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Karzai calls for Afghan security handover by 2014
BBC NEWS
July 20, 2010: Speaking to representatives from 70 states in Afghanistan's largest aid meeting for three decades, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has closed a major international conference in Kabul with a call for his country to control its own security by 2014. He said the conference had agreed a strategic commitment to good governance and development in Afghanistan. The talks ended with an agreement to channel 50% of aid - up from 20% - through the Afghan government. Mr Karzai had lobbied for more.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said withdrawing British troops by 2014 was a "realistic" goal. "We're training the Afghan army month by month and it's actually on target," he said in Washington ahead of talks with US President Barack Obama.
Analysts say that because insurgents are still in charge of much of Afghanistan, Mr Karzai's security targets are very ambitious. But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who co-hosted the conference, said there had never before been such a concrete vision of Afghanistan's future.
Opening the conference, Mr Karzai said Afghanistan faced a "vicious common enemy that violates every Islamic and international norm to break our unity of effort. "They would like nothing better than to create uncertainty, to force our publics to doubt our state power and our determination." He said Afghan forces would seek to take the lead on security throughout the country by 2014. A board would review which of the 34 provinces were ready for Afghan forces to step up from 2011 onwards.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen emphasized that the transition to Afghan-led security would be based on "conditions, not calendars". "Our mission will end when - but only when - the Afghans are able to maintain security on their own," he said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US would accelerate the process of turning over security to Afghanistan's police and military from July 2011. She emphasized this was not the end of US involvement, adding the US military commitment to Afghanistan would be matched by an unprecedented civilian surge for economic development. Acknowledging that Mr. Karzai's administration had taken steps to fight corruption, Mrs. Clinton said still more needed to be done. "There are no shortcuts to fighting corruption and improving governance. On this front, both the Afghan people and the people of the international community expect results," she said. She also warned the Afghan government against trying to make peace with the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militant groups the US considers irreconcilable. The Taliban have insisted they will fight until all foreign forces leave.
To allow the withdrawal of some of the 150,000 NATO-led troops from Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai proposed boosting the national army to 170,000 soldiers, and the police by 134,000 officers by October 2011. Up to 36,000 former militants would be reintegrated into society. Some analysts suggest this would leave an Afghan force too small and too poorly qualified to guarantee security.
NATO has a clear marking system to grade the capabilities of military units from one to four, where four indicates an ability to operate independently of international support. Professor Thomas Johnson, an adviser to the US government on Afghanistan, told the BBC almost no Afghan National Army units were currently graded at level four.
Critics have also questioned the proposal to raise the proportion of aid that goes directly to the Afghan government, particularly after recent revelations of large villas in Dubai being funded by corrupt payments siphoned from aid budgets.
Security forces were out in force in the Afghan capital ahead of the conference. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt reported on his blog that a plane carrying him and Ban Ki-moon to the conference had to be diverted to Bagram air base outside the capital, after rocket fire prevented them from landing at Kabul airport early on Tuesday.
Afghanistan has received $36bn (£24bn) in foreign aid - about $1,200 a head - since 2001, but only a small amount of that spending has had any impact, says BBC international development correspondent David Loyn. According to the World Bank, much has gone on security for a "second civil service" of highly-paid foreign consultants operating outside the Afghan state, and very little has been used to build Afghanistan's ability to govern itself.
Although it is not a donor conference, new pledges of increased aid have been made in the run-up, with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague saying his country planned to increase its aid to Afghanistan by £200m, or 40%. Mr Hague said the extra money, intended for education and job creation projects, would ultimately support the military effort.
