Rice, British discuss Afghanistan

By Paul Richter

Feb. 7, 2008 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

LONDON —

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice huddled with British officials Wednesday to sketch out new goals for the troubled allied effort in Afghanistan at a time of deepening concern over the direction of the 6-year-old conflict.

She met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband ahead of a series of top-level meetings of Western allies in the months ahead to settle on a long-term course for the mission.

Rice said the Western allies needed to strengthen their leadership, add combat troops, crack down on the opium trade and extend the authority of Afghanistan’s weak central government farther into the heartland.

“It’s bumpy and there’s a lot of maturing that the alliance is having to do to do this,” she told reporters on her plane en route to London. Afghanistan “is a very difficult place to work.”

Rice maintained that the trend in the country was toward improvement, but acknowledged serious problems, including the Taliban’s ability “to wreak havoc on the Afghan people.”

In this, her assessment was more sober than that of President Bush, who in his State of the Union address last week described a country with a surging economy, advancing education system and improving security. Bush did not mention in his address any of the problems confronting U.S. officials and their allies.

But over the last week, a series of reports by respected private groups -- including one co-chaired by retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, who also serves as a Bush administration special envoy -- have concluded that the mission faces grave dangers because of the weakness of the Afghan government and the uneven commitment of NATO nations.

Majorities in all the contributing countries, except for the United States and Britain, want their troops to pull out of Afghanistan.

Last month, a plan to install veteran British politician Paddy Ashdown as a “super envoy” to coordinate the mission was vetoed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a threat to his nation’s sovereignty. Rice said she was confident the alliance would soon find another suitable candidate, most likely a European.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, though determined not to relive the frictions experienced in 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq war, continue to struggle against pressure from U.S. officials and others for troop increases.

Last week, the German government again firmly rejected suggestions that it send its troops to confront violence in southern Afghanistan.

Canada, which has suffered a disproportionate loss of 78 soldiers from fighting in the Kandahar region of the south, has threatened to withdraw its troops unless other countries deploy more forces to help fight the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda.

There are now 43,250 troops from 40 nations in Afghanistan with the NATO-led force, including about 15,000 Americans and 7,800 Britons. An additional 14,000 U.S. troops are in the country operating separately from the alliance’s force. The Pentagon last month announced plans to add about 3,200 Marines.

Rice said alliance planners were considering whether to expand the size of the force in Afghanistan beyond what was originally envisioned.

She and Miliband arrived in Afghanistan this morning on an unannounced visit.

The secretary of State said needs included more people to train Afghan security forces, more effective action against drug cartels, and more roads to extend the influence of the central government.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, meanwhile, left Washington on Wednesday night for a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Lithuania, where he will press allies to contribute additional forces to the Afghan mission, particularly in the violent south.

Gates told a Senate hearing Wednesday that he feared problems in Afghanistan were causing NATO to splinter, a point he plans to emphasize in Lithuania and in a major address over the weekend in Munich, Germany.

“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 people’s security, and others who are not,” Gates said.

He also said that despite the U.S. commitment to send the 3,200 Marines to the south, he was losing hope for any new European troop contributions there.

“I’ve been working this problem pretty steadfastly for many months at this point, and I would say that I am not particularly optimistic,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said he anticipated that Britain and Poland would announce slight increases during the gathering in Lithuania, but that such moves would not be adequate. Still, he said, the extra troops would be helpful.

Bush is to meet with visiting NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Feb. 29.

paul.richter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Peter Spiegel in Washington contributed to this report.

Begin text of infobox

A troubled mission

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Western allies in Afghanistan need stronger leadership and more troops and to crack down on the opium trade.

Deployments

Major troop deployments to Afghanistan for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which according to the alliance has 43,250 troops.

United States: ...15,000 troops (mainly in the east; plus 14,000 troops operating separately from NATO force)

Britain:... 7,800 (mainly south)

Germany:... 3,210 (north)

Italy: ... 2,880 (west and capital, Kabul)

Canada: ... 2,500 (south)

Netherlands: ... 1,650 (south)

France: ... 1,515 (Kabul)

Poland:... 1,100 (mobile)

Australia:... 1,070 (south)

Deaths