The Taliban - Chapter Four Podcast Six

Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening. The reading looks at efforts to build the Afghan police force.   To Build a Police Force   “I “Need 20 good police officers and could use 100. Good people, not any hashish smokers. And I need sleeping bags, mattresses, and a generator for power.” Lt. Col. Amanuddin, Afghan police supervisor, early 2008   Many conferees in Bonn understood the importance of a strong national police. So did counterinsurgency strategists. In the early 20th century, General John Pershing built a constabulary force in the Philippines, and British Major General Richard L. Clutterbuck, a senior member of the Malayan government from 1956–58, noted that police put communists at a strategic disadvantage. Strong policing helped establish zones of security. As the French counterinsurgency theoretician David Galula pointed out, police helped identify insurgents and their supporters. Today’s US Army counterinsurgency field manual states that the police, not the military, are the front-line soldiers in a counterinsurgency.   This applies to Afghanistan, where the police are often the only government representatives present. In these cases, the police are not only responsible for security but also address community grievances and facilitate dispute resolution. They interact with the population daily, forging ongoing relationships with key members of the community. Through these daily interactions and relationships, police develop intimate knowledge of the physical and human terrain.   In February of 2002, Coalition representatives met in Berlin to discuss details of the ANP support mission. This was based on a German fact-finding mission in January 2002, which calculated that an initial ANP force of 62,000 was needed to provide basic security.  In August 2002, the Germans officially instituted a three-year training plan for officers and a one-year plan for non-commissioned officers. As the largest donor for ANP training, the United States assisted the German-led efforts.  In 2003, the United States increased its police to replace the German effort.             The Department of Defense provided equipment and infrastructure assistance through the Office of Military Cooperation Afghanistan (OMC-A).  OMC-A funded the construction of the Central Training Center for Police in Kabul in May of 2003, followed by the construction of seven Regional Training Centers (RTCs) across the country. By January 2005, Germany and State/INL had trained 35,000 police forces; however, corruption, desertion, and drug abuse remained serious problems, and larger reform efforts were needed.  In July 2005, CSTC-A took general responsibility for training the ANP.             The new units will help counter the Taliban's new, more aggressive tactics, Bouchard said. "They are a rapid-response group that would help put down a national crisis or insurgent activity," he said. The units will be more heavily armed and armored than traditional police units. "A lot of the equipment is going to look similar to what our Marines are currently using in Iraq, if the plan goes through," Bouchard said. "Those are on order, and we're expecting that equipment to arrive by the end of the calendar year."             Officials are looking to supply the Afghans with mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles that Marines are using in Iraq. The heavily armored wheeled vehicles have a V-shaped bottom to deflect explosions. The first three civil order battalions have stood up, Bouchard said. However, most of the units' members have completed their basic training only in the last two months, so it will take time before the units are effective against the Taliban…             There were some successes by 2011, particularly by those trained by the British. In a series of raids in Helmand, Afghan police apprehended suspected explosive manufacturers, uncovered and destroyed large hauls of Soviet-made munitions, and raided a significant bomb-making facility. This showed some improvement in professionalism over earlier years and suggested improved civil-police relations. The police operated on the tips from local villagers.             US training efforts for police have also produced some accomplishments. Coalition Forces are hopeful that village defense forces, in many ways a vast and militarized neighborhood watch program, will fill the security vacuum left when US forces begin to leave in earnest. Americans have credited local police units and Interior Ministry Forces with more effective patrolling.             However, there is overwhelming consensus that the overall ANP training program was largely a failure.  The poor quality of the police was, and remains, a large problem for the public administration and security sectors of human development.  The police force was rampant with tribalism and favoritism.                First, the shortage of police mentors has been a key impediment to U.S. efforts to conduct training and evaluation and verify that police are on duty. Second, the ANP continues to face difficulties with equipment shortages and quality issues. Third, the ANP faces a difficult working environment, including a weak Afghan judicial sector and consistent problems with police pay, corruption, and attacks by insurgents.   To Build a Civil Service               The quality of the civil service is central to Afghanistan's development. In 2001, the victors in Bonn quickly discovered many problems in the hollow civil service, including a lack of capacity, weak communications between Kabul and outlying provinces, and an ineffective police force. Under the Taliban, public administrators were poorly and infrequently paid; unprofessional, in that they were directed by theocrats; and marginally trained in public administration skills. They were also cowed by the mullahs who controlled important decision-making and could end their careers and even their lives very quickly. It was not surprising that post-Taliban donors to Afghanistan remarked on the lack of experience, talent, ambition, and general competence in the civil service.                In April 2002, the World Bank extended its first loan since 1979 to create the Transitional Support Strategy (TSS) and to fund its first operation, the Emergency Public Administration Project. It sought to make the civil service more attractive by combating corruption and nepotism and rewarding merit.               Coalition Forces need Afghans to perform administrative and managerial work. Long a recipient of relatively modest levels of foreign aid, Afghanistan had not developed the capacity to process billions of dollars in aid. Nonetheless, after the Taliban were scattered, the country became awash in developmental funding, which was managed by NGOs and the burgeoning Afghan civil service. The vacuum of competent public administration and the lack of effective safeguards in the distribution of aid money led to vast, sometimes wild, unaccounted-for spending. This gave the Taliban rhetorical ammunition to discredit the new government.  For this reason, foreign donors determined to develop a pool of competent administrators as a top priority in their development schemes.               An effective Afghan civil service would spur all other development sectors and increase stability. In larger cities, civil servants would issue construction permits; maintain basic infrastructure, including roads, power stations, water facilities, sanitation, and communications; and perform other civil service duties. This, in turn, would improve health, education, communications, the rule of law, and security. According to the plan, the government's credibility would be boosted if vital services improved, and citizens would become greater stakeholders in reconstruction and development issues. This would weaken the Taliban's attractiveness.             A strong local civil service is also very important in Afghanistan because the central government often has very little control outside of Kabul. The lack of properly maintained roads and weak communications gave village and regional administrators autonomy that still continues.               To Build Communications             Economists in Bonn concluded that improvements in communication would spur growth across all development sectors. Economies can grow when costs, expenses, and demand levels are communicated broadly. Civil servants in Kabul need to communicate with counterparts in the provinces for administrative purposes, and the education and health sectors depend on harnessing the internet to modernize. Increased security requires soldiers to communicate at all levels, particularly for close-support combat operations and the rule of law.             The security sector, the bedrock of counterinsurgency efforts, will improve only if soldiers can communicate at all levels, particularly in close-support combat operations. Strong communications allow villagers to contact the ANA, police forces, or ISAF operators. For this reason, the insurgents have placed a high premium on destroying radio towers and have stepped up their use of radio technology to communicate their political agenda.   In a country that is isolated, illiterate, and unstable, the side that can better communicate its agenda and coordinate civil and military operations has a distinct advantage. Radio communications are particularly important because of the extraordinarily high level of illiteracy. In some areas, the female illiteracy rate rises to 99%. Radio is the only way the government can communicate its democratization programs, advise farmers on agricultural issues, advise families on health issues, and warn of security threats. There are approximately 40 radio stations broadcasting that reach 37% of the population.               Counterinsurgency develops the communications infrastructure – transmission towers, radio stations, expertise in operation and repair, buildings, and service centers. Counterinsurgency communications specialists provide training to local and national-level broadcasters and telecommunications personnel.             Communication ability is a prerequisite for effective anti-Taliban information operations.   For example, the US Army participates in radio broadcasts. At one station in Paktika Province, a radio broadcasts programs for 13 hours a day to local villages.  The show includes human development: agriculture and personal finance, health, education, security-related issues, and religious issues.  Other examples are.  Peace Message Radio, which is USAID-funded and is listened to by 80% of radio listeners in the province of Khost.  These secular shows provide an alternative to the Taliban’s unwavering drumbeat of Islamic programming.   Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.