General Declares Election a Success

Early Saturday, after U.S. military officers had settled behind their laptops in the cavernous operations center here, the computer maps and charts on the walls told a generally hopeful story for Afghanistan’s first presidential election.

The maps showed scattered rocket and grenade explosions across the country, and a smattering of attacks on voting sites. But they did not show what Maj. Gen. Eric Olson feared most -- a spectacular attack that would undermine an election crucial not only to Afghanistan but to the United States.

Olson, the operations commander for U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, sat at the center of the auditorium, studying the wall maps. He was convinced that a massive security operation mounted by Afghan police and the U.S.-trained Afghan army, backed by American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, was preempting any devastating attack by the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Olson nodded as an officer reported, “No apparent coordinated efforts to disrupt the election.” He seemed relieved as the officer added, “It was pretty much futile for them last night.”

A lot was riding Saturday on the shoulders of Olson, 54, a tall, rangy commander from Amityville, N.Y., with a ruddy face and close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. The Bush administration has trumpeted a successful Afghan election as proof of progress in its global campaign against terrorism.

It was Olson’s job to carry out a sophisticated, nationwide security strategy that called for Afghan forces to take up positions at polling centers. American aircraft and U.S. and NATO ground forces were poised to respond if the Afghans needed help.

Although the American military remains by far the strongest guarantor of security in Afghanistan, it is U.S. policy to turn more security duties over to the newly created Afghan police and army. The election has been a major test of that strategy.

Throughout the day Saturday, Olson monitored the security station, still braced for possible attacks on polling centers, voters or election workers. He was rankled by the rain and swirling dust that had canceled a helicopter trip to visit voting centers in the Pakistan border area, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are active.

By Saturday afternoon, Olson was declaring the election a success, despite the bad weather, a dispute over the ink used to mark the thumbs of those who had voted and sporadic attacks on voting stations.

“They’ve missed their opportunity to stop the election,” he said of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But he quickly added: “They have not missed their opportunity to grab the headlines.”

With some voting in some areas possibly continuing into today, Olson said, a single, effective attack could undermine the successes of the voting. “A spectacular attack could still steal the headlines. So the headlines, instead of reading, ‘Ten Million Afghans Turn Out to Vote Despite Bad Weather and Threat of Violence,’ would read instead, ‘Afghan Vote Marred by Violent Attack.’ ”