GWOT Media Summary Nov 13

[RAMESES the Great]

U.S. Joint Forces Command
GWOT Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of November 13, 2009

 New Developments
 Weak Allies Limit Obama's Options. In the final stages of its deliberations over a new war strategy, the administration's attention has shifted to the two governments whose cooperation and competence are considered essential to success – Afghanistan and Pakistan. National security adviser James L. Jones arrived in Islamabad on Thursday for a personal update on whether Pakistan's government and military are willing and able to play the crucial role envisioned for them in each of the several options President Obama is considering. One scenario in particular, in which increased numbers of U.S. ground troops would battle the Taliban in southern Afghanistan while insurgents in the north and east are attacked from the air, requires an aggressive companion effort by the Pakistani military along the border. (Washington Post – see attached)
 Dutch Troops' Method In Afghanistan Gains New Prominence. In recent months, since the appointment of U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as the top commander in Afghanistan, the new mantra for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has become: more development work, more civilian protection, less overarching focus on fighting. This is nothing new for the Dutch, who are credited with using less of a tough-guy approach here in Oruzgan province. The strategy, which some analysts said was influenced by the lessons learned from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which Serbs killed up to 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims in an area under the supervision of Dutch United Nations peacekeeping troops, offers lessons for the U.S. at a time when it's debating whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
 Afghan Enclave Offers Model To Rebuild, And Rebuff Taliban. Small grants given directly to villagers have brought about modest but important changes in this corner of Afghanistan near Jurm, offering a model in a country where official corruption and a Taliban insurgency have frustrated many large-scale development efforts. Since arriving in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States and its Western allies have spent billions of dollars on development projects, but to less effect and popular support than many had hoped for. But in Jurm, people here have taken charge for themselves – using village councils and direct grants as part of an initiative called the National Solidarity Program, introduced by an Afghan ministry in 2003. If there are lessons to be drawn from the still tentative successes here, they are that small projects often work best, that the consent and participation of local people are essential and that even baby steps take years. (New York Times – see attached)
 Blast Strikes Near U.S. Military Base In Kabul. A suicide car bomber struck a convoy of civilian vehicles outside a U.S. military base in Kabul early on Friday, wounding three Afghans and causing several casualties among foreigners, police said. The head of criminal investigations for Kabul police, Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, said 3-4 foreign casualties had been taken from the scene by Western troops, but he could give no details of the extent of their wounds. A damaged white civilian vehicle could be seen at the debris-strewn blast site on a main road about 100 meters (yards) from Camp Phoenix, a large U.S. military base also used by troops from other NATO countries near the airport. Witnesses said a second civilian vehicle that was destroyed in the blast had been removed, while U.S. troops in armored vehicles blocked off the site. (Reuters)
 Bomb Destroys Pakistan Spy Agency Office. A suicide car bomb devastated Pakistan's main spy agency building in the northwest Friday, killing at least 7 people and striking at the heart of the institution overseeing much of the country's anti-terror campaign. The blast in Peshawar was the latest in a string of bloody attacks on security forces, civilian and Western targets since the government launched an offensive in mid-October against militants in the border region of South Waziristan, where al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding out. Security forces guarding the Inter-Services Intelligence agency building opened fire on the attacking vehicle to stop it, but the bomber was able to detonate his explosives, said an intelligence official. (CBS News/AP)
 UK To Push For More Afghan Troops. The UK government is to try to persuade some of its allies to send 5,000 more military personnel to Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth is to lobby some of the International Security Assistance Force's 43 nations. Britain's presence totals about 9,000 personnel and Prime Minister Gordon Brown is willing to send another 500, if others provide their "fair share". The UK's presence is the second-largest of any nation. Mr. Brown was the first international leader to commit additional troops and now wants to see others follow suit. (BBC)
 As Obama Ponders Afghanistan, So Does Europe. President Barack Obama's delay in deciding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan has found an echo chamber in Europe, where coalition leaders in NATO are weighing whether to send more help or bow to public demands for a speedy exit. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told AP on Thursday that allied nations have privately pledged more help, but he stopped short of saying that countries would send more troops. Canada, Finland and the Netherlands have either pulled troops out or set withdrawal dates. Other countries, such as Denmark, Italy, Germany, Norway and Sweden, say they will maintain current troop levels but have no immediate plans to increase them. Only Britain and Turkey have made significant pledges, and Turkey - a Muslim country - has committed noncombat personnel only. (The Olympian/AP)
 Obama To Press China On Afghanistan. As U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to make a final decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, his visit to Beijing next week will be an opportunity to press China to become more involved in the conflict. The Obama administration has been quietly encouraging Beijing to become much more engaged in Afghanistan, according to diplomats, officials and academics briefed on the discussions, with possible options including greater humanitarian assistance and sending military police to help train the Afghan police force. Although China is reluctant to play any military role in Afghanistan, with which it shares a short border, the increased U.S. lobbying comes at a time of growing realization in Beijing that its interests would be considerably damaged by a U.S. withdrawal and Taliban victory. (London Financial Times)

 Military Coverage
 Hasan To Face Death Penalty. Military prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was formally charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder, according to a senior Army officer familiar with the matter. The last execution of an active-duty serviceman took place in 1961. Despite evidence that Maj. Hasan had contact with a radical Muslim cleric, the decision to file the murder charges against him in military court, rather than in a civilian one, reflects the Army's belief that Hasan acted alone and without any assistance from foreign or domestic terror groups. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
 Gates Condemns Leaks On U.S. Afghan Policy And Ft. Hood. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates unleashed a torrent on Thursday about leaks during the investigation of the Foot Hood shootings and during President Obama’s deliberations on sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. “I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on in this process,” Mr. Gates told reporters regarding the president’s meetings on Afghanistan. He added that he thought “a lot of different places are leaking” and that he was “confident that the Department of Defense is one of them.” Then he made a threat: “And frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who was leaking in the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career ender.” (New York Times – see attached)

 World Developments
 A Nuclear Power's Act Of Proliferation. In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post. The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, according to Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan. (Washington Post – see attached)
 Alavi Foundation: Complaint Comes At Delicate Time For U.S., Iran. The U.S. government moved Thursday to seize four mosques and a skyscraper owned by the Alavi Foundation, an Islamic nonprofit organization in New York that federal prosecutors say is a front for the Iranian government. The move comes at a delicate moment for U.S.-Iranian relations. There have been signs of some diplomatic thawing between the two nations. Recent negotiations about Iran's nuclear program – which the U.S. fears could be used to produce nuclear weapons – resulted in a compromise deal that would allow Iran's nuclear fuel to be enriched outside the country. Iran, however, has so far not endorsed the deal, leading to renewed calls for tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic. (Christian Science Monitor – see attached)
 Clinton Backs Manila's Fight. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to continue U.S. military support for the Philippines' efforts to root out al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, despite calls from some Filipino nationalists for the government in Manila to put greater restrictions on U.S. troop operations there. Speaking in Manila Thursday, Mrs. Clinton also continued to apply pressure on Myanmar, repeating calls for the unconditional release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the U.S. prepares for a summit with Southeast Asian states – including Myanmar – in Singapore this weekend. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
 British ex-PM Blair Faces Iraq Inquiry Next Year. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair will face questioning next year about Britain's entry into the Iraq war from a committee which has heard the decision was illegal and based on deception, its chairman said on Friday. The order to send 45,000 British troops to take part in the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein has always been controversial and led to massive anti-war protests in London. During meetings with the inquiry committee held before the formal hearings begin, relatives of British soldiers killed during the conflict accused Blair of taking Britain into an illegal war and deceiving the public. A government dossier justifying military action before the war included the claim that Saddam was capable of launching weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. (Reuters)
 17 Algerians Held In Terrorism Investigation. Italy’s top security official said Thursday that authorities have smashed an international terrorist cell with the arrest in Italy and elsewhere in Europe of 17 Algerians who were raising money to finance terrorism. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, speaking to reporters in Rome, called the cell “significant.’’ The arrests stemmed from an antiterrorism investigation in Milan. Antiterrorist units from Algeria, Austria, Britain, France, Spain, and Switzerland cooperated in the probe, Milan police said. Six of the arrests were in Italy, police said in a statement. Two others were carried out in Vienna, said Rudolf Gollia, Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman. (Boston Globe/AP)
 Palestinian Officials Doubtful About Elections. Palestinian officials trying to organize a Jan. 24 election recommended Thursday that the vote be postponed, a move that could prolong uncertainty over Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' political future and the prospect for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Abbas, who is considered a reliable and moderate leader by the West, threw the Palestinian Authority into a crisis last week by declaring he would not seek reelection. Since then, his Palestinian backers, along with some Israeli officials and leaders of Western governments, have urged him to reconsider. The independent election commission's call to delay the voting for president and a parliament gives Abbas, 74, the option to heed his supporters' calls and stay in office indefinitely. The commission did not propose a new election date. (Los Angeles Times)

 Public Opinion
 Poll: Opinion Split With Obama's Wait On Afghanistan Decision. Americans are split over whether President Obama is taking too long to decide whether to send more U.S. troops to the war in Afghanistan. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also indicates that, by a narrow margin, Americans think that the president should listen to the recommendations of the generals in charge of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The poll's release Wednesday morning came hours before the president met again with his national security advisers to discuss policy in Afghanistan. According to the survey, 49% of people questioned say the president is taking too long to decide whether to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan; 50% do not. The poll indicates that 52% think Obama should listen to the generals, with 48% saying the president should take other matters into account as well. But a troop buildup remains unpopular, with a separate question indicating that a majority opposes sending more troops. 56% of Americans oppose sending more troops, while 42% favor increasing troop strength. (CNN)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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Weak Allies Limit Obama's Options
Washington Post
November 13, 2009

In the final stages of its deliberations over a new war strategy, the administration's attention has shifted to the two governments whose cooperation and competence are considered essential to success – Afghanistan and Pakistan. National security adviser James L. Jones arrived in Islamabad on Thursday for a personal update on whether Pakistan's government and military are willing and able to play the crucial role envisioned for them in each of the several options President Obama is considering. One scenario in particular, in which increased numbers of U.S. ground troops would battle the Taliban in southern Afghanistan while insurgents in the north and east are attacked from the air, requires an aggressive companion effort by the Pakistani military along the border.

Jones also wants a close reading on the stability of the government in Pakistan, where President Asif Ali Zardari is being buffeted by political and military challenges and is under strong public pressure not to bow to perceived U.S. demands. In Afghanistan, long-standing administration concerns about newly reelected President Hamid Karzai were spotlighted this week with the disclosure of warnings from U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry about deploying any new troops. In cables to Washington, Eikenberry said the strategy decision should be delayed until Karzai demonstrates willingness to end corruption and mismanagement within his government. As Obama nears a decision, proponents of differing options have questioned whether either Kabul or Islamabad is up to the task.

"Do we have any assurances of what Pakistan will do?" said a senior administration official identified with advisers who are skeptical of a large new deployment. "At least in Iraq, you had some functioning government there at the time of the surge. In Afghanistan, there is no government there." Eikenberry also emerged this week as a skeptic, and published reports about his reservations could worsen already tense relations between Karzai and his Western allies. The ambassador's interventions were all the more startling because of his background as an Army general who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan just two years ago and his low public profile since his arrival in Kabul as envoy in the spring.

Personable but formal, Eikenberry at first glance seems an unlikely spoiler for the military's proposed addition of 10,000 to 40,000 troops to the 68,000-strong U.S. force now in Afghanistan. But dating from his military assignments there, he has been a consistent proponent of pushing Afghan government and security forces to take a leading role whenever possible and has expressed concern that the presence of large numbers of U.S. forces could actually hinder Afghan troops and government officials from seizing the initiative on their own. In the recent cables, Eikenberry again raised these points as well as the high costs, totaling more than $20 billion annually, associated with even the low end of troop increases that Obama is considering.

And the ambassador questioned whether the administration should so easily surrender what little apparent leverage it has over Karzai without some evidence he will begin to move in the desired direction. Before the end of the month, Karzai is expected to select a new cabinet. The administration wants him to abandon his reliance on certain warlords and corrupt officials and reform the weak government that has angered the Afghan public while galvanizing the insurgency. So far, U.S. exhortations appear to have had the opposite effect.

"These sorts of statements" would make anybody defensive and can backfire," a senior Afghan official close to Karzai said of Eikenberry's concerns. "My guess is he's starting to feel this is not a government he can work with," a U.N. official in Kabul said of Eikenberry. "In which case, how can you put more American troops in the line of fire for this?" Eikenberry declined to comment on reports of his cables; a spokesman said his advice to Obama was private.

Meanwhile, Jones's unannounced visit to Islamabad came as the government there faces growing political turmoil, including a pending opposition maneuver in Parliament that could reinstate long-standing corruption charges against about half a dozen members of Zardari's cabinet and force their resignations. The powerful Pakistani military continues to challenge the government's control over foreign and defense policy. U.S. officials have praised the current offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda-allied forces in the border region, but a new U.S. strategy would require even more effort from Pakistan, including more aggressive action against the Afghan insurgent network of Pakistan-based Jalaluddin Haqqani.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Haqqani's forces, which battle U.S. troops in northern and eastern Afghanistan, are the most closely tied to al-Qaeda and that they have the closest links to elements in the Pakistani military and intelligence service. One of the options Obama is weighing would concentrate U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in southern Afghanistan, where low-level Taliban fighters are considered more receptive to reconciliation with the government.

At the same time, Haqqani's forces would be attacked from the air and by U.S. Special Forces units conducting operations with Pakistani counterparts across the border. This "hybrid" option calls for about 20,000 new U.S. troops – the middle ground among proposals U.S. military planners have offered Obama. As he embarked Thursday on his first major trip to East Asia as president, Obama told troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base: "I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America's vital interests." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One that no strategy decision would be announced until Obama returns to the United States next Thursday.

Dutch Troops' Method In Afghanistan Gains New Prominence
Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2009

A dozen Dutch soldiers emerge from their belching armored carriers, scan the area for danger and begin setting up checkpoints outside the Sar Sheykhil police station. Today's mission: Show the flag and help train police in securing a perimeter and handcuffing suspects. Afghan policeman Najibullah, who is 18 but looks 14, tries his hand at searching cars and patting down pedestrians. The young man, who goes by one name, has been a cop for only two months. He lacks a gun, proper shoes and confidence, and his technique needs work, as people, donkeys and loaded motorcycles slip by with little scrutiny. "Let's just say my adrenaline is a bit high," said 2nd Lt. Luc Konings, the Dutch patrol leader. "We wouldn't be doing this if we could trust everyone in this country. We try and uphold normal Afghan life while maintaining security."

In recent months, since the appointment of U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as the top commander in Afghanistan, the new mantra for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has become: more development work, more civilian protection, less overarching focus on fighting. This is nothing new for the Dutch, who are credited with using less of a tough-guy approach here in Oruzgan province. The strategy, which some analysts said was influenced by the lessons learned from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which Serbs killed up to 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims in an area under the supervision of Dutch United Nations peacekeeping troops, offers lessons for the U.S. at a time when it's debating whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The Netherlands is small in size, but with 2,160 troops it is the seventh-largest contributor to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Afghan effort. The Dutch soldiers came in 2006 to Oruzgan, a strategically important province north of troubled Helmand and Kandahar that is a power base for both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Dutch strategy, hardly rocket science but implemented earlier and more successfully than those of many allies, involved focusing resources on three "ink spot" population centers – Deh Rawood, Tarin Kowt and Chora – then gradually expanding until the spots merge.

Dutch planners said they've concentrated on community development nearly as much as military security and have worked to ensure that complex tribal, political and governmental interests had a stake in building schools and other civilian projects. This, they hoped, would encourage residents to protect the structures against Taliban attacks, even if the process required far more time and effort than paying foreign contractors to throw up a showcase project. They also sought to engage moderates and Taliban sympathizers long before the U.S. considered talking to its adversaries, trying to "turn" borderline radicals and build up community goodwill.

In a July news conference with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, President Obama praised the approach, which reserved the use of force to cases in which Dutch troops were attacked. "The Dutch military has been one of the most outstanding militaries there, has shown extraordinary not only military capacity, but also insight into the local culture and the local politics," the president said. It's difficult to quantify the progress in Oruzgan since 2006, given a lack of consistent benchmarks, Dutch military officials said. However, they said, the "ink spots" have expanded; Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital, is safer; there's more commercial activity; and a growing number of civic groups are working in the province.

In a photo op for voters back home, Dutch marines recently patrolled Tarin Kowt on bicycles. "It is now safe enough to do that," said a Dutch Defense Ministry press release. Social indicators have also improved, although they're still rather dismal. The province of 360,000 people has seen a fivefold increase in the number doctors since 2001, to 31 from six. "I wouldn't say we're on a roll," said Brig. Gen. Marc van Uhm. "But we're pushing the insurgents out. Seventy-five percent of the population now lives in protected areas." "It's important to show you're not just out fighting Taliban," said Civilian Representative Michel Rentenaar, "but that you're here to stay and invest in the future."

The Dutch record is not without critics. Persuading ordinary Afghans – scarred by entrenched poverty, decades of civil war and an ever-present Taliban threat – to support the Dutch and other NATO allies against the militants is a tough sell when Western voters are demanding quick results and their leaders debating exit strategies, some said. "It's hard to measure success after a couple of two-year stints," said Dick Leurdijk, an analyst with the Netherlands Institute of International Relations. Mohammad Naim, 33, a stonemason, sits with his five children outside his mud house. Security in Tarin Kowt has improved since the Dutch arrived, he said. But reports that they'll leave next year are disconcerting. "The minute the foreigners go, life will deteriorate again," he said. "My family members are in the Afghan army and police, so we'll be in danger. We're just trying to survive."

Better security may be more a function of the Taliban's desire for a haven near Helmand and Kandahar provinces than a result of Dutch success, others said. Insurgents recently blocked the main Tarin Kowt-Kandahar city highway for 10 days, tripling food prices, hardly a sign that they're in flight, the others said. "You don't control anything if you don't control the road," said Arnold Karskens, a Brussels-based correspondent with the Dutch newspaper De Pers, who has reported extensively in Oruzgan. The Dutch, who have lost 21 soldiers in Afghanistan, have also been criticized for staying in their camps too much, leaving U.S. and Australian troops to handle the heavy fighting. "The others get dirty hands, allowing the Dutch to play the good guys," Karskens said.

Elements of the "Dutch approach" have been informed, some analysts said, by the hard lessons of the Srebrenica massacre, which occurred in a United Nations enclave. Testimony and investigations afterward suggested that Dutch troops were not authorized to initiate military action against Serb troops, were used as hostages to prevent retaliation, were poorly led, had weak communication and didn't receive timely air support. The disaster prompted national soul-searching and the eventual collapse of the Dutch government. In response, some analysts said, the Netherlands pledged to better understand underlying social and political complexities behind conflicts, question conventional wisdom, shun U.N. operations in favor of NATO missions with clear objectives and take steps to ensure coalition support and air cover while preserving some ability to pursue its own nuanced strategy.

Back at the Sar Sheykhil police station, Dutch Sgt. 1st Class Radjen Rampersad showed Afghan police officers how to detain suspects. The lesson got off to a slow start when the interpreter thought he was looking for "hand cloths" rather than "handcuffs," followed by a cop so eager that he extended his search for guns and knives to the suspect's mouth. "That's OK, we don't need to look inside the fellow," Rampersad advised. Eventually, the 40-officer station's only pair of handcuffs was located and a role-playing exercise initiated. At its completion, Rampersad diplomatically praised the men. "Compared to Dutch or American police, they're not professional," said patrol leader Konings. "But compared to a year ago, they now have a commander and usually have their uniform on."

Afghan Enclave Offers Model To Rebuild, And Rebuff Taliban
New York Times
November 13, 2009

Small grants given directly to villagers have brought about modest but important changes in this corner of Afghanistan near Jurm, offering a model in a country where official corruption and a Taliban insurgency have frustrated many large-scale development efforts. Since arriving in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States and its Western allies have spent billions of dollars on development projects, but to less effect and popular support than many had hoped for. Much of that money was funneled through the central government, which has been increasingly criticized as incompetent and corrupt. Even more has gone to private contractors hired by the U.S. who siphon off almost half of every dollar to pay the salaries of expatriate workers and other overhead costs.

Not so here in Jurm, a valley in the windswept mountainous province of Badakhshan, in the northeast. People here have taken charge for themselves – using village councils and direct grants as part of an initiative called the National Solidarity Program, introduced by an Afghan ministry in 2003. Before then, this valley had no electricity or clean water, its main crop was poppy and nearly one in 10 women died in childbirth, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Today, many people have water taps, fields grow wheat and it is no longer considered shameful for a woman to go to a doctor. If there are lessons to be drawn from the still tentative successes here, they are that small projects often work best, that the consent and participation of local people are essential and that even baby steps take years.

The issues are not academic. Bringing development to Afghans is an important part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at drawing people away from the Taliban and building popular support for the Western-backed government by showing that it can make a difference in people’s lives. “We ignored the people in districts and villages,” said Jelani Popal, who runs a state agency that appoints governors. “This caused a lot of indifference. ‘Why should I side with the government if it doesn’t even exist in my life?’ ” Jurm was tormented by warlords in the 1990s, and though it never fell to the Taliban, the presence of the central government, even today, is barely felt. The idea to change that was simple: people elected the most trusted villagers, and the government in Kabul, helped by foreign donors, gave them direct grants – money to build things like water systems and girls’ schools for themselves.

Local residents contend that the councils work because they take development down to its most basic level, with villagers directing the spending to improve their own lives, cutting out middle men, local and foreign, as well as much of the overhead costs and corruption. “You don’t steal from yourself,” was how Ataullah, a farmer in Jurm who uses one name, described it. The grants were small, often less than $100,000. The plan’s overall effectiveness is still being assessed by academics and American and Afghan officials, but the idea has already been replicated in thousands of villages across the country. Anecdotal accounts point to some success. There have even been savings. When villages in the Jurm Valley wanted running water, for instance, they did much of the work themselves, with help from an engineer. A private contractor with links to a local politician had asked triple the price. (The villagers declined.)

Even such modest steps have not come easily. Jurm presented many obstacles, and it took a development group with determined local employees to jump-start the work here. One basic problem was literacy, said Ghulam Dekan, a local worker with the Aga Khan Development Network, the nonprofit group that supports the councils here. Unlike the situation in Iraq, which has a literacy rate of more than 70 percent, fewer than a third of Afghans can read, making the work of the councils painfully slow. Villagers were suspicious of projects, believing that the people in the groups that introduced them were Christian missionaries. “They didn’t understand the importance of a road,” Mr. Dekan said.

Most projects, no matter how simple, took five years. Years of war had smashed Afghan society into rancorous bits, making it difficult to resist efforts by warlords to muscle in on projects. “They said, ‘For God’s sake, we can’t do this, we don’t have the capability,’ ” Mr. Dekan said. “We taught them to have confidence.” Muhamed Azghari, an Aga Khan employee, spent more than a year trying to persuade a mullah to allow a girls’ school. His tactic: sitting lower than the man, a sign of deference, and praising his leadership. He paid for the man to visit other villages to see what other councils had accomplished. “Ten times we fought, two times we laughed,” Mr. Dekan said, using the Afghan equivalent of “two steps forward, one step back.” When it came to women, villagers were adamant.

But forcing conditions would have violated a basic principle of the approach: never start a project that is not backed by all members of the community, or it will fail. “People have to be mentally ready,” said Akhtar Iqbal, Aga Khan’s director in Badakhshan. If they are not, the school or clinic will languish unused, a frequent problem with large-scale development efforts. Five years later, the village of Fargamanch has women’s literacy classes and a girls’ high school. Over all, girls’ enrollment in Badakhshan is up by 65 percent since 2004, according to the Ministry of Education. The number of trained midwives has quadrupled. Health has also improved. Now, 3,270 families have taps for clean drinking water near their homes, reducing waterborne diseases. The councils are also a check on corruption. When 200 bags of wheat mysteriously disappeared from the local government this year, council members demanded they be returned. (They were.)

When a minister’s aide cashed a check meant for a transformer, Mr. Ataullah spent a week tracking down a copy. (The aide was fired.) “The government doesn’t like us anymore,” Mr. Azghari said, laughing. “They want the old system back.” While Badakhshan’s changes are fragile, the forces of modernization are growing. Televisions have begun to broadcast the outside world into villages. Phone networks cover more than 80 percent of the province, triple what the figure was in 2001. Perhaps most important, Afghans are tired of war, and seeing the benefits of a decade of peace might be enough to encourage new kinds of decisions. Ghulal Mohaiuddin, a farmer, seethes when he remembers the past. “The jihad was useless,” he said, sitting cross-legged in his mud-walled house. Suddenly, a loud blast went off, startling his guests. He laughed. It was the sound of canal construction, not a bomb. “Now we’ve put down our weapons and started building,” he said, smiling.

Hasan To Face Death Penalty
Wall Street Journal
November 13, 2009

Military prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was formally charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder, according to a senior Army officer familiar with the matter. The last execution of an active-duty serviceman took place in 1961. Despite evidence that Maj. Hasan had contact with a radical Muslim cleric, the decision to file the murder charges against him in military court, rather than in a civilian one, reflects the Army's belief that the suspect acted alone and without any assistance from foreign or domestic terror groups.

Christopher Grey, a spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, said military investigators believe Maj. Hasan was the sole gunman in the assault, which killed 13 people and wounded 43. After interviewing hundreds of witnesses and examining material, including a computer taken from his apartment, investigators believe that he acted without the knowledge or guidance of any terror groups, Army officials and others familiar with the probe said. An Army official said in a separate interview that military prosecutors will seek to have Maj. Hasan put to death by lethal injection. "Given the magnitude of this crime, it's the only punishment that should even be considered," the officer said.

The murder charges against Maj. Hasan come as investigators ramp up their efforts to determine if warning signs were missed that could have helped prevent the shootings. President Barack Obama ordered a government wide investigation into whether federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community, properly shared the information about Maj. Hasan collected before last week's shooting. Mr. Obama asked the heads of the Defense Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct the inquiry during a White House meeting the day after the shooting, according to an administration official. Mr. Obama formalized the directive in a presidential memorandum Thursday.

The White House official wouldn't say whether Maj. Hasan's links to a radical imam in Yemen prompted the review. But the day after the shooting, Mr. Obama was shown copies of some of the emails the alleged shooter sent to the imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, and ordered the review the following morning. The National Security Agency intercepted 10 to 20 communications over the past year between Maj. Hasan and Mr. Awlaki, who knew three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and hailed Maj. Hasan as a "hero" after the shootings. The emails between Maj. Hasan and Mr. Awlaki were intercepted in a separate sweep that didn't target Maj. Hasan. Terrorism investigators assigned to an FBI joint terrorism task force, which included a Defense Department investigator, reviewed the communications but concluded the contacts didn't merit further investigation.

A person familiar with the investigation said Mr. Awlaki's responses to Mr. Hasan appeared restrained and perhaps indicated the imam was suspicious about why an Army officer was reaching out to him. The terrorism investigators concluded that Maj. Hasan's research work as an Army psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and his work toward a master's degree explained why he was communicating with Mr. Awlaki. The Pentagon wasn't informed about the emails until after Maj. Hasan's alleged shootings at Fort Hood, a senior defense official said earlier this week.

John P. Galligan, the retired colonel hired to defend Maj. Hasan, said he believed an officer delivered a charge sheet to the major Thursday at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where he is being held under guard. But Mr. Galligan couldn't provide details, saying he wasn't there, hadn't been notified in advance and still hadn't seen the charges as of late Thursday afternoon. He learned about the charges from a news conference the Army held Thursday that was broadcast on TV. "I feel blindsided," Mr. Galligan said. "Had I known, I certainly would have been down there." The Senate Homeland Security Committee will be conducting its own investigation into the government's handling of Maj. Hasan in the run-up to the attacks. The first Senate hearings will take place Wednesday.

The sprawling Walter Reed medical center in suburban Washington is emerging as a main focus of the investigation, with some officials questioning whether hospital authorities should have done more to alert law-enforcement personnel that some of Maj. Hasan's colleagues there harbored deep suspicions about him and wondered about his mental state. Maj. Hasan did his psychiatric residency at Walter Reed and spent more than six years there. In the days since the shootings, some of his former colleagues have said that Maj. Hasan performed substandard work and occasionally expressed Islamist views they found alarming.

Dr. S. Ward Casscells III, a retired Army colonel, supervised the military medical system as assistant secretary of defense for health affairs during the last years of the George W. Bush administration, when Maj. Hasan was a resident at Walter Reed. After the Fort Hood shooting, Dr. Casscells spoke to two Walter Reed doctors about Maj. Hasan's tenure there. "They said he was strange and not very happy as a psychiatrist – not doing very well and not flagrantly failing either," said Dr. Casscells, who didn't know Maj. Hasan himself. "People weren't sending him patients and that must have made him feel bad professionally." The physicians told Dr. Casscells that Maj. Hasan's personality was "that of a loner" and that the psychiatrist was "given to anger at times." They didn't mention any concerns about Maj. Hasan's religious views.

The Army's intent to seek the death penalty in the Hasan case will likely set off years of legal wrangling. No active-duty troops have been executed in nearly 50 years, and defendants in military death-penalty cases can appeal their convictions in a series of military and civilian courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Even if a ruling is fully upheld, the president has to personally approve an order to carry out the execution, further slowing the process, according to Eugene R. Fidell, an expert on the military justice system at Yale Law School. In a notorious recent case, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death in a court-martial for rolling a grenade into a tent filled with U.S. soldiers in Kuwait in April 2003. Four years after he was sentenced to death, his case is still stalled at the first appellate level of the courts.

Gates Condemns Leaks On U.S. Afghan Policy And Ft. Hood
New York Times
November 13, 2009

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is normally a mild-mannered man, at least in public, but he unleashed a torrent on Thursday about leaks during the investigation of the Foot Hood shootings and during President Obama’s deliberations on sending more American troops to Afghanistan. First, on the president’s meetings on Afghanistan: “I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on in this process,” Mr. Gates told reporters on his plane en route to a Wisconsin factory that is churning out thousands of armored trucks for use by American troops in Afghanistan. He added that he thought “a lot of different places are leaking” and that he was “confident that the Department of Defense is one of them.”

Then he made a threat: “And frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who was leaking in the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career ender.” The defense secretary moved on to the investigation of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was charged in the deaths of 13 people on Nov. 5 at Fort Hood, Tex., and what Mr. Gates called “unconscionable” leaks from “everybody out there with their own little piece of the action.” Then he concluded, “Everybody ought to just shut up.” Mr. Gates was in Wisconsin to visit the Oshkosh Corporation, which is making 6,600 trucks to help protect troops from improvised explosive devices, which account for the vast majority of American and NATO casualties in Afghanistan.

The trucks are a second generation of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, used in Iraq, and are called MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles, or M-ATVs. They are manufactured specifically for the rough terrain of the Hindu Kush and can tear up 30-degree inclines, as Mr. Gates observed during a demonstration at the plant. On Thursday, Mr. Gates also announced the creation of a Pentagon task force to try to unify disparate parts of the sprawling Defense Department into a single unit focused on countering the threat of the explosive devices in Afghanistan. As for the Oshkosh trucks, he hinted that there soon could be more in production. “Obviously, if the president makes the decision to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan,” Mr. Gates said, “we would look at this in terms of whether we needed to buy more.”

A Nuclear Power's Act Of Proliferation
Washington Post
November 13, 2009

In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post. The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, according to the accounts by Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan.

U.S. officials say they have known about the transfer for decades and once privately confronted the Chinese – who denied it – but have never raised the issue in public or sought to impose direct sanctions on China for it. President Obama, who said in April that "the world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons," plans to discuss nuclear proliferation issues while visiting Beijing on Tuesday. According to Khan, the uranium cargo came with a blueprint for a simple weapon that China had already tested, supplying a virtual do-it-yourself kit that significantly speeded Pakistan's bomb effort. The transfer also started a chain of proliferation: U.S. officials worry that Khan later shared related Chinese design information with Iran; in 2003, Libya confirmed obtaining it from Khan's clandestine network.

China's refusal to acknowledge the transfer and the unwillingness of the United States to confront the Chinese publicly demonstrate how difficult it is to counter nuclear proliferation. Although U.S. officials say China is now much more attuned to proliferation dangers, it has demonstrated less enthusiasm than the United States for imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear efforts, a position Obama wants to discuss. Although Chinese officials have for a quarter-century denied helping any nation attain a nuclear capability, current and former U.S. officials say Khan's accounts confirm the U.S. intelligence community's long-held conclusion that China provided such assistance.

"Upon my personal request, the Chinese Minister . . . had gifted us 50 kg [kilograms] of weapon-grade enriched uranium, enough for two weapons," Khan wrote in a previously undisclosed 11-page narrative of the Pakistani bomb program that he prepared after his January 2004 detention for unauthorized nuclear commerce. "The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us kg50 enriched uranium," he said in a separate account sent to his wife several months earlier. China's Foreign Ministry last week declined to address Khan's specific assertions, but it said that as a member of the global Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1992, "China strictly adheres to the international duty of prevention of proliferation it shoulders and strongly opposes . . . proliferation of nuclear weapons in any forms."

Asked why the U.S. government has never publicly confronted China over the uranium transfer, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said, "The United States has worked diligently and made progress with China over the past 25 years. As to what was or wasn't done during the Reagan administration, I can't say." Khan's exploits have been described in multiple books and public reports since British and U.S. intelligence services unmasked the deeds in 2003. But his own narratives – not yet seen by U.S. officials – provide fresh details about China's aid to Pakistan and its reciprocal export to China of sensitive uranium-enrichment technology.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington declined to comment for this article. Pakistan has never allowed the U.S. government to question Khan or other top Pakistani officials directly, prompting Congress to demand in legislation approved in September that future aid be withheld until Obama certifies that Pakistan has provided "relevant information from or direct access to Pakistani nationals" involved in past nuclear commerce.

Insider vs. Government

The Post obtained Khan's detailed accounts from Simon Henderson, a former journalist at the Financial Times who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has maintained correspondence with Khan. In a first-person account about his contacts with Khan in the Sept. 20 edition of the London Sunday Times, Henderson disclosed several excerpts from one of the documents. Henderson said he agreed to The Post's request for a copy of that letter and other documents and narratives written by Khan because he believes an accurate understanding of Pakistan's nuclear history is relevant for U.S. policymaking.

The Post independently confirmed the authenticity of the material; it also corroborated much of the content through interviews in Pakistan and other countries. Although Khan disputes various assertions by book authors, the narratives are particularly at odds with Pakistan's official statements that he exported nuclear secrets as a rogue agent and implicated only former government officials who are no longer living. Instead, he repeatedly states that top politicians and military officers were immersed in the country's foreign nuclear dealings.

Khan has complained to friends that his movements and contacts are being unjustly controlled by the government, whose bidding he did – providing a potential motive for his disclosures. Overall, the narratives portray his deeds as a form of sustained, high-tech international horse-trading, in which Khan and a series of top generals successfully leveraged his access to Europe's best centrifuge technology in the 1980s to obtain financial assistance or technical advice from foreign governments that wanted to advance their own efforts.

"The speed of our work and our achievements surprised our worst enemies and adversaries and the West stood helplessly by to see a Third World nation, unable even to produce bicycle chains or sewing needles, mastering the most advanced nuclear technology in the shortest possible span of time," Khan boasts in the 11-page narrative he wrote for Pakistani intelligence officials about his dealings with foreigners while head of a key nuclear research laboratory.

Exchanges With Beijing

According to one of the documents, a five-page summary by Khan of his government's dealmaking with China, the terms of the nuclear exchange were set in a mid-1976 conversation between Mao and Bhutto. Two years earlier, neighboring India had tested its first nuclear bomb, provoking Khan – a metallurgist working at a Dutch centrifuge manufacturer – to offer his services to Bhutto. Khan said he and two other Pakistani officials – including then-Foreign Secretary Agha Shahi, since deceased – worked out the details when they traveled to Beijing later that year for Mao's funeral. Over several days, Khan said, he briefed three top Chinese nuclear weapons officials – Liu Wei, Li Jue and Jiang Shengjie – on how the European-designed centrifuges could swiftly aid China's lagging uranium-enrichment program.

China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about the officials' roles. "Chinese experts started coming regularly to learn the whole technology" from Pakistan, Khan states, staying in a guesthouse built for them at his centrifuge research center. Pakistani experts were dispatched to Hanzhong in central China, where they helped "put up a centrifuge plant," Khan said in an account he gave to his wife after coming under government pressure. "We sent 135 C-130 plane loads of machines, inverters, valves, flow meters, pressure gauges," he wrote. "Our teams stayed there for weeks to help and their teams stayed here for weeks at a time."

In return, China sent Pakistan 15 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a feedstock for Pakistan's centrifuges that Khan's colleagues were having difficulty producing on their own. Khan said the gas enabled the laboratory to begin producing bomb-grade uranium in 1982. Chinese scientists helped the Pakistanis solve other nuclear weapons challenges, but as their competence rose, so did the fear of top Pakistani officials that Israel or India might preemptively strike key nuclear sites. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, the nation's military ruler, "was worried," Khan said, and so he and a Pakistani general who helped oversee the nation's nuclear laboratories were dispatched to Beijing with a request in mid-1982 to borrow enough bomb-grade uranium for a few weapons.

After winning Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's approval, Khan, the general and two others flew aboard a Pakistani C-130 to Urumqi. Khan says they enjoyed barbecued lamb while waiting for the Chinese military to pack the small uranium bricks into lead-lined boxes, 10 single-kilogram ingots to a box, for the flight to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. According to Khan's account, however, Pakistan's nuclear scientists kept the Chinese material in storage until 1985, by which time the Pakistanis had made a few bombs with their own uranium. Khan said he got Zia's approval to ask the Chinese whether they wanted their high-enriched uranium back.

After a few days, they responded "that the HEU loaned earlier was now to be considered as a gift . . . in gratitude" for Pakistani help, Khan said. He said the laboratory promptly fabricated hemispheres for two weapons and added them to Pakistan's arsenal. Khan's view was that none of this violated the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, because neither nation had signed it at the time and neither had sought to use its capability "against any country in particular." He also wrote that subsequent international protests reeked of hypocrisy because of foreign assistance to nuclear weapons programs in Britain, Israel and South Africa.

U.S. Unaware Of Progress

The United States was suspicious of Pakistani-Chinese collaboration through this period. Officials knew that China treasured its relationship with Pakistan because both worried about India; they also knew that China viewed Western nuclear policies as discriminatory and that some Chinese politicians had favored the spread of nuclear arms as a path to stability. But U.S. officials were ignorant about key elements of the cooperation as it unfolded, according to current and former officials and classified documents.

China is "not in favor of a Pakistani nuclear explosive program, and I don't think they are doing anything to help it," a top State Department official reported in a secret briefing in 1979, three years after the Bhutto-Mao deal was struck. A secret State Department report in 1983 said Washington was aware that Pakistan had requested China's help, but "we do not know what the present status of the cooperation is," according to a declassified copy. Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang promised at a White House dinner in January 1984: "We do not engage in nuclear proliferation ourselves, nor do we help other countries develop nuclear weapons."

A nearly identical statement was made by China in a major summary of its nonproliferation policies in 2003 and on many occasions in between. Fred McGoldrick, a senior State Department nonproliferation official in the Reagan and Clinton administrations, recalls that the United States learned in the 1980s about the Chinese bomb-design and uranium transfers. "We did confront them, and they denied it," he said. Since then, the connection has been confirmed by particles on nuclear-related materials from Pakistan, many of which have characteristic Chinese bomb program "signatures," other officials say.

Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that except for the instance described by Khan, "we are not aware of cases where a nuclear weapon state has transferred HEU to a non-nuclear country for military use." McGoldrick also said he is aware of "nothing like it" in the history of nuclear weapons proliferation. But he said nothing has ever been said publicly because "this is diplomacy; you don't do that sort of thing . . . if you want them to change their behavior."

Alavi Foundation: Complaint Comes At Delicate Time For U.S., Iran
Christian Science Monitor
November 13, 2009

The U.S. government moved Thursday to seize four mosques and a skyscraper owned by the Alavi Foundation, an Islamic nonprofit organization in New York that federal prosecutors say is a front for the Iranian government. The move comes at a delicate moment for U.S.-Iranian relations. There have been signs of some diplomatic thawing between the two nations. Recent negotiations about Iran's nuclear program – which the U.S. fears could be used to produce nuclear weapons – resulted in a compromise deal that would allow Iran's nuclear fuel to be enriched outside the country.

Iran, however, has so far not endorsed the deal, leading to renewed calls for tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Moreover, Iran has charged three American hikers arrested over the summer in Iran with espionage. The new effort by federal prosecutors to cast an Iranian nonprofit as an arm of the Iranian government could fray relations further. The forfeiture action is part of an investigation into the Alavi Foundation, which the government says has sent millions of dollars to Iran's Bank Melli. In March, the U.S. Treasury Department called the bank a key fundraising arm for Iran's nuclear program.

The timing of the development probably had nothing to do with the current dynamic in U.S.-Iranian relations, Michael Rubin, an Iranian expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Associated Press. "It's taken ages dealing with the nuts and bolts of the investigation. It's not the type of investigation which is part of any larger strategy." The original lawsuit filed in 2008 sought to seize Assa Co.'s 40 percent interest in the 36-story New York skyscraper. The Justice Department alleges that Assa, which is headquartered in Britain's Jersey Islands, is also a front for Bank Melli.

Thursday's filing is an amendment to that original lawsuit. It seeks to seize the remaining 60 percent of the skyscraper, which is controlled by Alavi, as well as properties in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, and California controlled by Alavi – including four mosques. Alavi President Farhsid Jahedi was also arrested last year and accused by Justice Department prosecutors of illegally destroying documents. The case is pending. A lawyer for the group said it will fight the move in court and that Alavi Foundation is not linked to the Iranian government.

Clinton Backs Manila's Fight
Wall Street Journal
November 13, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to continue U.S. military support for the Philippines' efforts to root out al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, despite calls from some Filipino nationalists for the government in Manila to put greater restrictions on U.S. troop operations there. Speaking in Manila Thursday, Mrs. Clinton also continued to apply pressure on Myanmar, repeating calls for the unconditional release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the U.S. prepares for a summit with Southeast Asian states – including Myanmar – in Singapore this weekend.

U.S. troops have provided training and surveillance support for Philippine troops since 2005 in their fight against a violent Islamist separatist group known as Abu Sayyaf. The group made a name for itself kidnapping and sometimes killing foreign tourists, and is closely tied to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group, which operates across Southeast Asia. The U.S. presence in the islands – usually no more than 600 troops at a time – rankles some leftist and nationalist groups in the Philippines, whose Senate in 1991 voted to end an agreement allowing the U.S. to run permanent bases in the islands.

The Philippine Senate recently passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to renegotiate with the U.S. the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, which enables U.S. forces to train and assist Philippine troops. Senators complained that U.S. troops are given special privileges in the Philippines – such as the right to be detained in the U.S. Embassy if they violate Philippine laws.

The government hasn't responded to that call. "I would just reiterate that the United States stands ready to assist our friends in the Philippines who are seeking to counter terrorism and the threat of extremism, and we will be willing to support them in any way that is appropriate that they request," Mrs. Clinton said, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. and Philippine militaries consider the U.S. mission there a success. It revolves around providing humanitarian assistance and infrastructure development, as well as training and surveillance. A similar program was later applied in western Iraq's Anbar province to win over local chieftains. Since the U.S. entered the Philippine conflict, the Abu Sayyaf has seen its numbers drop from 2,000 guerrillas to a few hundred operating in the interior of Jolo island, 600 miles south of Manila. Last month, Philippine troops uncovered a large underground bunker complex on the island in a fresh blow to the rebels. A larger Muslim insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, has increasingly looked toward negotiating a peace agreement with the Philippines government.

On Myanmar, Mrs. Clinton said no bilateral meetings are planned this weekend between President Barack Obama and the leaders of the military-led Southeast Asian state. But Mr. Obama is expected to meet Myanmar leaders in a summit involving multiple leaders from across Southeast Asia, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore. The U.S. in recent months has launched an effort to engage with Myanmar's reclusive leaders to persuade them to allow greater political freedoms. Washington, along with the European Union, also imposes strict economic sanctions on the country.