Ambassador Wood: “2008 was a good year, but it was also a hard year”
Ambassador William B. Wood
Media Roundtable
U.S. Embassy Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan
December 30, 2008
Ambassador Wood: I’m Bill Wood. I’m the Ambassador here and I’ve been the Ambassador here for about 20 months. Don’t ask me if I know what my future is with the new administration, because I don’t know. I’ve only been told that I should expect to stay here well after the inauguration. Certainly I have told the new administration I would be grateful to stay because I think this is a great place to work.
I’ll just say a few quick words and then I’ll turn it over to your questions.
I think that 2008 was a good year, but it was also a hard year. Although the year is not over, it looks as though IED attacks doubled in 2008 over 2007, and it looks as though kidnappings also doubled. With kidnappings, it is hard to know whether those are politically motivated kidnappings, or criminally motivated kidnappings. As you know, the Afghan government assumed responsibility for security in Kabul in the autumn, and I think that we’ve seen security in Kabul be good during that period.
I think we have seen continued economic growth, continued provision of humanitarian services, and improved governance.
For instance, I think that looking at the whole range of the governors across the country, I think that the governors, even though they’re involved in controversial activities which always produce political discussion, I think we can say with confidence that the team of governors is stronger in December 2008 than it was in December 2007. I think this is due to the strong support of President Karzai, the presidential palace, and the creation of the Independent Directorate for Local Governance.
We saw progress on the illicit cultivation and production of drugs. In the 2007-2008 season, as you know, the area under cultivation declined by almost 20 percent. And that was thanks to the efforts of local leaders and collaboration with the national government and with the international community. We are looking for a further decline in production in the coming year, although it is still too early to be sure.
There has been a new focus on corruption. In this regard I would point to President Karzai’s very important speech last week. For me, there were three important elements of that speech, or three elements of the speech that were more important than other elements of it.
First, a recognition by President Karzai that there is a problem of corruption in the national and local governments of Afghanistan. And related to that, his strong determination to do something about it. In that regard, he will have the support of the United States and the international community.
He also noted that in the case of corrupt officials, it was not enough to dismiss them, but they should be prosecuted. And I know that the Office of the Attorney General is seized with these issues and is making a serious effort to develop cases. We are glad to support the Attorney General in any way we can.
The third thing in the speech was a recognition that sometimes local leaders or local communities seek to have people released from detention out of community solidarity, or tribal solidarity, or family solidarity, whether or not they think the person who is detained is guilty or not, and that should stop. As I think President Karzai made clear, justice is not a matter of who you know, it is a matter of what you do, and how the society reacts to what you do. And we strongly support President Karzai’s initiatives in this regard, as we are supporting the anti-corruption efforts of Mr. Osmani in the palace, as we are supporting the anti-corruption efforts of the Attorney General, as we are supporting better accounting and accountability for both national and international funds through the Ministry of Finance.
Of course 2008, as I said, was a year that saw increased kidnappings and increased IEDs. IEDs don’t really advance the terrorists’ cause at all. They don’t win them any territory. They don’t win them any friends. They don’t weaken the government’s institutions. They don’t threaten the government. All they do is prove to everyone the continued presence and brutality of the terrorists, and creates sadness among the defenders. They hope that the sadness and the exhaustion of the defenders, both the national government and the international community, will cause them to lose faith and lose will.
That, of course, is the big news of 2008: that both the national community and the international community’s faith was shown to be strong and resolute and determined.
In the case of the international community, the Bucharest NATO Summit in April increased deployments and reaffirmed the international commitment. As you know, the United States and other international coalition partners will also be further increasing deployments in 2009. The Donors Conference in Paris in June had more international donors than ever before pledging more money to Afghanistan than ever before. Then in September the JCMB international meeting approved and agreed to support and finance the Afghan plans to double the size of the Afghan Army. I should also say we’re working closely with Minister Atmar in the Ministry of Interior to further improve the National Police. We’re seeing good progress there. So the point is, the international will is holding in spite of the brutal terroristic tactics of the insurgents.
But there is something much more important than that, and that is that more than three million voters have registered for elections in 2009. I can think of no clearer demonstration that the will and the faith and the confidence of the Afghan people is remaining strong than the fact that they have traveled distances to go to voter registry sites and register to vote.
So that is the short version of the way I would describe 2008. A terrorist effort characterized by violence against individuals, both civilians and security officers, both Afghan and international; and clear expressions by the internationals and by the citizens of Afghanistan that they were not intimidated, but in fact they were going to do their part to restore stability and peace and prosperity and development to Afghanistan.
2009, of course, will be characterized by national elections. The United States and the international community is committed to supporting the Independent Election Commission and the constitution of Afghanistan regarding those elections. We are confident they will be a success.
That concludes my remarks.
Question: [Inaudible] from Ariana TV.
As you mentioned, that the United States and the international community remains committed to helping Afghanistan. And you mentioned the troops increase. However, you know the situation on the ground, that increasing troops has not been a successful method in the last seven years. Security has deteriorated. In the south people are being killed. Civilian casualties are high in numbers, and also the poverty, and there are many other obstacles in Afghanistan that you know of and you are well aware of.
What are the benefits of troop increase for Afghans in Afghanistan? How do you come to that conclusion?
Ambassador Wood: I think it’s a very good question. I think it is important to remember that in the period 2002 to 2004, there were neither very many international security forces here, nor was there much of an Afghan Army. It was in that period that the narcotics industry consolidated, that the warlords consolidated, and the Taliban began to reconstitute and resume its terrorist activities.
The security assistance and the security deployments began in 2004, but really didn’t begin to accelerate until 2007. This was in anticipation of the so-called “Taliban spring offensive of 2007.” And I think that the Taliban was defeated in the spring of 2007. That offensive did not materialize. In fact, they lost lots of their followers and lots of their leaders.
I think we’ve seen a similar process in 2008. For instance, Mullah Shakur and Mullah Mahmoud, both prominent Taliban leaders around Kandahar, were killed in battle. Abdul Rahim, the shadow government for Helmand, was detained. And a fellow named Mohammedzai, the shadow governor for Kandahar, was also detained.
But the core problem is there have never been enough Afghan security forces, adequately trained and adequately led, and the international forces have had to make up the shortfall. And there have never been enough international forces to do that either.
The training and deployment of Afghan security forces is increasing at a great rate. The Afghan Army is growing by more than 2,500 soldiers a month. That’s 10,000 additional soldiers every four months. The Afghan Army will have doubled in size by 2012 at the latest. Specialized elements of the Afghan Police are being trained and more training is expected.
You know that the Focused District Development Program has worked in the districts where it’s been deployed. Training is now in the planning stages for anti-kidnapping police, for anti-narcotics police, and a number of other categories of specialized police. As the police become stronger and more professional we hope that it can also enlarge.
But all of that cannot happen overnight, which is why increased international deployments are also necessary. There are not enough Afghan security forces and there are not enough international forces to protect every village all the time, which is why, at President Karzai’s insistence, we are also eagerly trying to work with local communities to restore their own capacity to protect themselves at a low level. And if I may say so, I don’t think this initiative for community guards has been very well reported in the press.
This is not a recreation of tribal militias or any other kind of militia. We do not intend to provide weapons to anyone in this program. But Afghanistan throughout its entire history has relied on the strength and the coherence and the ability of local communities to defend their local area. This program is not designed to enable local communities to go outside of their local area, but it is designed to give them training and confidence and connectivity to the national security structure and a little bit of international backup, so that when terrorists or insurgents try to infiltrate the local neighborhood, the local neighborhood can react with confidence in the same way that Afghans have been doing for hundreds of years. This program is meant to restore an ancient capability of the communities of Afghanistan, not to create something new.
I apologize for providing such along answer, but it was a complicated question.
Question: Thank you. [Inaudible] from Radio Liberty.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune Newspaper, President Karzai last Sunday said that the international forces, especially the U.S. coalition, use, or has hired, criminals and killers. As President Karzai said, the killers during the military operations in Afghanistan killed the [inaudible].
Ambassador Wood: Of course President Karzai and I have talked about this because we consider his interview a very important one. My understanding of what he was talking about is reference to mistakes that were made in 2002 and 2003, after the ouster of the Taliban, when there were very few internationals here and there was a need to rely on people that we didn’t know very well, frankly, because we hadn’t been here very long. And it is precisely for that reason, because we recognized a problem too, of warlordism and of militiaism, that we shifted to support for institutional structures like the army, like the police. Structures in which training and leadership and accountability are more easily controlled by the national government. The proof of that is now, as you know, we don’t hire anyone. We work with the army, we work with the police, and now we are working with the local communities, in a program initiated by President Karzai himself.
Question: I wanted to ask you, do you confirm that the U.S. coalition has hired killers and criminals during the 2002 to 2003?
Ambassador Wood: It’s a very good question and I can only say I don’t know. I know that we didn’t want to. I know that we didn’t mean to. I know that was not our policy. But at a time when institutions were not fully formed, it is impossible for me to be sure, and it is precisely to avoid that uncertainty that we moved some time ago to a completely new approach. I have to return the question to you. Are you sure that no thug has ever been hired by someone, by an Afghan entity, without realizing it? Because if it is possible that you made the mistake, who know the people and the country so much better than we do, then it is certainly possible that we’ve made a mistake. Years ago.
Question: [Inaudible] from BBC saying that you mentioned that the U.S. is committed in supporting independent and transparent elections in Afghanistan. However, the fourth phase of the voter registration has been suspended for 15 days in some of the areas due to obstacles and problems. How confident are you that you can characterize 2009 as the year of elections and the election process will be a success?
Ambassador Wood: As I’m sure you know, phase four has been delayed by two weeks for logistical reasons, not for security reasons. Just as phase three was delayed by one week for logistical reasons. We don’t see the two week delay as very important. And as you know, we are also hopeful that after the four phases are completed, there will still be a period when people can register to vote.
It is a little bit hard to be sure about timing, because we only know that the Independent Election Commission has declared that elections would take place in the fall, but we don’t know when.
I am very confident that elections will take place in 2009, and I am very confident that the Afghan people will vote in large numbers. People in my embassy and people in the UN Mission and other people around town have been very complimentary about the organizational work of the Independent Election Commission in putting people, registrars, out in the provinces in the first three phases.
I think the police and the army, reinforced by the international community, but basically the police and the army, have done a spectacular job of protecting voter registry sites. I think that the universal condemnation by the Afghan government, by the Ulema Council, by the international community, of the attack in Khost the other day against the district center where the voter registration was taking place shows everyone’s commitment to fair, open, honest, transparent, secure elections.
I also want to congratulate the community leaders of the districts and the tribes in phases one, two and three. The elders, the mullahs, the professors, the leaders of these communities have all encouraged the people to get out and register to vote, and clearly the people have listened to them.
I hope that the elders and the mullahs and the professors and the businessmen and the community leaders of the phase four provinces will also be as strong and unambiguous in encouraging their people to register to vote.
Afghans are just like Americans in one sense. They like to choose their government. We think they should have the opportunity, and we think they will have the opportunity.
Question: [Inaudible] from Sabah TV, a question regarding the tensions between India and Pakistan and the possible decrease in the number of Pakistani troops on the other side of the Afghan border.
Do you think decreasing the number of Pakistani troops on the other side of the Pakistan-Afghan border is a threat to the security of Afghanistan? And is there any anticipation or intention of the U.S. government to deploy additional U.S. troops in those vulnerable regions to sustain security?
Ambassador Wood: Well of course I am only the Ambassador to Afghanistan, and I am not an expert on Pakistan or on India, but what is very clear is that Afghanistan, Pakistan and India have all been victims of terrorism. In fact, there has been some connection among those terroristic actions because the terrorists who have carried them out have connections with each other. So we support strong action by Afghanistan, by Pakistan, and by India against terrorists. I don’t think it would be useful for me to speculate about the movement of troops or contingents of troops.
Pakistan has been more active in 2008 in confronting the terrorist threat than in the past. Communication and cooperation between the Pakistani military and the Afghan military and ISAF is better than it has ever been. Opinion polls in Pakistan show that the Pakistani people are recognizing more and more the threat that these terrorists represent to their way of life, their society, and their Islamic values. So without being able to comment on individual military contingents or deployments, I am confident that 2009 will be another bad year for those terrorists based in the Western part of Pakistan.
Question: Once again to follow up on the comments by President Karzai in the Chicago Tribune, as he said house searches and also the civilian deaths and the killing of tribal elders by the international forces has caused the elders to escape from Afghanistan and this has helped reemerging a formation of Taliban leadership outside Afghanistan. To what extent do you think is that true?
Ambassador Wood: I believe that Afghans have a different sense of privacy and strength of the home than, for instance, Americans have. Not a stronger one or a weaker one, but a different one. For instance, in the United States there are no walls around the houses. In Afghanistan there are walls around most houses, so there is a cultural difference there. We are trying to accommodate ourselves to the Afghan system of values. As you know, General McKiernan issued a tactical directive several months ago that changes significantly the way ISAF conducts its operations, both to increase the Afghan role and Afghan participation in operations, and also to reduce the chances of violations of Afghan cultural values.
There is also, however, another reality which is that sometimes bad things are going on in these houses. As I said earlier, the number of IEDs has doubled. Often what is going on in these houses is that they are making or planning the deployment of IEDs. Or a kidnapping. Or another action. Sometimes these people, usually these people, are valid targets. Even though they may be hiding in a home with others. Even though they may be hiding in their own home behind their own family. They are living among their family while they plot the death of the members of other people’s families, so we have to find an effective way to neutralize that threat too. I don’t think we have solved this problem.
The United States has committed to continuing to work with the government of President Karzai and the Afghan security forces to increase steadily the role and the participation of Afghan security forces in these operations and to make the conduct of such operations more acceptable to Afghan cultural values, which we respect.
Unfortunately, after a year in which IEDs, kidnappings and other attacks have increased in number, although not particularly in size, not conducting these raids is not a realistic option. So I think this is an area where we are committed to work every day more closely with the Afghan government, with President Karzai and his army and his police. I cannot have this conversation without, of course, expressing regret for any mistakes that might have been made. Our goal is not to frighten or hurt Afghan people. Our goal is to protect them while their own security forces and governmental structures are getting stronger, so that they may take over the security role and we can some day go home. That day will not be soon, but it will not take forever either.
Question: Mr. Ambassador, I’d like to seek elaboration on a couple of points that you made earlier. One was about arming the local communities. You said it was a proposal made by President Karzai and that it possibly [does] not involve arming those people on the part of the United States. Can you elaborate as to what this program will involve and who will augment?
A second question is you said because 2009 will be bad, for the terrorists in Pakistan. Does that mean increased strikes by the United States on those regions?
Ambassador Wood: First, I think there are two programs that are being confused. First is the social outreach program proposed by the Office of Jelani Popal, which is designed to create community shuras. The United States has agreed to support that with about $6 million this year. One of the first places where that is going to happen is Wardak Province. The other program is the community guard program, which is meant to strengthen local communities and local tribes in their ability to protect what they consider to be their traditional homes. That is also a pilot program, because we want to see how it works. There hasn’t been a decision made for the whole country yet, and we are doing this in response to a request from President Karzai that we work more closely with communities and with tribes on their own local security.
What I understand is going to happen is that a community shura will gather and they will agree to participate in this program, and they will create a group of people to go to the villages and ask for volunteers to participate in this local community guard. Then the shura will review the list of volunteers to make sure they are all good citizens of the community. Once the group has been identified they will receive training and clothing and other support.
Communication will be established between them and other levels of government, and the international forces, so that they can always count on communication and reinforcement. We will not be providing them with weapons. The idea is to help them protect their homes and their villages and their communities, not to enable them to go out beyond the boundaries of their villages to bother other villagers. But as I say, this is still a pilot project and it is still in formation, but that is the kind of thing we were talking about.
I have to say that for us it is a little bit new because, of course, in my country we’re used to working with institutions and not directly with communities and villages and shuras. So this is an attempt by the international community to respond to the request of President Karzai, and to operate in a way that he believes corresponds more closely to the traditional Afghan way of doing business.
What was your second question?
Question: If you don’t mind, I may ask you to give a little more elaboration on this question. You said the United States will not provide them with arms, but they will need protecting their village and their homes. Who will be providing them arms? The Afghan government?
Ambassador Wood: I’m not aware that any provision is being made to provide them with weapons.
Question: Then how they can protect their villages and houses?
Ambassador Wood: The same way they have been doing for hundreds of years. Are you suggesting that the tribes are helpless?
Question: It’s like Catch-22 for me. It may encourage the people in the villages, [inaudible] to say that okay, I’ve got a problem from bandits, from the Taliban, we need also perhaps, people to arm their villages and houses. We need training, money and incentive. We need communication with coalition forces. Then I think you also need to police those guys who --
Ambassador Wood: We don’t have to police them. These are people who come from the village, serving the village. Come from the tribe, serve the tribe. We’re trying to strengthen the villages, we’re trying to strengthen the tribes. That’s the goal.
If you want to talk about a Catch-22, if I had said we were providing them with weapons, you would have been unhappy. Now that I’ve said that we’re not providing them with weapons, you’re unhappy.
Question: No, no.
Ambassador Wood: That’s the Catch-22.
Question: No, Mr. Ambassador, but I think when you spoke about them receiving training to guard their houses, they will I think not be able to guard their houses with empty hands. They will need at least I think light arms.
Ambassador Wood: All I can tell you is that no part of what the United States contemplates doing in this program is providing weapons.
Question: It’s not convincing to the media that we are talking about asking people to protect their village, their area where they are living without any weapons, and in the mean time if a terrorist infiltrates into their area, if they have empty hands, they obviously have got weapons or ammunition, so how are they going to be able to protect themselves or stop those terrorists?
Ambassador Wood: If you are unhappy with the way the program is being planned, I urge you to publicly call on us to provide weapons. And then we’ll have to see what happens.
Question: Shall I ask you again to see --
Ambassador Wood: Let’s do AFP and then AP.
Question: [Inaudible].
Ambassador Wood: Well, I asked you what your second question was, and you asked a different follow-up. You only get two and you’ve had two.
Question: I’m Bronwen with AFP.
My question has already been asked but since you called on me, I wanted to ask you, whether or not these groups are armed, and they will probably get arms anyway, even if not through the government, isn’t there a danger of legitimizing structures that one might not be able to control? And there seems to be a lot of concerns among some Afghans about recreating tribal militias. What guarantees are there that these people are not going to get illegitimate authority that goes beyond [inaudible]?
Ambassador Wood: I think that’s a completely reasonable question. At the same time, and I urge you to talk to President Karzai about this, there are drawbacks to highly centralized, big military and big police. There aren’t enough, as I said, international forces and national forces to adequately protect the security of every village and every community from the kind of low level terroristic attacks of the Taliban. There’s also not enough army and police to protect the people from criminality. Now of course the United States comes from a history in which law and order as we moved westward was first a local task, and then only later a more institutional task. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.
Certainly the history of Afghanistan is a history of reliance on local communities, local tribes, and informal, or what to us are informal, structures. That’s what we’re trying to accommodate. That’s the vision of President Karzai that we’re trying to accommodate.
You said well, they might get the weapons somewhere else. They might in fact already have the weapons. The question is not whether or not – In my view, the question is not whether or not they have access to weapons through some form or another. The question is, do they feel confident in their own community? Do they believe they can protect their own community in the way that Afghanistan has done for all of these centuries? What we’re trying to do is not arm them or disarm them in this regard, but strengthen the community in such a way that it is more self-reliant, and it can resist the infiltration and the intimidation and the night letters and the beheadings and the beatings and the threats against school children that the Taliban seems to be relying on these days.
The Taliban, because it cannot fight a national war, is fighting a terroristic war, village by village. Because there are not sufficient national or international forces to protect every village, President Karzai has asked us to strengthen the villages and the tribes in the villages. That’s what we’re trying to do.
Again, there is no plan to give anyone the capability to operate outside of his community. There is an effort, however, to give them more confidence and strength and organization, training, inside their community under the leadership of the local leaders.
Question: A question, and a follow-up question. You’re saying that numbers of IEDs doubled. What are those numbers?
Ambassador Wood: The numbers are difficult. I’d rather not give – It is something on the order of – Well, they’ve gone up most dramatically in the east and south. And it’s something on the order of say from 1,000 to 2,000 IEDs.
Question: So that’s rough...
Ambassador Wood: They’re very rough, frankly because compilation of data is hard.
Question: And --
Ambassador Wood: Kidnappings, by the way, from maybe 130 to about 250, something like that. And compilation of kidnapping data is even harder.
Question: In 2009 we’ll see a huge influx of U.S. troops, and for the first time it seems to me that although up until now there’s been a strong, huge, broad coalition, that this new influx of troops will really put the balance in favor of a United States-dominated international military force here, in a way that it hasn’t been previously.
The fact that they’re going into the south in such large numbers also suggests to me that for whatever reason those military partners are unable to come up with enough forces that NATO commanders wanted.
How do you see those two things? My observations there, the fact that it looks like the U.S. will be providing two-thirds of the forces here, and the fact that they feel that they need to be going in to the south.
Ambassador Wood: First, these questions really should be addressed to the commander of ISAF and the commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan who by coincidence just happens to be the same person. So it’s one stop shopping.
I think the United States is planning on increasing its forces, as Admiral Mullen said, between 20,000 and 30,000, although most of those would be support forces, not actual combatants. Other countries are also planning on increasing their deployments and we don’t have good information. I expect this will be one of the earlier conversations that the new administration in Washington has with those countries.
We are committed to working internationally and multilaterally, including in the security sphere, in Afghanistan. And I think that although there are in the east lots of talk about occasional Taliban actions, I think in fact if you talk to Jeff Schloesser or our people in the east, they will tell you that on balance, more districts are moving under government control than are moving the other direction. That’s been true for a number of years.
I’m not sure the same could be same for the south, which faces some very special problems. The east faces some very special problems by being very close to infiltration routes from some world-class terrorists. The south faces some very special problems too, relating to growth of drugs, relating to different tribal structures and so on. I think that most Afghans will tell you the tribal structures, for instance, are strongest in Loya Paktia. Loya Paktia, the old Paktika/Paktia/Khost area, Gardez. Tribal structures may not be quite so strong or quite so organized in the south. I’m not really sure. But it is a different kind of a place. I think that it’s one where we’ve seen that, for instance, in the operation in Garmsir in 2008, the lower third, or the middle third, of Helmand really was effectively swept, and if you go to Garmsir, you’ll see that businesses have reopened and people have returned and there is activity going on there.
So I think that one of the things that we’ve seen is that the south may be a more kinetic battlefield. It may be a less intimate battlefield than the east is. And I think that our kinds of forces can make a special kind of contribution in that kind of battlefield.
Certainly we are going to retain our commitment to work through the multilateral ISAF and coalition structures so we will be, we may be increasing forces slightly more rapidly than the rest of the world. But I don’t think it’s going to change the basic international personality of the military presence here.
You had a question?
Question: This is Santosh from All India Radio. My question is about Pakistan. Can you share with us [inaudible] what it means [inaudible]?
Ambassador Wood: I think that in fact, and I think I mentioned this to some of you, that the decision, that a strategic review was possibly not the right thing to be doing at this point in the life of the Bush administration. So what has happened is, there’s simply been a provision, and it’s already taken place, of lots of transition papers to the new administration for them to think about. The strategic review is already underway, but it is underway by the new administration which will be making the decisions. So I wouldn’t expect to see anything further coming out.
Question: Sir, once again the same question that was mentioned by Santosh about the new strategy for Afghanistan, anti-terrorist strategy, and the increase in the number of troops, if you’d like to comment on that and further elaborate.
Ambassador Wood: Just to put everything, try to put everything in a very neat package: Right now the new elements are: An increase in U.S. and international deployments to support the Afghan National Army. Acceleration of the growth of the Afghan National Army, so that it doubles in size no later than 2012. Increased cooperation and training for the National Police, under Minister Atmar. To continue the Focused District Development Program and also to create specialized units within the police for things like anti-corruption, counter-narcotics, and kidnapping, things like that. Continued reform of the police, as a prelude to expanding the police. We haven’t really reached the point where we can talk about expanding the police, because it still has to be fixed. Then lastly, improved outreach to local communities to strengthen their own ability to protect their own homes and their own villages and their own tribal units and their own communities.
I think that’s the menu. That is the combination of initiatives the incoming administration in Washington will inherit. I think that is the menu of initiatives that they will react to. As they are reacting to other papers and analyses that are being handed to them by the outgoing administration. I think that’s where I’ll leave it.
Thank you all very much.