US strategy on Taliban attacked

US strategy on Taliban attacked

By Daniel Dombey and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Jon Boone in Kabul

Published: January 31 2008 20:01 | Last updated: January 31 2008 20:01

The Bush administration’s stance on Afghanistan is coming under increasing domestic criticism, as legislators from both US parties and a Nato general hit out at what they say is a failing effort to defeat the Taliban.

The debate shifted on Thursday to the US Senate, where senior administration officials defended themselves against the findings of a high-profile report co-authored by General James Jones, who until the end of 2006, was Supreme Commander of Nato’s forces and so responsible for troops in the country.

“The US and the international community have tried to win the struggle in Afghanistan with too few military forces and insufficient economic aid, and without a clear and consistent comprehensive strategy to fill the power vacuum outside Kabul and to counter the combined challenges of reconstituted Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan,” said his study, one of several critical reports released this week.

Both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday voiced their own fears that the battle against the Taliban is going awry, in light of increasing numbers of suicide bombings and the reluctance of many Nato countries to send more troops.

“We need a significant change in policy now,” said Joe Biden, committee chairman. “I’m not sure we have a plan for Afghanistan,” said Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the Committee, indicating his fear that without a clearer set of goals the US and its allies could eventually withdraw arguing that they had given the struggle their “best shot”.

“If we are making so much progress why are we putting in 3,200 more marines?” asked Chuck Hagel, his fellow Republican, in a reference to a recent decision taken by President George W. Bush.

In response, Richard Boucher, the top State Department official for Afghanistan and South Asia, said the US would seek to “leverage” the deployment into winning similar commitments from other Nato countries. He said the overarching strategy in Afghanistan was to improve government services at the local and provincial level, and that the increase in suicide bombings was the Taliban’s response to its failure to win or hold territory in conventional military clashes.

“We have had many successes but we have not yet enjoyed success and that’s what we have to focus on,” he said, arguing against focusing too much on a “snapshot” view of Afghanistan’s weak government, increasing drugs trade, and “raging insurgency”. Nato officials and their civilian counterparts have worried for over a year about the supposed lack of an overarching strategy for the conflict.

But to date many attempts to craft such a strategy have failed, including President Jacques Chirac’s 2006 proposal for a “contact group” on Afghanistan and this year’s bid to install Paddy Ashdown, the British politician and former United Nations high representative to Bosnia, as international envoy to the country. Nato’s formal mandate of bolstering the authority of the government of President Hamid Karzai is often problematic, because Mr Karzai appears to lack authority in many areas outside Kabul.

The alliance’s commanders want an extra troops to help contain the violence.

■ The deputy governor of Afghanistan’s Helmand province was killed in a suicide bomb attack on a mosque on Thursday, writes Jon Boone from Kabul.

Pir Mohammad, the second most senior official in the province, was killed with at least six others in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Police said 18 others were wounded.

An earlier bomb attack on an Afghan army bus in Kabul killed one person.

Thursday was also the second anniversary of the Afghanistan Compact, an international agreement to “overcome the legacy of conflict’’ by promoting development, security, governance, rule of law and human rights.

Oxfam, the UK charity, said in a report sent to world leaders that many of the targets agreed in the compact were not being met.