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MacKay Expects Blunt Talk Among NATO Defence Ministers on Afghanistan

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 February 2008, 18:00 CST

By Murray Brewster, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VILNIUS, Lithuania - NATO defence ministers are not expected to mince words as they gather in this former Soviet republic on Thursday to discuss the future of the mission in Afghanistan, including Canada's ultimatum.

The demand for more troops and helicopters to reinforce the Canadian army in Kandahar - otherwise Ottawa will issue its notice to withdraw - has set off a blitz of high-level diplomatic talks and public sniping among members of the 50-year-old military alliance.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he doesn't expect the meeting to be acrimonious, nor does he expect any firm decisions to be made until a full-fledged NATO summit this spring.

"I expect blunt talk and a frank discussion about - certainly from our perspective - where we find ourselves and what we'd like to see," he said prior to leaving Canada for Lithuania.

He also made it clear that Canada wasn't prepared to negotiate over the conditions set down in the Manley commission report, which recommended NATO provide 1,000 additional troops and the Department of National Defence secure medium-lift helicopters as well as unmanned surveillance aircraft to help protect troops.

The future of the defence minister's government and the future of the mission in Afghanistan are to face a test in Parliament next month. The minority Conservative government announced Wednesday it will introduce a motion this week on extending the mission, with a vote on the matter in late March.

The move appears designed to ensure one of two outcomes this spring: parliamentary approval to extend the mission indefinitely, or a federal election on the issue.

In Vilnius, the discussions taking place behind closed doors in this ancient city are seen as laying the groundwork for the meeting of NATO heads of government in Romania during the first week of April.

Bitter divisions have emerged over the reluctance of countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain to send combat troops to the south. A top U.S. official's criticism of NATO allies fighting in southern Afghanistan, where Canada has deployed about 2,500 troops, has exposed a lack of common military and political goals among NATO allies.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last month, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates suggested Canadian, British and Dutch troops have been ineffective in Afghanistan due to their lack of training in counter-insurgency operations.

While the Americans measure their progress by success against Taliban fighters, the Canadian military approach involves winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

Gates highlighted a tension within NATO Wednesday.

"I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect peoples' security, and others who are not," Gates said in Washington.

"And I think that it puts a cloud over the future of the alliance, if this is to endure and perhaps even get worse."

The U.S. contributes a third of NATO's 42,000-strong International Security Assistance Force mission, making it the largest participant, on top of the 12,000 to 13,000 American troops operating independently.

U.S. military analysts have suggested that the planned dispatch of 3,200 U.S. marines to southern Afghanistan is an indication that the NATO mission is failing, and defeating the Taliban will be left to American soldiers.

The top Afghan official in the southern province of Kandahar seemed to agree the situation calls for American soldiers and tactics.

"The Canadians are fine, but Americans are Americans," Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the provincial council in Kandahar, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Wednesday.

The younger brother of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai suggested that only U.S. special forces can get rid of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

"The Americans are very professional ....They go in; they get out. It's just like you see in the movies" Karzai said, adding that targeted strikes against individual commanders of the Taliban are effective and cause no civilian casualties and no damage to the villages.

A new discouraging report released Wednesday suggested that NATO's failure to improve Afghanistan's security situation has made plans to hold presidential elections in 2009 wholly unrealistic.

The report by the international think-tank The Senlis Council, titled "Afghanistan: Decision Point 2008", suggests that with NATO countries seemingly unable or unwilling to respond to the realities of the situation, the issue of stabilizing Afghanistan must be brought back to the UN Security Council.

"The international community needs to increase its troop size to 80,000 and remove all national caveats restricting troop movement to the troubled south, to have any chance of defeating the insurgency," said Norine MacDonald, The Senlis Council's President and lead field researcher.

"If NATO can not come to grips with the situation the matter should be referred back to the UN Security Council and a NATO Plus military force formed," said MacDonald.

Since the fall of 2006, Canada, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands have repeatedly asked their traditional allies for extra troops and helicopters.

Now it has been left up to the new members of NATO - former Warsaw Pact countries - to answer the call. Poland and Romania have drastically increased their forces.

Canada and Poland have talked feverishly about increased co-operation in the south, the homeland of the Taliban, but not much is expected until Warsaw completes the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq this fall.

"We've had a very good working relationship with Poland and we intend to pursue the discussions around the Manley report recommendations at NATO this week," said MacKay.

The Polish government offered to put two of its eight helicopters stationed in eastern Afghanistan for use by NATO in the south, saying it was a gesture of appreciation for the sacrifice of Canadians.

The country's foreign minister, Radoslaw Sirkosky, said earlier this week that Afghanistan is becoming his country's main military focus.

With Cold War memories still fresh in mind and a resurgent Russia, Sikorsky added that Poland will not allow NATO's Afghan mission to fail because it would spell dire consequences for regional security.

A partnership between Canada and Poland in Kandahar wouldn't be out of the question, but could be fraught with some technical problems.

Much of Poland's equipment is Russian and dates from the Cold War days. Even with extensive upgrades, some of the hardware doesn't match NATO sophistication.

But military experts argue that the Polish have gain invaluable experience in counter-insurgency war, fighting along side the Americans and British in Iraq.

Source: Canadian Press

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