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THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010


Holder, in Kabul, meets with Karzai


Talks coincide with rising U.S. concern over graft in Afghanistan


by Ernesto Londoño JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES American and Afghan troops carry a wounded comrade to a medevac helicopter near Kandahar on Tuesday. Afghan-Pakistani ties getting closer afghanistan from A1


tary,” Lt. Gen. William B. Cald- well IV, head of the NATO training command in Afghani- stan, said in an e-mail. But Af- ghanistan, he said, “is a sovereign nation and can make bilateral agreements with other nations to provide training.” The United States has spent $27 billion to train and equip Af- ghan security forces since 2002, and President Obama’s war strat- egy calls for doubling the strength of both the army and po- lice force there by October 2011 to facilitate the gradual departure of U.S. troops. Gen. David H. Petraeus, con-


firmed Wednesday as the new U.S. and NATO war commander, said this week that the United States wants to “forge a part- nership or further the partner- ship that has been developing be- tween Afghanistan and Paki- stan.” In addition to taking military action against Taliban sanctuaries inside its borders, Pe- traeus said, it is “essential” that Pakistan be involved “in some sort of reconciliation agreement” with the insurgents. U.S. officials are generally pleased with the rapprochement between Afghanistan and Paki- stan, but the rapid progress of the talks has given some an un- easy feeling that events are mov- ing outside U.S. control. Karzai told the Obama administration about his first meeting with Paki- stani intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha when he visited Washington in May, but “he didn’t say what they talked about, what the Pakistanis of- fered. He just dangled” the infor- mation, one U.S. official said.


That session, and at least one follow-up meeting among Karzai, Pasha and the Pakistani army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, included discussion of Pakistan- facilitated talks with Taliban leaders, although the two govern- ments differed on whether the subject was raised with a Paki- stan offer or an Afghan request. Both governments denied sub- sequent reports that Karzai had met face to face with Pakistan- based insurgent leader Sirajud- din Haqqani.


Hedging their bets


Pakistan and Afghanistan have long held each other at arm’s length. The border between them is disputed, and Afghans resent Pakistan’s support for the Taliban government during the 1990s and its tolerance of insurgent sanctuaries. But as they have as- sessed coalition prospects in the war, both governments appear to have turned to each other as a way of hedging their bets against a possible U.S. withdrawal. While building Afghanistan’s weak army is a key component of U.S. strategy, more than 300 Af- ghan soldiers are currently being trained under bilateral agree- ments in other countries, includ- ing Turkey and India, Pakistan’s traditional adversary. Pakistan has been pushing for months for a training deal, and Spanta said that a “limited” number of offi- cers would be part of the new agreement. Details were still un- der discussion, but a senior Paki- stani government official said the program was expected to begin “soon.”


Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington and an


advocate of a Pakistani training program, said the plan could ex- pedite joint operations between the two militaries and reduce suspicions about Pakistan within the Afghan army. “This is a major move,” Nawaz


said. “It will have a powerful sig- naling effect in both countries.” Fears of Pakistani military in- fluence persist among Afghan ethnic minorities and some in Karzai’s government, including one official who compared the training initiative to the Soviet education of Afghan officers in the 1960s and 1970s that he said was “the start of all evil in Af- ghanistan.” “Pakistanis never trust Af- ghans. And Afghans never trust Pakistanis,” according to a senior Afghan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to pro- tect his job. “But because the cur- rent situation is getting worse and worse, Karzai has to say okay to the Pakistanis and shake hands.”


‘We have doubts’ Another Afghan official, citing


Karzai’s recent firing of two top security officials who were highly critical of Pakistan, said the Af- ghan leader may be moving too far, too fast. The firings, the offi- cial said, were a “triumph for the ISI,” Pakistan’s Inter-Services In- telligence directorate, which has had a history of backing the Tali- ban and other militant groups in Afghanistan. Afghan skeptics noted that Pa- kistan still refuses Afghanistan’s demand to extradite Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was captured in Karachi in a joint Pakistani-U.S. raid early this year, or to arrest


other senior leaders with whom they believe Pakistan retains ties. “If they were able to arrest Mul- lah Baradar . . . why haven’t they arrested [Afghan Taliban leader] Mullah Omar? Or . . . Haqqani? This is something we have doubts about,” one senior Afghan official said. Baradar, who reportedly had


engaged in talks with the Karzai government, “was interested and more willing to negotiate,” the of- ficial said. “He was tired of fight- ing. Pakistan wants to use the Taliban as a pressure element. They don’t want the Taliban to be in direct contact with the Afghan government.” Some U.S. officials expressed similar wariness about Pakistan’s intentions. “What the Pakistanis and the Taliban want,” one said, “is a cleaning of the house,” in- cluding replacement of the Af- ghan officer corps, currently dominated by ethnic Tajiks whom Pakistan sees as hostile to its interests. But other officials in all three countries rejected that analysis and pointed to a broader thaw in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations over the past year. Pakistani scholarships have been accepted by a number of Afghan university students, and Pakistan is training Afghan civilian officials, Spanta said. “We have seen a paradigm shift in the relationship,” said Moham- mad Sadiq, Pakistan’s ambassa- dor to Afghanistan. “And of course, both sides are benefiting from it.”


brulliardk@washpost.com deyoungk@washpost.com


DeYoung reported from Washington.


kabul — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and oth- er senior Afghan officials in Ka- bul on Wednesday amid rising concerns in Washington over the toll corruption is taking on the U.S.-led war effort. Holder’s visit comes at a sensi- tive time. U.S. lawmakers this week vowed to block U.S. funds for nonmilitary and humanitari- an aid in Afghanistan in response to reports suggesting that Afghan officials are doing little to curb widespread corruption and in some instances have hindered U.S. efforts to bring prominent Afghan officials to justice. On Tuesday, Afghanistan’s at-


torney general disputed that his office’s anti-corruption efforts are systematically stymied by politi- cal meddling from Karzai’s office. Mohammed Ishaq Aloko said the only official who has tried to ex- ert undue pressure on his office is U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eiken- berry. He said Eikenberry sug- gested he could lose his job if he didn’t pursue a fraud case. In brief remarks after meetings with Karzai, Aloko and Justice Minister Habibullah Ghaleb, Holder made no mention of the controversies. Instead, he lauded the Afghan government’s recent efforts to fight corruption. “We have watched with inter- est from Washington the positive steps President Karzai and his cabinet have taken to help im- prove governance and enforce the rule of law,” Holder said. “We applaud President Karzai for his


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AFGHANISTAN FGHAN ST GHAN STAN Jalalabad 0 MILES THE WASHINGTON POST


actions and encourage him to continue his efforts, as much work remains to be done.” The Washington Post reported


Living soldier considered for Medal of Honor medal from A1


Administration officials declined to comment on the nomination. The nomination comes after


several years of complaints from lawmakers, military officers and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that the Pentagon had be- come so cautious that only troops whose bravery resulted in death were being considered for the Medal of Honor. Gates “finds it impossible to believe that there is no one who has performed a val- orous act deserving of the Medal of Honor who has lived to tell about it,” said Pentagon spokes- man Geoff Morrell, who declined to comment on specific nomina- tions. George W. Bush similarly la- mented during the latter days of his second term as president that he had never had an opportunity to present the award to a living recipient. The presentation of a Medal of


Honor to a living soldier would be an important moment for President Obama, whose rela- tionship with the military has been complicated in recent months by controversy over the administration’s Afghan war de- liberations in the fall and the re- cent firing of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal for remarks that be- littled senior Obama administra- tion officials. The honor would also mark an


important moment for a military that is exhausted after nine years of repeated deployments and in- creasingly worried that the rest of the country has tuned out the wars and their service. “There has been a certain emotion that is


almost like martyrdom within the military,” said Richard Kohn, a military historian at the Univer- sity of North Carolina. “It’s a feel- ing that they are sacrificing a great deal while the rest of the country is going about its busi- ness.”


Obama presented a posthu- mous Medal of Honor in Septem- ber to the family of Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti for his heroism in ex- posing himself to enemy fire to retrieve a wounded comrade. But honoring a living soldier with the nation’s highest award for valor would give the president an op- portunity to ease some of the military’s feelings of estrange- ment from the rest of U.S. society. Such a ceremony also would al- low the president to honor mili- tary heroism and virtue, senti- ments that Republicans say Oba- ma does not celebrate frequently enough. The award has the potential to produce something increasingly rare in today’s wars: a recogniz- able hero in uniform. “The Af- ghan and Iraq wars really haven’t produced heroes with a face,” said Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University who served in the Bush White House. In World War II, Medal of Honor winners such as Audie Murphy and John Basilone came to represent the ideals of the U.S. fighting force. Some senior Bush administra-


tion officials worried that the lack of visible heroes made it tougher to convey the importance of the Iraq and Afghan wars to the American people, Feaver said. Early efforts by the Pentagon to weave heroic narratives out of the lives of soldiers such as former


NFL football player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman collapsed when early military accounts of battlefield valor proved to be un- true. He


was posthumously


awarded the Silver Star. Six posthumous Medals of


Honor have been awarded for heroism in the Iraq and Afghan wars. The honorees exposed themselves to enemy fire to call for reinforcements or pull wounded colleagues to safety. Three of the six jumped on gre- nades, sacrificing their lives to save their fellow troops. In response to the paucity of


Medals of Honor awarded since 2001, the House Armed Services Committee directed the Defense Department to conduct a formal review of its award policy. Penta- gon officials insist that the cri- teria for awarding the Medal of Honor hasn’t changed since Viet- nam.


But the nature of battle has


changed, said Eileen M. Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman. Preci- sion bombs and lethal attack heli- copters typically give U.S. troops a huge firepower advantage over lightly armed insurgents on the battlefield. To compensate, fight- ers in Afghanistan and Iraq have relied heavily on roadside bomb attacks and ambushes that lasted for only a few minutes. Previous Medal of Honor recipients have typically displayed extreme brav- ery in battles that last for hours. There are at least three Medal


of Honor nominations, including the one at the White House, working through the system. The three nominees served in sparse- ly populated valleys in eastern Af- ghanistan that U.S. troops have


abandoned in recent years. The valleys, which are within 30 miles of each other, are dom- inated by treacherous, mountain- ous terrain that frequently al- lowed enemy fighters to move within close range of U.S. forces before launching their attack. The remote nature of the valleys meant that troops often had to fight for an hour before attack helicopters arrived on the scene to drive back the enemy. Senior military officials de- scribed the fighting in those val- leys as some of the toughest since the Koreanand Vietnam wars. “It is a very, very challenging fight,” said one military official. “It is sustained lengthy ground com- bat.” The relatively large number of potential Medal of Honor nomi- nations emerging from this re- mote area of Afghanistan also re- flected a war strategy that asked U.S. commanders to do too much with too few resources, military analysts said. Frequently troops were overextended in hostile ter- rain. “We should be stationing our troops in places where they won’t be earning the Medal of Honor because the population and ter- rain favor us and we have quick access to air support,” said John Nagl, one of the authors of the Army’s counterinsurgency doc- trine and president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank. jaffeg@washpost.com whitlockc@washpost.com


Staff writer Anne E. Kornblut and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.


Monday that U.S. law enforce- ment officials who are partnering with the Afghan attorney gener- al’s anti-corruption task force have grown frustrated by repeat- ed instances in which political pressure has derailed investiga- tions targeting senior govern- ment officials and other promi- nent Afghans. Those allegations and a report about billions of dollars, includ- ing aid money, being siphoned out of the country by Afghan offi- cials prompted Rep. Nita M. Lo- wey (D-N.Y.) to announce that she will block nonessential funding for Afghanistan.


“I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confi- dence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pock- ets of corrupt Afghan govern- ment officials, drug lords and ter- rorists,” Lowey, who chairs an Ap- propriations subcommittee that oversees State Department and foreign operations, said in a statement Monday. “Rampant corruption fosters the conditions that threaten the security of our troops and the stability of the Af- ghan government and economy.” Holder, in contrast, spoke opti- mistically about partnership ini- tiatives between Afghan and American law enforcement offi- cials in counternarcotics and an- ti-corruption investigations. “The support and commitment of the United States to improve the lives of the Afghan people and establishing the rule of law will really outlast any military pres- ence in this country,” he said. He did not take reporters’ questions. Earlier Wednesday, insurgents


detonated a car bomb outside the gate of an air base that serves as a NATO military hub in eastern Af- ghanistan and engaged in a gun battle with guards in the latest unsuccessful attempt by mili- tants to penetrate a military com- pound.


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At least eight suspected mil- itants were slain in the attack on Jalalabad air base, Afghan offi- cials said. The Taliban asserted responsibility for the operation, the Associated Press reported. After the initial blast, NATO of-


ficials said, insurgents attacked the base’s guards with rocket- propelled grenades and small arms, wounding two. NATO officials said the air


base’s perimeter was not breached. “Afghan and coalition forces are always prepared to deal with attacks on this facility,” Maj. Mary Constantino, a NATO spokeswoman, said in a state- ment. “The response this morn- ing was immediate.” The attack was the third such


attempted breach of a NATO mili- tary installation in recent weeks. A similar assault at Bagram air base May 19 resulted in the death of a U.S. contractor. Three days later, insurgents using rockets and mortars launched a coordi- nated attack on Kandahar air base, the largest military installa- tion in southern Afghanistan. Also on Wednesday, a NATO soldier was fatally shot in eastern Afghanistan. More than 100 NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month, which has been the deadliest for the U.S.-led international force in the nearly nine-year-old war. londonoe@washpost.com


Afghanistan war deaths


Total number of U.S. military deaths since 2001 and names of the U.S. troops killed recently in the Afghanistan war, as announced by the Pentagon:


1,136 Fatalities


In


hostile actions:


In


non-hostile actions:


849 287


Tallies may be incomplete because of lags in reporting.


K Staff Sgt. Brandon M. Silk, 25, of Orono, Maine; 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st Combat Avi- ation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), based at Fort Campbell, Ky. Killed June 21 in Kandahar prov- ince in a helicopter accident.


K Pfc. Russell E. Madden, 29, of Day- ton, Ky.; 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, based in Schweinfurt, Germany. Killed June 23 in Charkh dis- trict, Logar province.


K Staff Sgt. Edwardo Loredo, 34, of Houston; 2nd Battalion, 508th Para- chute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Killed June 24 in Jelawur.


K Pfc. Robert K.L. Repkie, 20, of Knox- ville, Tenn.; 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Died June 24 at Forward Operating Base Farah of noncombat injuries.


K Cpl. Daane A. Deboer, 24, of Luding- ton, Mich.; 1st Combat Engineer Bat- talion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed June 25 in Hel- mand province.


K Spec. Jared C. Plunk, 27, of Stillwa- ter, Okla.


K Spec. Blair D. Thompson, 19, of Rome, N.Y. The two soldiers were assigned to 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Air- borne Division (Air Assault), based at Fort Campbell, Ky. They were killed June 25 in Konar province.


K Sgt. Joseph D. Caskey, 24, of Pitts- burgh; 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regi- ment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed June 26 in Hel- mand province.


K Spec. David A. Holmes, 34, Tennille, Ga.; 810th Engineer Company, Geor- gia Army National Guard, based in Swainsboro. Killed June 26 in Sayed Abad.


All troops were killed in action in Afghanistan unless otherwise indicated.


Total fatalities include two civilian employees of the Defense Department. They also include service members killed in other locations involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Pakistan; Tajikistan; Turkey; Uzbekistan; and Yemen.


A full list of casualties is available at www.washingtonpost.com/nation.


SOURCE: Defense Department’s www defenselink.mil/news


. THE WASHINGTON POST


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