New Delhi has lodged a protest with Ankara for keeping it out of the Afghanistan security conference in Istanbul, apparently at the behest of Islamabad. This may cast a shadow over Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s visit to India next fortnight. Gul, the organiser of the conference, is on a two-day visit to India from February 9 after which he will leave for Dhaka.
India, France and Japan, all of whom have a substantial stake in stabilising Kabul, had protested to Ankara for not being invited to the conference to mull over the military and political future of Afghanistan. Paris and Tokyo were squeezed in at the last moment with New Delhi being left out in the cold.
The highest levels of the UPA government are upset at the Ankara snub as Turkey tilted towards Pakistani plan of keeping the conference at first confined to the immediate neighbours of Afghanistan and then shutting the door on India. This is despite the fact that Russia had invited Indian MEA officials for a separate Afghanistan conference in Moscow on January 25 and the United Kingdom has invited Foreign Minister S M Krishna to attend the London conference on January 28.
Source:indianexpress.com/
Showing posts with label About Afghan Effort. Show all posts
Showing posts with label About Afghan Effort. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Editorial: Summitry on Afghanistan
In a concentrated burst of diplomatic activity, a series of
summits has taken place, is taking place as these lines are being written, and will take place after they appear in print. On Monday, a trilateral summit amongst Pakistan, Turkey and Afghanistan transpired in Istanbul, hosted by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and attended by the Pakistani and Afghan presidents. On Tuesday, Pakistan’s six plus two formula would be applied for a summit of Afghanistan’s neighbours, also in Istanbul. On Wednesday, the much hyped and anticipated conference on Afghanistan in London would get underway. In the second summit in Istanbul, Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all immediate neighbours of Afghanistan, would be represented. In addition, the US will be in attendance, and in a substitution for the original invitee Russia, the UK. At the London conference, around 50 countries will be participating. All this shows the increasing focus on, and increased activity to find ways of resolution of, the Afghan conflict.
The thrust of most opinion on the issue centres on the possibility of opening a dialogue with, and welcoming in from the cold, mid-level Taliban fighters, considered to be less ideologically motivated and perhaps fighting for money or to avenge grievances against the Karzai government, the foreign forces supporting that government, or the warlords who form the warp and woof of the incumbent Kabul regime. The terms on which such fighters may be welcomed back and rehabilitated in Afghan society include a renunciation of their past proclivities and views, an acceptance of the Afghan constitution and political setup, and an avowed farewell to arms. A great deal of the hopes residing in this initiative spring from the fact that resources will now be made available to Kabul to sweeten the return of such fighters with jobs, homes, security against former enemies, etc. The Obama ‘surge’ of some 30,000 fresh troops is intended to weaken the hold of the Taliban insurgency, secure the cities, population centres and main highways, and thereby persuade even the leadership of the Taliban that their struggle does not have any hope of succeeding in its objectives by force of arms. That development, it is hoped, will open the door to negotiations with the Taliban leadership on seeking a political solution to the Afghan quagmire. There are unprecedented hints of late that Mullah Omar may be shifting ground slightly to envisage accepting the demand that the Taliban distance themselves from al Qaeda, but he remains adamant that the other side must commit to a withdrawal of all foreign forces, without necessarily being forthcoming on the issue of accepting the Afghan constitution or political order.
These diplomatic, political shifts have been made possible in recent days because of Saudi Arabia’s mediation between the Taliban and the Karzai regime, through discreet contacts hosted by the Kingdom since the last two years. Whereas Pakistan’s ISI has been left out of this loop at the insistence of the hosts and the two sides of this coin, the redoubtable intelligence arm of the Pakistani military now feels even more confident of calling the shots in any negotiated settlement in Afghanistan because of its closeness to the Afghan Taliban, whose leadership and fighters are hosted on Pakistani soil. The ISI’s insistence, according to reports, that it alone will mediate between the Taliban and the US and Afghan authorities, without permitting direct contacts between the warring sides, may be read as an attempt to ensure that Pakistan’s oft-touted but little explained ‘national security interests’ in Afghanistan are safeguarded. Reading between the lines reveals that the Pakistani military establishment still harbours apprehensions and a horror of the possibility of growing Indian influence in Kabul squeezing Pakistan in a ‘nutcracker’ between a hostile India to the east and a less than friendly Afghanistan under Indian influence to the west. This paranoia may put a spanner in the works of the London conference, where the US and UK are pressing for an increased role for India in any eventual settlement of the Afghan imbroglio, a notion rejected in toto by the Pakistani military establishment and which is arguably being worked against by the two summits in Istanbul, where India is not represented.
The notion of a regional solution to Afghanistan’s woes sounds fine in theory, and as far as its immediate neighbours and the chief architects of a political settlement allowing the US and Nato forces to withdraw at some future date, i.e. the US and UK are concerned, poses better prospects of success. The fly in the ointment is Pakistan’s opposition to opening the door further to an Indian role, the rock on which the London conference and all similar initiatives beloved of the west may make shipwreck. *
Second Editorial: Quetta police protests
What happened in Quetta on Monday is condemnable to say
the least. The provincial capital presented a scene of complete lawlessness in which there was no one to protect the life and property or citizens. Hundreds of police officials coursed the main roads and streets of the Quetta city in a rally that had started from Police Lines. Their first destination was the Chief Minister’s House where they chanted slogans against the government and forcibly entered the premises. Their demand: an increase in the salaries of the Balochistan Police at par with the police force in other provinces. On not finding the chief minister there, they went to the Governor’s House and repeated their act. The governor ensured protesting police cadres that he would talk to the provincial government to get their grievances addressed. But there was no pacifying the rebellious law enforcers, who then thought it wise to block roads, hold sit-ins in various parts of the city, burn tyres, resort to aerial firing and harass journalists and ordinary citizens alike. This was the least one expected from a disciplined law enforcement body like the police.
The swiftness with which the provincial government has acted against this open rebellion is laudable. The Capital City Police Chief of Quetta as well as Deputy Inspector General (Operations) have been removed from their posts and ordered to report to Services and General Administration Department (S&DAG). Regional police officers of Sibi and Khuzdar have been given the additional charge of these posts respectively. One cannot but agree with the Chief Minister of Balochistan Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani’s statement that when the guardians of the law blow it to smithereens, they do not deserve any leniency. It is hoped that the government would live up to its resolve and not allow leeway to the culprits during proceedings against them. In addition to a thorough departmental inquiry into the incident, criminal cases against officials responsible for inciting protests and violence should set an example for the rest. While the government suppresses this rebellion quickly and effectively, it should also work towards meeting the just demands of the Balochistan Police. There is no denying that in a province that suffers from a difficult law and order situation and where the police face targeted killings by disgruntled Baloch insurgents, meagre salaries and other compensations serve to lower the morale of the force. The government should not allow the discontent in its prime law enforcement agency to fester. *
Source:dailytimes.com.pk/
summits has taken place, is taking place as these lines are being written, and will take place after they appear in print. On Monday, a trilateral summit amongst Pakistan, Turkey and Afghanistan transpired in Istanbul, hosted by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and attended by the Pakistani and Afghan presidents. On Tuesday, Pakistan’s six plus two formula would be applied for a summit of Afghanistan’s neighbours, also in Istanbul. On Wednesday, the much hyped and anticipated conference on Afghanistan in London would get underway. In the second summit in Istanbul, Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all immediate neighbours of Afghanistan, would be represented. In addition, the US will be in attendance, and in a substitution for the original invitee Russia, the UK. At the London conference, around 50 countries will be participating. All this shows the increasing focus on, and increased activity to find ways of resolution of, the Afghan conflict.
The thrust of most opinion on the issue centres on the possibility of opening a dialogue with, and welcoming in from the cold, mid-level Taliban fighters, considered to be less ideologically motivated and perhaps fighting for money or to avenge grievances against the Karzai government, the foreign forces supporting that government, or the warlords who form the warp and woof of the incumbent Kabul regime. The terms on which such fighters may be welcomed back and rehabilitated in Afghan society include a renunciation of their past proclivities and views, an acceptance of the Afghan constitution and political setup, and an avowed farewell to arms. A great deal of the hopes residing in this initiative spring from the fact that resources will now be made available to Kabul to sweeten the return of such fighters with jobs, homes, security against former enemies, etc. The Obama ‘surge’ of some 30,000 fresh troops is intended to weaken the hold of the Taliban insurgency, secure the cities, population centres and main highways, and thereby persuade even the leadership of the Taliban that their struggle does not have any hope of succeeding in its objectives by force of arms. That development, it is hoped, will open the door to negotiations with the Taliban leadership on seeking a political solution to the Afghan quagmire. There are unprecedented hints of late that Mullah Omar may be shifting ground slightly to envisage accepting the demand that the Taliban distance themselves from al Qaeda, but he remains adamant that the other side must commit to a withdrawal of all foreign forces, without necessarily being forthcoming on the issue of accepting the Afghan constitution or political order.
These diplomatic, political shifts have been made possible in recent days because of Saudi Arabia’s mediation between the Taliban and the Karzai regime, through discreet contacts hosted by the Kingdom since the last two years. Whereas Pakistan’s ISI has been left out of this loop at the insistence of the hosts and the two sides of this coin, the redoubtable intelligence arm of the Pakistani military now feels even more confident of calling the shots in any negotiated settlement in Afghanistan because of its closeness to the Afghan Taliban, whose leadership and fighters are hosted on Pakistani soil. The ISI’s insistence, according to reports, that it alone will mediate between the Taliban and the US and Afghan authorities, without permitting direct contacts between the warring sides, may be read as an attempt to ensure that Pakistan’s oft-touted but little explained ‘national security interests’ in Afghanistan are safeguarded. Reading between the lines reveals that the Pakistani military establishment still harbours apprehensions and a horror of the possibility of growing Indian influence in Kabul squeezing Pakistan in a ‘nutcracker’ between a hostile India to the east and a less than friendly Afghanistan under Indian influence to the west. This paranoia may put a spanner in the works of the London conference, where the US and UK are pressing for an increased role for India in any eventual settlement of the Afghan imbroglio, a notion rejected in toto by the Pakistani military establishment and which is arguably being worked against by the two summits in Istanbul, where India is not represented.
The notion of a regional solution to Afghanistan’s woes sounds fine in theory, and as far as its immediate neighbours and the chief architects of a political settlement allowing the US and Nato forces to withdraw at some future date, i.e. the US and UK are concerned, poses better prospects of success. The fly in the ointment is Pakistan’s opposition to opening the door further to an Indian role, the rock on which the London conference and all similar initiatives beloved of the west may make shipwreck. *
Second Editorial: Quetta police protests
What happened in Quetta on Monday is condemnable to say
the least. The provincial capital presented a scene of complete lawlessness in which there was no one to protect the life and property or citizens. Hundreds of police officials coursed the main roads and streets of the Quetta city in a rally that had started from Police Lines. Their first destination was the Chief Minister’s House where they chanted slogans against the government and forcibly entered the premises. Their demand: an increase in the salaries of the Balochistan Police at par with the police force in other provinces. On not finding the chief minister there, they went to the Governor’s House and repeated their act. The governor ensured protesting police cadres that he would talk to the provincial government to get their grievances addressed. But there was no pacifying the rebellious law enforcers, who then thought it wise to block roads, hold sit-ins in various parts of the city, burn tyres, resort to aerial firing and harass journalists and ordinary citizens alike. This was the least one expected from a disciplined law enforcement body like the police.
The swiftness with which the provincial government has acted against this open rebellion is laudable. The Capital City Police Chief of Quetta as well as Deputy Inspector General (Operations) have been removed from their posts and ordered to report to Services and General Administration Department (S&DAG). Regional police officers of Sibi and Khuzdar have been given the additional charge of these posts respectively. One cannot but agree with the Chief Minister of Balochistan Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani’s statement that when the guardians of the law blow it to smithereens, they do not deserve any leniency. It is hoped that the government would live up to its resolve and not allow leeway to the culprits during proceedings against them. In addition to a thorough departmental inquiry into the incident, criminal cases against officials responsible for inciting protests and violence should set an example for the rest. While the government suppresses this rebellion quickly and effectively, it should also work towards meeting the just demands of the Balochistan Police. There is no denying that in a province that suffers from a difficult law and order situation and where the police face targeted killings by disgruntled Baloch insurgents, meagre salaries and other compensations serve to lower the morale of the force. The government should not allow the discontent in its prime law enforcement agency to fester. *
Source:dailytimes.com.pk/
Iraqi Police Contract Flaws Raise Questions About Afghan Effort
The State Department does not have enough people in Iraq to monitor the work or track the money being spent by DynCorp International, according to the audit issued Monday by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. One contracting officer in Iraq oversees all receipts and task orders, with no time to visit work sites or to ensure payroll accuracy. At least $1 billion in past invoices have yet to be reconciled, part of a backlog of work that State has promised for years to fix.
"We are questioning what value the government got for $2.5 billion," Bowen said in an interview.
The report said that the entire contract was "vulnerable to waste and fraud" because of the poor oversight. The State Department, in a written response, said that conclusion was "unfounded" and not substantiated in the report.
DynCorp, which provides services to the U.S. government and military in hot spots around the world, has been under contract since 2004 to support police training in Iraq and Afghanistan. The contract is the single largest in State Department history, according to the inspector general.
The price tag for Afghanistan under the contract so far is $437 million, according to State Department records. The cost of police training there is expected to soar along with the growing American military presence. Training and enlarging the Afghan national police force is a key element of the Obama administration's plan to shift security to the Kabul government and eventually allow the United States to draw down its troops.
DynCorp spokesman Douglas Ebner stressed that the report addressed only the State Department's oversight and not the company's work. "The basic point is the audit did not look at performance," Ebner said. "We are performing under the contract and we are training Iraqi police."
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The report, one of a series of reviews of U.S. efforts in training foreign security forces, triggered swift criticism of the State Department from lawmakers who oversee wartime contracting.
"They've been managing this contract in Iraq since 2004 and, according to this report, they have no idea where any of the money went," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chair of a Senate subcommittee that monitors contracting. "What's even worse is that these are the same people responsible for police training in Afghanistan, so I don't have any confidence that they're doing a better job there."
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), senior Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called the findings "simply outrageous" and illustrated "the need to move quickly and systemically to reform how the government manages federal contracts."
The State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is responsible for overseeing the contract. In a written response to the audit, State officials said invoices were reviewed both in Iraq and Washington to prevent fraud. Nineteen percent of invoices are rejected during the Washington review, the department said.
The department acknowledged that, after a critical audit in 2007, it had promised to increase the number of contract officers in Iraq to 11. But that group remains at three people, State officials said, because of space constraints at the embassy in Baghdad.
The report released Monday is the first of two audits expected to focus on police training in Iraq by the inspector general. A joint State and Defense inspector general report of the DynCorp contract is expected by the end of the month. Multiple audits of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past years have documented waste and flaws in government oversight.
Contractors are expected to surge in number as the U.S. military increases the training of police and army in Afghanistan. According to testimony last month before the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting, the number of U.S. defense contractors in Afghanistan is expected to reach 160,000 this year, more than the number of U.S. troops.
The Defense Department is poised to take over the police training contract in Afghanistan from the State Department, a move that has been portrayed in public hearings as an attempt to accelerate training critical to an anticipated U.S. withdrawal.
The Obama administration has envisioned an Afghan army that would number 134,000 by the end of this year and grow to 240,000 in 2013. The Afghan national police currently stand at 96,800 with a proposal to expand to 160,000 by 2013, according to recent Pentagon testimony.
Training of security forces has been particularly tough in Afghanistan where, unlike Iraq, education is limited and literacy is hard to calculate. Official estimates suggest about 30 percent of the Afghan population is literate. Diplomats and military who have worked in the region believe about 10 to 20 per cent of the population can read, write and count at a sufficient level for security training.
Police recruits are decidedly less proficient than military recruits, they said, and will be particularly challenging to train. "Afghanistan is not Iraq," one general told the wartime contracting commission during a hearing in December.
Auditors who recently traveled to Iraq described the oversight of DynCorp's police training support as "extremely weak. " Invoice review, property control, and lease negotiations were all problematic, they said. Invoices were stuffed in boxes without review, auditors said, and thousands of timesheets were found not signed by supervisors or employees.
One staffer whose job was to approve purchase orders was found in November 2009 to have a backlog of over 700 orders, according to the report.
State's contract officers also negotiated storage, land and housing facilities at excessive rates, auditors said. In one instance cited in the report, the State representative and DynCorp prepared a lease agreement for land at a cost that was seven times what the U.S. embassy considered the going rate.
Source:huffingtonpost.com/
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