WASHINGTON - The U.S. general put in charge of turning around the war in Afghanistan is likely to recommend significant changes in the campaign and may include a request for more U.S. forces that the White House is expected to resist.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal's long-awaited reassessment of the war against Taliban insurgents aims for a transformation of the shaky relationship between U.S. forces and Afghan civilians as troops press a counterinsurgency strategy of clearing and holding populated areas, said officials apprised of the report's contents.
The biggest change urged in McChrystal's report is a "cultural shift" in how U.S. and foreign troops operate -- ranging from how they live and travel among the Afghan population to where and how they fight, a senior military official in Kabul said Friday.
The latest draft of the assessment also urges speeding up the training of Afghan soldiers and police and nearly doubling their numbers to roughly 400,000, said a senior defence official in Washington, one of several uniformed and civilian officials who spoke on condition anonymity because the report has not been made public.
As McChrystal readies the assessment of the war, due in two weeks, numerous U.S. officials and outsiders aware of his thinking suggest that he will request in a companion report that more American troops, probably including marines, be added next year.
Several people familiar with the work being done cautioned that McChrystal could opt not to ask for an increase at all -- a recognition that President Barack Obama and other White House advisers would not look favourably on adding new numbers to U.S. forces after already agreeing to boost their ranks by 21,000 troops earlier this year.
The main recommendations for change stem from the military's new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, which is now designed to focus less on going after Taliban strongholds and more on protecting the local population.
The strategy is also aimed at helping develop an Afghan government that civilians will embrace rather than siding with the insurgents, two senior military officials said.
To achieve that, one official said, the latest draft of McChrystal's assessment on the war includes the following recommendations:
--Using intelligence less to hunt insurgents and more to understand local, tribal and social power structures in the areas where they operate. McChrystal is considering concentrating troops around populated areas rather than going after sparsely populated mountain areas where Taliban hide.
--Getting troops more active in fighting corruption. U.S. forces will need to take care in their dealings with local Afghan leaders to ensure that they are not perceived by the Afghan population to be empowering corrupt officials.
In preparing his assessment of the Afghan command, McChrystal found an American military culture that showed a great concern for troops' protection -- sometimes at the expense of their relations with Afghan civilians.
To change those relations, McChrystal wants American forces to think twice about basic conduct -- for instance no longer pointing their guns at people when they pass in convoy or blocking narrow roads with their convoys, while relegating Afghans to the ditches.
To deal with the most contentious aspect of those shaky relations, McChrystal has already committed to try to reduce civilian casualties by issuing new orders that restrict when troops should call in bombing strikes.
The assessment was commissioned by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who hand-picked McChrystal to take the helm of a campaign against insurgents that top defence officials have conceded is stalemated.
Two of McChrystal's civilian advisers, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, said this week they expect some expansion of troops. Neither adviser would quantify those numbers.
Biddle said Thursday he thinks the total number of troops in Afghanistan should number 300,000 to 600,000, including U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.
Current forces include 62,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 allied troops, plus about 175,000 Afghan Army and police. Some of the allies plan to pull their troops home in the next couple of years.
Afghan forces are already set to grow, but McChrystal urges an end target of some 400,000 police and army, a goal that would require more foreign forces for the training, a senior defence official said Friday.
Any request for additional U.S. forces would require touchy discussions with the White House and lawmakers. President Barack Obama approved a surprise addition of 4,000 U.S. trainers earlier in the spring, after his larger announcement of 17,000 combat troops, and administration and military officials had been signalling that further additions were unlikely for now.
The additions Obama has already approved will bring the U.S. presence to about 68,000 by the end of the year. That is roughly double the size of the U.S. force when Obama took office, and although Afghanistan is now considered the top U.S military priority, the White House is deeply reluctant to keep adding, or to fight a skeptical Congress over the increase.
McChrystal's predecessor left behind an unfilled request for an addition of approximately 10,000 U.S. forces, and Obama had been expected to review that request near the end of the year.
To prepare the report, McChrystal gathered about a dozen military and outside civilian analysts six weeks ago and sent them on an intensive reporting trip through Afghanistan. The group finished work last week.
One of the report's authors said the group identified some basic organizational problems with the way the fight is divided among U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.
Andrew Exum, a counterinsurgency specialist and blogger at the Center for a New American Security, said the "operational culture" of the war has to change, meaning a shift away from traditional military operation and procedures.
"Our efforts in this war will succeed or fail based upon relationships we're able to build with our Afghan partners at every level," Exum said.
