Iraq Hurts Afghan Effort
February 8, 2008
By THOM SHANKER
nytimes.com
MUNICH — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that many Europeans are confused about NATO’s security mission in Afghanistan, and that they do not support the alliance effort because they opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq.
“I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused,” Mr. Gates said as he flew here to deliver an address at an international security conference.
“I think that they combine the two,” Mr. Gates added. “Many of them, I think, have a problem with our involvement in Iraq, and project that to Afghanistan, and do not understand the very different — for them — the very different kind of threat.”
The comments were the first time Mr. Gates had explicitly linked European antipathy to American policy in Iraq with why large segments of the public here do not support the NATO security and reconstruction operation in Afghanistan.
Even more, Mr. Gates’ assessment was an unusually candid acknowledgment from a senior member of President Bush’s cabinet that the war in Iraq has exacted a direct, and significant, political cost, even among Washington’s closest allies.
Over recent weeks, Mr. Gates has made a public and private effort to persuade NATO governments to offer up more combat troops as well as military and police trainers for the Afghan mission. At the conclusion of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Lithuania Friday morning, Mr. Gates expressed confidence that “a number of the allies are considering what more they might be able to do.”
Mr. Gates said that his recent public comments, as well as his keynote speech here on Sunday, are to “focus on why Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and failure in Afghanistan would be a security problem for Europe.”
He said that Al Qaeda leaders hiding in and near Afghanistan, and terrorist foot soldiers linked to the organization, already were responsible for violent attacks in Europe.
In a public diplomacy strategy somewhat unusual for an American defense secretary, Mr. Gates said he will attempt to speak directly to the people of Europe, and not their governments, “in an effort to try and explain why their security is tied to the success in Afghanistan and how success in Afghanistan impacts the future of the alliance.”
Mr. Gates acknowledged there is a risk in making a personal appeal to Europeans for support in stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan if their own governments have not been able to make the case with complete success already.
There is no need to rethink the NATO strategy in Afghanistan nor to reshape the mission, Mr. Gates said. But while he is pressing immediately for increased commitments from NATO nations and other allies for combat troops, trainers and transport aircraft, he also stressed that rebuilding Afghanistan “is a long-term project.”
“Afghanistan is going to need significant international help and support for a long time,” he said. The goal should be to move toward civil reconstruction as insurgents are defeated, he said. Yet 2007 was a violent year for the mission, and a series of recent studies by respected policy institutes have said the international mission in Afghanistan is at risk of failure.
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