WASHINGTON — The Taliban-led insurgency will direct most of its intense combat this year against Afghan security forces rather than U.S. and NATO troops, the top U.S. military official said.
Given the “steady and gradual decline” in the 66,000-strong U.S. force projected for this year, the Afghan military will bear a greater share of the attacks, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany on Saturday.
Asked about the coming fighting season, Dempsey referred to statements from Taliban leaders vowing that 2013 would be an “intense year.”
“Here’s what’s different - this is the first summer in which the Afghan Security Forces are literally in the lead,” Dempsey said. “That intensity will be directed principally toward them” and potentially “change the internal discourse” as local security casualties increase, he said.
“This will be the first summer we’ll see how it changes,” he said. “We’ll be there with them. What really hangs in the balance now is the confidence level of the Afghan Security Forces and its people, so that’s why we’ve got to sustain our presence for the next two years.”
Dempsey is traveling to Afghanistan for a change-of-command ceremony today that will see U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford replace Marine Gen. John Allen as the top North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander in Afghanistan. Allen is President Barack Obama’s nominee to serve as supremeallied commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Europe.
It’s unlikely to be a smooth glide to the exit, and Dunford acknowledged that during his Senate confirmation hearing.
“I recognize that much work needs to be done and the challenges will be many,” he said. “But with continued focus and commitment, I believe our goals are achievable.”
He holds a pair of master’s degrees, one in government from Georgetown University and another in international relations from Tufts University.
Dunford has a reputation as being low-key and unflappable, even under rocket fire. He was nicknamed “Fighting Joe” after leading a Marine regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq in a style that not only was thoughtful and decisive but also carried little regard for personal risk. He led firefights from an unarmored humvee, and during one rocket-propelled-grenade attack he ran back and forth between his tanks to communicate with his commanders.
His rise through various leadership roles was so quick that he basically skipped the rank of major general. His last job before Afghanistan was deputy commandant of the Marine Corps.
Obama said after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this month that “coalition forces will move to a support role this spring” as Afghans take the lead. Obama has pledged to remove most of the U.S. forces by the end of 2014.
Dempsey on Saturday called the Afghan troops “ capable fighters.” As of the end of September, only one Afghan brigade out of 23 was considered capable of operating independently, even with the help of advisers, according to a Pentagon report to Congress in December.
Asked about his impression of U.S.-Pakistan military relations and that country’s willingness to attack Taliban havens along its northwestern border with Afghanistan, Dempsey said he has seen “encouraging” signs of cooperation.
The Pakistanis “finally believe we are not just going to shut out the lights and leave at the end of 2014,” Dempsey said. “I think they see a viable partnership between them, us and the Afghans. Cooperation at the tactical level has improved, and I think it is migrating to the operational level” between U.S. and Pakistani commanders.
Cooperation has extended beyond border posts to greater coordination between “higher level commanders,” he said. “We are sensing a greater recognition on Pakistan’s part that the terrorism threat” poses as much of a peril to that country as it does to the U.S., he said.
Dempsey said he’d never recommend withdrawing all U.S. troops after 2014, an option White House officials mentioned last month in a briefing with reporters.
He said a presidential announcement on the size, scope and pace of the U.S. drawdown this year must come soon given it’s already February.
Dempsey said discussions between the U.S. and Afghan governments over the agreement that will spell out legal immunity for U.S. troops, a key to a final pact, are “going pretty well.”
Asked about the prospects of political reconciliation with the Taliban, Dempsey said the group is discussing its next move.
“Their behavior appears to be migrating toward becoming a political factor” and “less an internal security threat,” he said. While that’s “encouraging,” the Taliban haven’t made a major shift at this point, he said.
“There will be irreconcilable parts of the Taliban that are just so ideologically skewed that the idea of any concession is just anathema to them,” while other factions will be “willing to become part of the political landscape, and not part of the security landscape,” he said.
SEQUESTRATION
Meanwhile, Dempsey said the automatic budget cuts of about $45 billion the Pentagon faces this fiscal year will fall on readiness of U.S. forces more than on major weapons programs.
“Some of the stuff in these big procurement accounts are already locked in for this calendar year and you just can’t touch them,” Dempsey said. “That’s why readiness is going to be so dramatically affected this year.”
The automatic reductions in defense and domestic programs, known as sequestration, will take effect March 1 unless Congress and President Barack Obama reach agreement on an alternative plan to reduce federal deficits. Defense programs would be cut by about $45 billion in the seven months remaining in this fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and about $500 billion over a decade.
“We’re just going to have to sweep up every bit of money that is not otherwise locked down,” said Dempsey, who is scheduled to testify to Congress on the cuts this week. “Most of the money you can get at, on such a short timeline, happens to reside in the readiness accounts.”
Readiness includes training for U.S. forces and operations and maintenance funds for war-fighting equipment.
If sequestration stays in effect for a decade, Dempsey said, about one-third of the cuts would be achieved by reducing the size of U.S. forces.
“The other two-thirds will come out of modernization, compensation at some level and readiness,” and major weapons programs would also be affected, he said.
In other developments, a government official said a roadside bomb struck a car in southern Afghanistan, killing six civilians.
The spokesman for the governor of southern Helmand province said Saturday that two women and four men were killed in the blast in the Nad Ali district.
Spokesman Ahmad Zeerak said those killed were all “innocent civilians and from one family.” He said they were driving home from a nearby village in their own car when the explosion occurred about 7 p.m. Friday.
Information for this article was contributed by Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News; by Jay Price and Matt Schofield of McClatchy Newspapers; and by The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/10/2013