8:30 A.M. EDT
http://media.state.gov/2008/05/22-GenMcNeill.wma
MODERATOR: (In progress) forces, operations in Just Cause, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Uphold Democracy and Enduring Freedom. And so he's had a wealth of experience in these kinds of operations. We're very pleased to have him.
Welcome, General. We have a group here in our Washington briefing room.
GEN MCNEILL: Good morning, and it's nice to be with you. I'd like to point out that the NATO alliance here called ISAF, International Security Assistance Force, is indeed stronger than it had been in Afghanistan when I first took over. It was a shade under 36,000 people, now it's just a shade under 51,000, 40 countries and here at the invitation of the legitimate Government of Afghanistan.
We work along three lines of operation. That would be security, reconstruction and enabling governance. We're organized with the headquarters in Kabul and five regional commands scattered about Afghanistan. Those regional commands superimpose over the various Afghan corps, thus facilitating good combined operations with the Afghans. When we first began our tour here February of last year, we had a little over 42,000, as I recall, Afghans in uniform. That figure's well over 50,000 today and that uniform being of the Afghan National Army.
We had a lot of police afield, but not a whole lot of employees that were properly trained. The army has made great strides and continues to go forward, in fact, has been leading some operations over the last six months, mostly in Regional Command East and right now in Regional Command North as well. The police are going through a retraining and a rebuilding effort of their institution and we're just beginning to see the signs of progress for those police. So our expectation is, barring any cataclysmic occurrence, that we will see impending development of Afghan national security forces moving to a point somewhere ahead of us where the Afghans should be able, with the backing of the international forces, the international community, to begin to take over most of the battle space in this country and to have the lead in prosecuting the counterinsurgency operations here.
We're up to 26 PRTs as part of the ISAF force scattered about the country. They, in the years that have passed since their initial inception, have been accountable for hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. equivalent or euro equivalent of projects and helping the Afghan people in their destroyed state to get back on their feet. And we think they're having a lot of success in putting in roads and water lines and increasing electricity, helping to build schools, and so forth.
And I will stop there and take any questions you might have. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you, General. We'll take your questions. Please wait for the microphone or the General will not hear you, and state your name and your media organization.
QUESTION: General, this is Andrew Gray from Reuters. A question on corruption: How big a problem is that in Afghanistan? And how high on your list of frustrations or concerns is corruption? And is the current Afghan Government able to effectively fight it?
GEN MCNEILL: Andrew, thank you. I'm an old dog and I do my best not to let certain emotions trouble me, and frustration is one of them. But to be sure, the challenges that we face here, I see two that are fairly significant. In some cases, one of them, you can argue, in a portion of the country is more significant than the insurgent, and that would be the illegal narcotics business in the south. I think there are a few provinces in which illegal narcotics pose a far greater risk to the Afghan people than the insurgent poses.
In the case of corruption, it is present, but I would daresay if we picked up any of the leading newspapers around the world today and we go through at least the first six or eight pages, we're likely to see some story about corruption in whatever government; city, province, national, or what have you. So it's not just unique to the Afghans. But with that said, there is no question that corruption, which, in my view, happens to be the symptom, that (inaudible) something far more insidious perhaps than even greed, is a problem.
And it's a problem for the Afghan people. They want to have faith in their government. They want to believe that their government is using all of its resources to help them. And when they believe that they're not seeing the help that they're due from the government, especially if they see resources squandered, obviously, they have a big problem with that. And since it's so important to counterinsurgency operations to maintain the will of the people, I see corruption here as a symptom of something that's usually problematic.
QUESTION: General, good morning. My name is Paul Koring. I'm with the Globe and Mail, which is a Canadian newspaper. I'd like to go back to part of your first answer. I have some other things to ask you, too, later, but - but could you discuss, perhaps for a moment, the difficulty in developing and implementing a strategy on poppy? I mean, certainly, in the south, where I have some direct knowledge, all kinds of counterinsurgency operations are underway and they deliberately ignore the fact that the economy is overly dependent and increasingly dependent on poppy. And six years later, there doesn't seem to be any workable strategy to reduce it.
GEN MCNEILL: Paul, indeed, there are some troubled provinces in the south, Helmand being one of them that's usually troubled and in some respects dysfunctional. And I attribute this as much to the illegal cultivation of poppy as I do to the insurgent.
There are efforts ongoing in the international community to help get this issue under control. I'd like to point out that in the NATO mandate, there are some clear lines of effort to be put into counternarcotics. The NATO mandate does not specify that the ISAF will be an eradication force, for example. And I am in absolute agreement with that. This force is neither trained, manned, nor equipped to be an eradication force, and I'm not desirous of it becoming one.
Having said that, when I see a poppy field - and all you have to do is fly over Helmand and you will see quite a few of them - I see not flowers or plants popping up. I see Kalashnikovs, PKs and RPGs. It's my considered opinion that the insurgent gets 20 to 40 percent of his physical resource from the illegal cultivation of poppy. There are those here in the international community that think I am estimating too low. They believe the figure is likely higher, maybe in the range of 60 percent. I have no empirical data to support either position, but I am very comfortable in saying that I believe at least 20 to 40 percent of their physical resource comes from the illegal cultivation of poppy.
What needs to be done? This is a problem that poses a great risk to the Afghan people. Literally and figuratively, in my view, it poisons Afghan children. Last year, Afghanistan had one of its best years for moisture. They get moisture from the metered melting of a snowpack in the Hindu-Kush, good snows last year, and also the spring rain. A pretty good spring rains last year (inaudible) some changes, too, but saw some flooding in a few places around the country.
I have some understanding of the (inaudible) culture of both wheat and poppy. And wheat will grow just about any place poppy will. Wheat prices stayed fairly steady last year as well as being fairly good, yet the country found itself by October in desperate need of basic staples of wheat and began the process of asking their neighbors for help with wheat.
When I put all that together, I believe that those who have a position that say subsistence farmers in Afghanistan are compelled to do so because they have no alternative, I think that's not exactly right. I think some grow poppy because it's choice. It's not economic compulsion.
But getting to what should happen, it's clear to me what should happen: A clear and unambiguous statement by the Government of Afghanistan that poppy, that insidious plant presently designed for this country, it's a negative definition in every trait and characteristic and we will no longer tolerate it, and then convert actions that match those words. Of course, they will need the backing of the international community because they're a still a developing government, they're still developing from having been a destroyed state, and they will clearly need the help of the international community.
They have a very fine counternarcotics program. It contains eight goals. Only one of those goals is eradication. There is education, rehabilitation, alternate lifestyles, information, quite a few. And on paper, it looks very good. It has to go into practice and it has to be practiced, in my view, very stridently. That's what I think is missing.
QUESTION: Good morning, General. This is Daphne Benoit with Agence France Presse. I have two questions for you. First of all, could you update us on the U.S. Marine operations in the south? And has there been any clear effects of the - from the presence in the south?
And second question, could you update us on the future mission of the French soldiers who are going to join RC East? Thank you.
GEN MCNEILL: Thank you, and both are - both very pertinent questions. For some weeks now, we have been using the Marines that the U.S. Government so generously pushed over to us a few months back. They will be here for a finite period of time, roughly seven months. It was our judgment, for that period of time, that they might be better used as a rapid response force to be flexed and moved about anywhere in the south, as opposed to a force that we put in some specific piece of geography and leave them there to effect what would be called classical counterinsurgency operations.
One of the places that the Afghan Government was very desirous of us operating was in the south portion of Helmand. It made a lot of sense to us, too and we devised a plan. We explained it to the Afghan Government, to include President Karzai. All were in agreement that this would be one of the best things we could possibly do with this additional force.
I would point out that not all of the 3,400 Marines who came in this tranche came under the NATO flag: 2,200 of them were under the NATO flag; 1,200 were under the OEF-A flag. But they are doing - those under the OEF-A flag are doing tasks that are very supportive of Regional Command South and a little bit supportive for Regional Command West, because they're being used to back the growing police institutions, both as small quick reaction forces and as fleet mentors or embeds.
The operations in the southern part of Helmand have been running in support of and in coordination with the operations that task force Helmand is running in the north. We had a pretty good review of what's going on out there several weeks ago and then again today. And I must admit that we knew we would have some good effects from the Marines operating in the southern portion of Helmand. It has been much better than we even envisioned, and we're going to stay at it a little while longer.
We have other task plans for the Marines. It's our expectation that they will move to other places and do similar tasks to what they're doing now. And so we believe we're getting a very appreciable effect. And by the way, when we were in (inaudible) with our Afghan brothers explaining how this thing is doing, their information coming from out of the province, especially from the government, are pretty much consistent with what our Marine chain of command reports to us.
Presently, we are expecting our French brothers this summer. We're delighted to have them return here. You will recall that we had a fairly good contingent of French Special Forces in country that stayed roughly up until the fall of 2006. We're delighted to see them back. We think they will fit in nicely with what we are using for an operational contact (ph) throughout the rest of the spring and the summer. In Regional Command East, we expect them to be operating somewhere close, in a province close to Kabul province, allowing them to have access to (inaudible) logistical base they have inside of Kabul City proper.
We have had their planners here a few weeks ago and have been working on exactly what area and exactly what techniques and tactics we would like to see employed. And we have some high expectations of what our French brothers will bring to the battlefield and the results that are likely to come out of that.
QUESTION: Hi, General, Paul Koring again. I have a question about the difficulty of managing an ISAF force, particularly I'm thinking of in - in areas where the insurgency is most difficult, RC East and RC South. When you have different countries rotating their contingents all the way from currently 15 months for the Americans, although I know that'll come down, to, you know, four or five months for some of the countries, can you actually contribute significantly to counterinsurgency operations on a five-month rotation, for instance?
GEN MCNEILL: The Marines will be here all of, roughly, seven months and I certainly have some high expectations of what they'll do for us. But I would be disingenuous if I said to you that the constant ebb and flow of forces, the disparity amongst tour lengths, some of the caveats which were imposed by governments that limit what their forces can do or where their forces will do it if, indeed, (inaudible).
When you couple that with the fact that we're an under-resourced force, and that's no news - it's been clearly stated by the Secretary General of NATO, the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, the head of NATO military committee, and perhaps a half dozen to eight ministers or secretaries of defense that we're an under-resourced force. If you add all that up, the science is we don't have everything we knew - or we don't have everything we need to get a faster rate of progress here in the security sector. Okay?
So the art is, can we apply what we do have in a way to produce results? I believe most people agree that we did it last year. We are a far more capable force this year, having grown quite a bit and grown by several countries. And I'm confident that we will be able to apply the force that we have, as under-resourced as it might be, to the benefit of not only the NATO aim here, but the aim of the Afghan people as well as each country's national aim.
QUESTION: General, it's Andrew Gray again. A question following up on the rotation issue, in particular looking at RC South. There has been some talk that the rotation of command there is also a problem. Would you favor putting a single country in charge of RC South, and could that be the United States as you have more forces in the south over time and apply the lessons of RC East to the South?
GEN MCNEILL: Andrew, I certainly am in favor of dialogue. And I want you to carefully record what I say. I am in favor of dialogue with the policymakers and the politicians about the feasibility and even the viability of having one country in command in the south but, indeed, in command of a multinational headquarters that fairly represents those stakeholders in the south.
The reason I am in favor of this dialogue is that it might produce an outcome in which the Afghans, who are gaining capacity in their security forces literally every day, will have less obstacles in their effort to try to work truly in a combined way. Everybody here is focused on the same thing, but different nations bring in different cultures. And in fact, you can make an argument that that's one of the things that makes a multinational alliance so viable. It also sometimes induces challenges.
But the increased capacity of the Afghans, they have certain expectations. They know they are more capable. And I have observed that it's sometimes a little difficult for them to change from one culture to the next as one nation changes from command of a regional command through the next stage.
So again, I state for the record and fairly clearly that I am in favor of dialogue by the policymakers and the politicians about the consideration of one country leading a multinational headquarters in the south.
QUESTION: General, thanks. Just to follow up and I know you're being careful with your words, when you say you're in favor of dialogue, does that mean you're also in favor of the principle of having one country in charge of a multinational headquarters longer term, if it can be agreed by the allies?
GEN MCNEIL: Andrew, my response to that is dialogue typically results in some outcome, and you just defined what would be a reasonable outcome.
QUESTION: Well, General, it's Paul Koring. I'm going to stick with that subject because in Kandahar, I think I have now seen four different generals in three years, maybe from three different countries. I may have got my numbers wrong. But that's the right sort of pattern of turnover. Can you say that looking back over your time that pattern isn't working as well as it should?
GEN MCNEIL: Let's take a look at the past year first, Paul. Out of my 16 months of command, I'm dealing with my fourth commander in the north, my third in the west, my third in the south, my fourth in the capital - correction, my third in the capital. And I'm not going to say that's a huge problem. I'm going to say that I have to work hard every day and put in some long hours as I shift through all of that.
But I go back to what I've said to Andrew. I would not want to understate the fact that there is increased capacity in the Afghan security forces, especially in the army. They have shown dramatic improvement from when I first got here 16 months ago, and especially in their ability to sit with a western force, to plan, to resource, and then to prosecute an operation. And I've also observed as they change commanders, there is somewhat of a - there's sometimes a little bit of a culture change and that does seem to be a bit of a challenge. It takes them a while to accommodate that.
I think we have to acknowledge that they have increased capacity. We have to take actions that amplify that capacity so that we can do everything possible to get a faster rate of progress, especially in the security sector.
QUESTION: General, this is Daphne Benoit again. How confident are you that the U.S. will provide more Marines to the ISAF once the current deployment is over? Did you get any guarantees from the U.S. Administration that they will send more Marines? Thank you.
GEN MCNEIL: If I would remember correctly, when Bob Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, announced that 3,400 Marines would come this way (inaudible), he also pointed out they would be there for a finite period of time. And I think he indicated there was nothing behind them. That was in - maybe something over the next few months' changes, I don't know. I expect (inaudible) right now and there is there's nothing behind them, at least for some period of time.
So as you might imagine, I'm in dialogue not only with Regional Command South, but with our Afghan brothers. So, indeed, if there's nothing behind the U.S. Marines that are presently in the south, we can take some action with the limited force that we have to mitigate the risk of losing some of the gains we will have approved (ph) while the Marines were here. We will do our best.
QUESTION: General, it's Andrew Gray from Reuters again. I don't want to hog the conversation but maybe you could talk a bit about that theme of the under-resourced force. As you said, you're now at over 50,000. That's a big increase from when you got there. At what point do you say, actually, we have enough to do the job and we're no longer under-resourced, or are you always going to be asking for more?
GEN MCNEILL: Well, Andrew, that will take a long answer and just be patient and I'll get my way through it and I'll get you the answer. First, it's something I've been asked a lot from journalists of late, and they always preface it - I don't know why, but they always preface it by saying, well, you know, generals never seem to have enough money nor they ever - nor do they ever have enough troops. Well, yeah, okay, but I'd like to point out I'm a child of children of the American Great Depression and I'm a fairly frugal dude, and I ask usually only for the things that I need. If I might start by giving you a term of reference, Afghanistan is half again bigger than Iraq. There hasn't been a census in about three decades, but the best estimates say that the population here is three to five million bigger than Iraq. So that gives you a little term of reference right there.
If I might give you another term of reference, I'll point out the Regional Command North has nine provinces. And if you took Kosovo to scale, it will not cover one of those provinces. The number of NATO soldiers in Regional Command North is about 3,700. The number of NATO soldiers in Kosovo is about 16,000.
I pose to you a rhetoric question: Am I frugal? I think I probably am. Somebody makes me be frugal. I don't believe that I've asked for anything that isn't essential to a faster rate of progress here. Why is a faster rate of progress important? By my reckoning, we have major three wills at play here. We have the wills of people and governments in Europe, we have the wills of people and governments in North America, and we have the will of the Afghan people. They're all perishable. They all have shelf lives. For my money, the will of the Afghan people is probably the one with the most resiliency. So that infers that we have or implies that we have some finite period of time that we have to get a reasonable amount of progress here and all aligned.
If you accept that the ISAF force here has a primary mission of buying space and time for the development of the Afghan national security forces so that they might take over their own battle station and provide for their own security and stability of the country, then it all sort of becomes clear. If we're an under-resourced resource force, we can only keep progress going at a certain rate. We'd all like it to go at a faster rate because we want to stay out in front of any aversion that might occur in those three groupings of wills.
It will be some time before the Afghan Government or the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police reach their fullest capacity. I have already said to a number of reporters that my best guess right now, barring a cataclysmic occurrence, is that's going to occur somewhere in 2011. The Afghan army will not be at its complete capacity. They will need a couple years beyond that, if for no other reason than the full development of their air force. So that they not only can move themselves around the battle stations, they can support their soldiers with attack helicopters and whatnot.
So when I put all that together and I see how their development is doing, I see the force that we have now, I now have proof that even a little incremental force makes a big difference. I stand by what I said: We're an under-resourced force. To have a little more capability, especially along the lines of maneuver force, flying machines, and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assistance, we could get the faster rate of progress that we seek. And that greater progress is trying to keep us in front of those three groupings of wills, and at the same time, to buy the space and time for the complete development of the Afghan national security forces, because without all of the neighbors of this country playing their roles in trying to help security and stability in this country, the insurgents will still be here for some time. If they have sanctuaries, training and breeding ground, they're just out of reach of security forces here, they can be here for some time to come.
MODERATOR: All right, let's - one final question.
QUESTION: General, Paul Koring, again. And I'm going to keep picking at this (inaudible) if I may. When you say culture -- the American military has learned an awful lot about counterinsurgency operations in the last couple of decades, and particularly in the last five years. When you talk about the changing culture of rotating commanders, I assume you're not talking about sort of habits in the mess; I assume you're talking about combat culture, too. Are you comfortable that these rotating commanders from other NATO nations actually do have a grip on modern counterinsurgency tactics and strategies?
GEN. MCNEILL: There have been a number of political figures and governmental leaders who have commented on the disparity amongst the members of the alliance in our forces (inaudible) counterinsurgency operations. And Paul, I'm not going to comment on that. I'll leave it to those who set policy and do politics.
I will point out that I see several things amongst the force. There is difference in equipping, some difference in tactics, and some difference in embracing a truly combined concept of an international (inaudible).
There is no question that counterinsurgency doctrine in its purest form in this country today is best practiced in the U.S. sector. And that's not a pejorative about any other member in the alliance, and I want to be clear on that. It's a factor of these things.
In the first part of 2007, the U.S. Secretary of Defense made a decision that (inaudible) would extend for U.S. maneuver soldiers inside of Afghanistan, they would go 15 months. He also made a decision that in the U.S. sector we would roughly double the force that was - had been there in previous years. At the same time, the U.S. Congress approved monies that are reflected in a program called the Commanders Emergency Response Program, largely - or bureaucratically unencumbered money in the pockets of commanders so that they can use those monies when they're in their combat zones to apply to genuine (inaudible) needs, not just wants but needs, things that fit in a larger context and things that are reconstruction (inaudible) that make the people turn away from the insurgents.
(Inaudible) while I do not recommend that for anybody (inaudible). We cannot continue to keep doing it in the U.S. Army. In fact, the President of the United States made a decision we will not have to keep doing (inaudible). It did have its upside. And its upside is that in 15 months, American soldiers and their leaders here have been able to establish and maintain relationships (inaudible), the terrain, the indigenous people and their leadership, and has been able to fully exploit those relationships. All the combined have produced - and I think a good (inaudible) not just the American Ambassador who has been out (inaudible) agree that it is different out here. There is a (inaudible) you can attribute to all those things.
But there is no NATO and (inaudible) in training and equipping of forces that come in here. And I believe they are working hard to remedy that. It's important not only to have ordinary base training in a force, but it's important on the eve of deployment in Afghanistan that you have some theater-specific training. For example, the IED has become the technique -- the instrument of choice for the insurgent. And it behooves a country to make sure that their units are trained and equipped (inaudible) well to operate in an IED environment. The Afghan people have their culture, just like any of our countries have it. And it is in our best interest, if we are working to maintain the will of the people, to have at least a modicum of understanding of what that culture is so that in our routine operations, we don't do things that are necessarily offensive or drive the people away from us.
So when I offer that there are some cultural differences, that they are clear to me they're based on a lot of things. I offer it not as a pejorative. It's not. But when that keeps with changes in leadership coming around, and now you understand why I say it's somewhat difficult for the Afghans, who are beginning to feel pretty good about what they can do to accommodate that change. And so it seems to me if our aim is to fully enable the Afghan security forces, we ought to take all the steps we can. And if we can take a step that's less confusing to them, I think it's a prudent step to take.
MODERATOR: General, we want to thank you very much for your generous time, extension of time to us this morning. And we wish you a pleasant evening in Afghanistan and continued success. Thank you so much.
GEN MCNEILL: Well, thank you. And for the journalists who did appear today, all four of them, God bless them. And we do think we have a pretty good story to tell here, and I'm grateful that they would listen and ask, like - that there be some pointed questions. And I hope they've got enough to make an answer out of it, by gosh.
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