Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Good Luck in Afghanistan, Mr President And a Happy New Year

Huntington Post

DECEMBER 30, 2009


Afghan Army Rife With Corruption, Incompetence, U.S. Military Report Says

On the "Rachel Maddow Show" Tuesday night, NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel discussed a new Pentagon report that paints a sobering picture of the state of Afghan's security forces. The report, intended for military commanders and not for public distribution, concludes that Afghanistan's National Army is rife with corruption and incompetence, and that it will take far more than a year to rehabilitate the country's security forces.

"The main mission of the United States Army, all the different forces that are there, is to train the Afghan security forces so that American forces can ultimately leave," Engel said. "This report says that this priority is facing serious, serious problems, and the military knows it."

Engel goes on to say that the report would seem to call into question Obama's plan to begin "dialing back" the surge by the summer of 2011, given that it looks to be extremely unlikely that the Afghan security forces will "up and running and in place" by then.

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