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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fred Levine who wrote (67403)	1/25/2003 8:55:23 AM
From: Fred Levine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

More from the NY Times: REBUILDING AFGHANISTAN An Afghan Army Evolves From Fantasy to Slightly Ragged Reality (Page 2 of 2) Even the success of 200 men in this one region only illuminates the enormous task that remains across 32 provinces of Afghanistan. Battalions will need close support and training for months, probably years. The entire central staff and Defense Ministry need to be reformed, and officers and noncommissioned officers need to be trained. A senior American officer involved in the training program said low pay, $30 a month, and horrible food and living conditions after the basic training had led many graduates to head home. "The first two battalions went downhill," he admitted. "They needed mentorship, comradeship, someone commending good behavior and stopping bad behavior." Advertisement Now American Special Forces trainers are assigned to each graduating battalion and continue their training in Kabul and after their deployment, he said. Pay and conditions have also been improved. The overall plan is to build up, by 2004, a Kabul-based central corps that could deploy to regions needing extra security and chase down remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and possibly even move against renegade warlords. "The Elysian Fields will be if the Afghan National Army takes over. That has to occur one day," said Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, the American commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. "We will reach a point when the central corps will be a force far superior" to any other Afghan force, he said in an interview. The United States is committed to the training program until 2004, and has secured funding for it through 2007, the senior American officer said. The hope is that NATO partners will take over at least some of the training, as the French Army has already begun to do in Kabul. The strong commitment of the Third Battalion's soldiers is matched by the endorsement voiced by the residents of Orgun. "I joined to help my country. Al Qaeda was here and destroyed the country. Now the Afghan National Army will rebuild it," said Rohullah, 18, the youngest soldier in his company. "We are very happy to see them here, because if a country does not have an army, it cannot stand on its own two feet," said Alam Gul, 40, a local veterinarian. Trainers are confident that ethnic divisions and the current ethnic imbalance of the recruits — Pashtuns, who are a majority in Afghanistan, are underrepresented — can be solved as they get their message out. The toughest problem remains that of diluting the power of the regional warlords and their militias, the senior American officer said. Officials are hoping that men can be drawn to leave their commanders and join the national army, persuaded by the better conditions and prospects, as they have in Orgun. That will upset the commanders, like Zakim Khan, the commander of Orgun, who traveled up to Bagram Air Base to complain personally to General McNeill last weekend. Gen. Atiqullah Bariyalai, the deputy defense minister responsible for the national army, plans to transfer commanders away from their power bases for training. "We want to break the power of the local commanders," he said recently. "If we offer them good jobs or privileges, they will agree." fred