Gordon O'Connor issues a Friedman.

Gordon O'Connor's mouth is moving again. As usual, it would appear that O'Connor is simply forwarding an agenda which has no basis in fact. He's claiming that the Afghan National Army will be ready to take over operations currently being conducted by Canadian Forces by this Christmas.

By the time the famed Van Doos are ready to come home next winter, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says he believes the Canadian army will be able to cede most of the fighting around Kandahar to Afghan troops.

Based on...

O'Connor set down this marker in yesterday's interview: "We're hoping by the end of ... the so-called Van Doo rotation -- we'll have about 3,000 Afghan army operating within the Kandahar province As we train more and more of the Afghan army to carry out their operations, we will continue to withdraw, put more emphasis on training and at some stage basically be in reserve."

Interesting metric. It doesn't address several issues in the Afghan National Army, not the least of which is a completely unacceptable desertion rate.

Notwithstanding, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that the ANA has not only come a long way from the "zero capability" start of a few years ago, it is perhaps the only thing that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has done which can be even remotely described as "right and effective".

There is, however, a lot wrong with the ANA which would make O'Connor's statement little more than an attempt to blow sunshine up the butts of Canadians. Suggesting that the ANA will be prepared to take on the job of securing Afghanistan based on such artificial markers as a particular strength is a tendency which has become common, based on incorrect assumptions and has been roundly criticized in the halls of NATO headquarters.

O'Connor appears to be ignoring the fact that the Bonn conference on Afghan stability called for a national army with a strength of 70,000 regular troops. As of April 2007, after over four years of recruiting, the ANA strength stood at a tenuous 35,000. While 3,000 new recruits are being brought in every month, attrition in the form of desertions and expiring enlistments keeps almost all existing units well below authorized strength. Of the 41 kandaks (600 man battalions), all are under strength.

No matter what training is provided by western forces in Afghanistan the fact remains that the ANA is primarily an infantry force. While the claim is made that each ANA brigade has a combat support kandak and a combat service support kandak, those functions exist on paper only with all such support (artillery, engineering, communications, medical and logistics) coming from NATO and US coalition forces. The exception is the Quick Reaction Force based in the capital of Kabul which, instead of the typical 3 infantry kandaks, is organized around a commando kandak, a mechanized infantry kandak and an armoured kandak.

Equipment is also a problem although, after a long series of complaints by the Afghans, some measures have been taken to improve basic gear. Afghan soldiers were picking the small arms off dead and captured Taliban fighters, believing them to be better than the ANA issued firearms. Recently the US has started to provide M16A2 rifles, up-armoured HUMVs and light armoured tracked vehicles. The armoured units are equipped with obsolete Soviet T-55 and T-62 tanks, most of which are unserviceable. Canada is currently negotiating with NATO to turn over at least some of the Canadian army's Leopard I main battle tanks to the Afghans but even if that eventually happened, it would be a long time before the Afghans could put them into service.

Personal protection equipment is also lacking. One of the more serious morale problems that developed in the ANA was over the expectation that they would fight without body armour, kevlar helmets or blast glasses while their coalition mentors were fully kitted. Some of that is just being rectified now, but it will be well into 2008 before the existing troops of the ANA are kitted-out to a sufficient level. Until the Afghans can be made to feel that their personal protection is as important as the western troops training them, there will continue to be a problem.

A report by General (ret'd) Barry McCaffrey of the US Military Academy after a visit to Afghanistan described the ANA as perhaps the most disciplined Afghan army in history, but anemic. He recommended an infusion of at least US$1.2 billion annually for at least 10 years. He describes

"a well equipped, disciplined, multi-ethnic, literate, and trained Afghan National Army is our ticket to be fully out of country in the year 2020."

That's a far cry from the picture being painted by O'Connor. That is particularly so since none of the conditions specified by McCaffrey exist at this point or are likely to exist for at least 30 years - if the ANA was left alone to develop.

McCaffrey was also quick to point out that ANA armed engineering battalions and a medical corps are essential if western forces ever want to leave with the confidence that they have done the right thing.

Another issue surrounding the ANA is the lack of a self-sustaining operational budget. This has led to shortages of ammunition and a haphazard system of supply. Pay often goes overlooked and the lack of a national banking system means that when troops do get paid they cannot get money back to their families. This has led to a wholly unacceptable desertion rate which, when coupled with the poor re-enlistment rate (35% compared to the desired 50%), means that even if recruiting levels are maintained, soldiers with skills are walking out the door.

Pay levels are abysmally low by western standards, although sufficient in a country where the average annual income is $800. While they would have been considered good before the Taliban was ousted, the current rate of US$120 per month for a trained soldier falls short of the Taliban offer of $300 per month. The ANA will draft its soldiers away from home whereas the Taliban will pay three times the amount to have a recruit remain in the local area.

Training, something upon which O'Connor is putting a great deal of faith, is, at best, third rate, not to mention that various different elements of the army are being trained by different nations with differing standards and techniques. That might be something that could be overcome if the body of recruits had a reasonable level of education, however, upwards of 80 percent of Afghan recruits are illiterate and the duration of formal training is ridiculously short. Mentoring is handled by a wide array of countries including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Romania, Bulgaria and Mongolia.

Translation was, until recently, a serious problem. Recruits who spoke only Pashtu were faced with interpretation offered only in Dari. Regardless, those Pashtu-speaking recruits eventually entered the ANA service as qualified soldiers.

Recruit training is seven weeks followed by six weeks of advanced individual training. After that, an enlisted Afghani becomes a member of a kandak. That's it. By comparison a Canadian soldier undergoes almost a year of training before joining a battalion as a basic private.

NCOs are drawn from recruit training and sent on a UK-led NCO course. They have no prior experience and are selected on the basis of aptitude demonstrated during recruit training. What that means is that NCOs have no more experience in a battalion than any other recruit from that intake.

Officers are another problem. The ANA has a four-year graduate program modeled on West Point which is now in its second year. It will be two more years before this program produces junior lieutenants ready to join the ANA as platoon commanders. It may be the shining light of the ANA officer development program but it won't produce a single officer by Christmas and it will be ten years before it produces field-grade officers. The class of 2009, which started with 120 cadets (180 short of full capacity) has been reduced to 91 and they have two more years to go.

The French are running continuation training for currently serving Afghan officers, most of whom came from the previous militias. The program has been roundly criticized for producing inconsistent results and officers who are intent on controlling all aspects of the company without delegating.

The British are running an officer candidate school for university graduates. Because of the overwhelming demand for officers, the British established a Sandhurst-like program. In truth, it is nothing like the British OCS at Sandurst where cadets undergo 200 weeks of training. In Afghanistan OCS candidates receive a total of 23 weeks of training.

Because officers, NCOs and soldiers are trained by such a variety of nations they are brought together into a consolidation training system run by the Canadian Forces known as the Collective Lanes program. Intended as a validation system for training it exercises platoon, company and, in theory, battalion tactics and is then supposed to certify a unit for operations - in two weeks. In any western army, with more extensively trained troops and a more ingrained military culture, with consistent leadership and long standing academic institutions, such a program would be a minimum of six weeks in duration and specific mission training would take up at least three more months.

It could be argued that, in World War II for example, many western countries, including the US, UK and Canada, accelerated training during a period of rapid expansion. However, all of those countries possessed peacetime services and a cadre of both regular and reserve forces which were able to inculcate recruits with a long-standing military culture. Afghanistan enjoys no such luxury and is being expected to take over complex military operations with less than adequate training, substandard equipment and no combat support or combat service support organization.

One other issue which has not been properly addressed in the ANA is the existing division between officers and NCOs. Thirty years of turmoil and cultural differences have created a situation in which officers view their corporals and sergeants as little more than basic privates and then employ them that way. Instead of delegating responsibility Afghan officers tend to control everything in a unit. The NCOs, lacking both a culture of leadership and experience do not know how to exercise their authority on subordinates nor do they possess the confidence to demand that officers relinquish those leadership roles more appropriate to non-commissioned officers.

All of this is to be accelerated in an attempt to double the size of the ANA by next year. The 70,000 figure, however, is arbitrary. It is a George W. Bush decree that once the ANA has achieved a strength of 70,000 it will be considered capable of standing on its own. In fact, Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak stated that in order for the ANA to be able to operate in the tumultuous military environment of Afghanistan, more than twice that number would be required.

"The minimum number we can survive on within this complex, strategic environment ... [is] 150,000 to 200,000, which should also be well-trained and equipped, with mobility and firepower and logistical and training institutions."

There is also a conflicting view as to what will happen as the ANA grows larger. O'Connor is suggesting that as the ANA stands-to, Canadian troops will stand-down with a view to departing.

The Afghan view is that NATO countries are nearing the limits of their willingness to accept many more casualties on what they had been led to believe was a peacekeeping mission. Wardak is intent on reaching the 70,000 strong benchmark and take over the bulk of infantry operations so that NATO armies will stay in Afghanistan.

The truth is, the ANA has no sustainable inner strength. Its real backbone is the institutional infrastructure provided by US and NATO forces and the combat capability of those armies amongst which the ANA can operate. Remove the front line forces, the combat support and the combat service support of the US and NATO too soon and the ANA will most likely collapse. It is generally accepted that the ANA needs a minimum of 10 years of development before it is even close to being able to operate on its own.

O'Connor's issuing of a Friedman Unit has more to do with the current unpopularity of the Afghanistan mission amongst Canadians generally and Quebecers specifically than it does with any form of reality. But then, O'Connor's trademark has been to engage in fantasy. All of the information above is available in the public domain should he ever decide to task one of his staff to actually dig it up. Beyond that, I'm quite certain someone in the Department of National Defence is fully aware of it.

How much longer do we have to endure this incompetent twit?