Gates Q&A Afghanistan

Nationwide civil military plan hasn't happened yet.
Can't count on Afghan government to control drug corruption in upcoming elections.
Rhetoric of Afghan pres. not helping anything -hurting things in fact.
RC South…all nations participating…committed to building civil military cell with civil reps from all countries…better coordinating of civilian organizations.
Corruption very high and extremely pervasive…but doesn't know that it has reached the highest levels of government.
Ideally joint civil military and military in order to fix Afghanistan.
Having immense problem with coordinating with all 40 allies, the UN, the EU, Nato, 100's NGO's…trying to figure out how to make Afghan come out right…coordinate with military operations….trying to figure out through constant reviews best way to do this….best person to do this is UN senior special rep…finally after long delays special rep has gotten finance and human resources to do this.
Dramatically increased ISR platforms.

40% of air missions called in by allies because not enough troops there.

Afghan equivalent to task force Oden…immensely helped locating IED's…and people planting them. Began last month. Focus on ring road.
Civilian casualties are doing us ENORMOUS harm…must do better…when we attack we play right into their hands…his worry is that Afghans come to see US as part of problem, not solution…then it is all lost…find better or have afghan's in lead.
Difficulty has been more with…trade off…less actually the brigade combat team and the marine regiments then it has been the enablers…the rotary lift capability, ISR, engineer's, etc…working very hard on what can afford to move from Iraq or re-mission instead of going to Iraq….this has been biggest challenge about strengthening forces in Afghan….philosophically/struggling, we have different standard of medi-vac in afghan then in Iraq….1hr in Iraq, 2hr in Afghan…how best to get Afghan down to 1hr…forces thicker in RC South and RC East where most troops are.
Without effective economic development…inter-agency effort…military action only buys time….impression is that Dept of State will be made part of the FY09 supplemental…maybe all Dept's will be involved in Afghan…Agriculture, State, Infrastructure, etc.
NATO...More caveat free forces…provide more civilian support for training/civil society….helping to defray the cost of expanding Afghan army…3-4 billion first yr or 2…steady state around 2 1/2 billion…total Afghan income was 800 million last yr…..very, very careful of the nature of the goals we set for Afghanistan….Believes primary goal is to prevent Afghan from being used as base for terrorist to attack from…everything else flows from that objective…4/5th poorest country…we set a goal of setting some sort of central Asian Valhalla we will lose…no one has time/patience/money to do so anyway….we can help Afghans, good farmers, need a lot of technical help, has some minerals….an economy there that can be developed…keep specific and limited goals.

Two tiered alliance with NATO in Afghanistan? One Senator not okay with this idea, Gates for it.

Some indications that some allies have been sitting on new capabilities in order to give them to the new president when he asks for more help in Afghanistan.
Biden-Luger legislation would be very beneficial to our relationship with Pakistan…amount of money is important but just as important is that it's a multi-year commitment…one of the problems with Pakistan is that more than once we have turned our backs on them so they don't have confidence they can count on us over the long-term.
200,000 contractors in Iraq...Commander in Afghan is in process of setting up oversight of contractors like MNFI that was set-up in Iraq last year…take lessons learned out of Iraq and not make same mistakes in Afghan…rotating troops into equipment already there…a lot of what contractors are using belongs to US Gov…if we draw down in 16-18 months or whenever, we'd have to bring back the equipment that belongs to us…have to decide what are we going to bring back of equipment that contractors are using…all will require high level of supervision...think quickly and with agility in DoD to get it right.
Will now apologize instantly for civilian casualties, then investigate, then make amends…instead of saying there was 14 not 16 just say we're sorry there was even 1. (FINALLY they're getting how insulting and pathetic our press releases were looking!)
Not for nothing that Afghanistan is known as the place of death for empires…Highly skeptical of any more troops then has been asked for by top Gen. in Afghan…secret to success is Afghan army and police with improved border control…ABOVE all, above all, there MUST be an Afghan face on this war…Afghan people must believe this is there war and we are there to help them…if they think we are there for our own purposes, then we will go the same way as every other foreign army that has been in Afghan, period. Focusing on how do we get Afghan to be in front of every operation so villagers see it is there army that we're helping…not us kicking down there door, it's an Afghan kicking down door to find bad guy…Afghan aspect must be at absolute forefront of any strategy going forward for any of us to be successful over long term and that's one of the reasons I'd be deeply skeptical of additional forces beyond what Gen. McKiernan has already asked for.