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Eight years have passed since the start of ISAF/NATO mission in Afghanistan . Yet, there is no clear understanding about the prospects of war with the Taliban. The situation is becoming more complicated in the region and the war is expanding with every passing day. To discuss the issue, we have invited Deputy Commander (DCOM) of ISAF in Afghanistan , Mr. Jim Dutton for an interview with Sub Bakhair Afghanistan (Good Morning Afghanistan).

Interviewer: Mr. DCOM General, thank you very much for giving us this time. Let me start by asking you about the future of war on terror and defeating the Taliban. It's been eight years, eight difficult years full of challenges but we still see no clear sign of success against the Taliban.

DCOM: Well, I think there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about 2009 and beyond. Because there are a number of things coming together this year we can be optimistic about. We can go through those in more details in a moment if you like. But I think this situation needs to be seen in a much wider context than just defeating the Taliban.

If we portray this as a conflict between Western forces and the Taliban, it is a false analogy of what the real situation is. It's a false assessment of what the real situation is. That's not a conflict that we would either like to fight or win. So I think that there is much more to it than that in terms of reconstructing the governance and the infrastructure of this country and providing the security space to allow this reconstruction to take place and I think I prefer to characterize the situation like this.

Interviewer: What are the challenges facing the NATO allies in Afghanistan ? In terms of the Afghan mission, there is a kind of reluctance on the part of some NATO allies to stay here for longer and to commit more troops to the Afghan fight. Is it not a big issue for you and a source of main concern because if it was characterized and seen as an American war obviously the challenges would be greater?

DCOM: We are on the ground here of course; we use what we are given with the constraints on it that exist. And these constraints are well known so they can easily work around. This is a huge coalition, 42 nations; it is NATO plus 14 others, some of them contributing with a very small number of troops, some like the United States and some others in proportionate number with a very large number of troops. But nevertheless, it is the political solitary and the message that they send to both the country and the region about the desire of this coalition and the world community in general to assist Afghanistan in its reconstruction. That's really important. Now you know as the number of troops and commitment, none of them, no country that is contributing troops to ISAF wants to stay here forever. We all want to leave as soon as it is possible to leave. That is the important thing.

Interviewer: But if some countries withdraw earlier and do it in a certain way, it doesn't send a good picture. And kinds of put NATO in a weaker position, like with for example the position of Canada .

DCOM: That is a political not a military issue. I see no sign at the moment of any of those 42 nations withdrawing precipitately. For a variety of reasons, political and military, some countries will bear in hole on their numbers and perhaps; on the commitment they have to fighting versus training. But the political commitment is very steadfast. The Canadians have to clear that they will have to make another decision in 2011 and the Dutch in 2010. Now that decision at the moment makes it look as if they will certainly be changing the way in which they conduct this mission. They are certainly not withdrawing completely. But you know, a week in politics, somebody said, is a long time and it could change.

Interviewer: You talked about NATO being a big institution. Obviously the other issue is the coordination. There hasn't been good coordination among (sometimes) NATO allies and then with the Afghan government. So, the lack of proper coordination is one issue that has been there forever. Are there any new plans to address this issue?

DCOM: I mean coordination between NATO and the Afghan government is a different question from coordination within NATO. Coordination within NATO and the wider alliance, the 42 nation's alliance, I would say it is very good. NATO spent 60 years honing its skills and bringing together a fairly disparate group of nations to operate together militarily when they wish to. There's always going to be differences with different national contingents but in general it works extremely well.

Coordination with the Afghan government is and not just with the Afghan government but also with the United Nations, the UNAMA and the rest of the International community and NGOs is very important because that is what ultimately is going to be what leads to success in this endeavor, in his country. Because as I said earlier, all we do is provide the security space to allow the others to do their job of improving government structures and reconstructing the country after so many years of war.

The connections with the government and with UNAMA and the other international organizations in my view, in the just over 6 months I have spent here, is quite good and getting better. That is not to say it couldn't be better still, it could always be better still. But it is always going to be a relationship with some tension, evitable that tension will exist but it doesn't mean it can not work.

Interviewer: Do you think that the Afghan government has been a good partner in the whole operation and its efforts have been genuine?

DCOM: Well I am the deputy commander of the military force in this country. It's not for me to judge the performance of the Afghan Government or the relationship with the rest of us. Frankly, my opinion on this is irrelevant anyway because we are where we are, the Afghan government is what it is, ISAF is what it is, and the International community is what it is.

What I am keen to do is to get the best out of this relationship whatever the relationship is. There is certainly from what I have seen a huge enthusiasm from the government as a whole and from individual ministers to make what we call a comprehensive approach, which is the whole of government approach, not just security, development and reconstruction work.

And you know at every level in this HQ from the Commander down to pretty low staff levels there is every day, meetings, talks, coordination going on, visits with every level of the Afghan government. And this is just here in Kabul . Let's look out into the regions and into the districts, where the PRT and the military associated with them are all fully integrated with Provincial Governors, District Governors, chiefs of Police, heads of NDS, Army Commanders.

Interviewer: But without an efficient government, NATO cannot succeed. That's obvious and the Afghan government has not been efficient. It's been a fully corrupted government and it is taken over for most parts by warlords, mafia, drugs mafias, economic mafia. There have been deals with the Taliban in a way that undermine the overall strategy. Don't you think there needs to be a lot of work done to improve performances of the government; can we expect any bigger success? Because you invest in the government, at the end of the day?

DCOM: Everything we are doing in the country needs to be better. The judgment on the government is yours, not mine but it is undeniable that this government could be more efficient. The governmental structures here in the capital which seems to me to be quite good in many ways are not yet fully connected to the Provinces and the regions.

There's a lot of work going on to improve that and there is a whole department the IDOG that works on that with increasing success. After 30 years of devastating war and conflict in this country, it is not surprising that there is a fairly low base to start from. But I wouldn't in anyway say that it is an impossible task. Clearly the world community believes that this can be achieved otherwise we would not be putting so many forces, such a big alliance and such big money in this project.

Interviewer: One of the things the Afghan government has been hypocritical about is the Taliban and the way the government has been treating the Taliban. There has been no decisiveness in handling, and in fighting the Taliban on the part of the government. Secondly there have been so many cases that the government has made concessions to the Taliban, and there have been some talks always going on behind the scene. There have been different Taliban elements installed within different governmental sections that could be dangerous in the future. We have got some Taliban that join the government but when they talk about the Taliban they are more respectful about Mullah Omar in the way they talk than Mister Karzai. The element of compromise and making peace with the Taliban is something but being hypocritical and making concessions to them is another issue. Is it not undermining the overall mission?

DCOM: Well again I have to keep repeating that you are interviewing the wrong man if those are the sort of questions you want to ask. You need go and talk to a government spokesperson, or a government minister or the President.

Interviewer: But it is related to you. If somebody else's work is related to you, and it can undermine your mission, it should somehow be addressed by your side.

DCOM: Well the ISAF has a mandate in this country which is the one we pursue. And it doesn't include running the country in the way you're implying we might. We provide security space for others to improve government structure and to improve government. There is democratic election about to take place in this country for the President. People will share their approval or otherwise of the various candidates, the outgoing president and the other 43 candidates for the presidency. They will share this through the ballot box. There appears to be an enthusiasm from that, from the level of voter registration, from polling around the country. So that is the process that improves the government and not ISAF.

Interviewer: Does ISAF have any kind of a strategy in dealing with the Taliban and negotiating with them?

DCOM: ISAF has no policy on negotiation with the Taliban; it is a political issue entirely.

Interviewer: One issue which is very concerning is the information battle. The Afghan government and the NATO allies in the ISAF have a lot of resources but we see them failing in the information battle. I would like to make a reference to the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's remarks who said that we are failing in the information battle in Afghanistan , do you agree with that?

DCOM: I do agree with that, certainly but I might just enlarge on what I think she meant by that and what I might mean by agreeing the point and that is. The Insurgents are very skilled at getting out messages quickly; they are very often inaccurate and deliberately wrong. Their exaggerations, the distortions, they are blaming instead of themselves for incident in which people die; they are blaming everybody else they can.

Regrettably, they tend not to be held to account for that by the Media. ISAF and the International Community try to be first with the truth. But the important word in that is the truth. And of course the truth is not always evident immediately after complex security situations where people have died.

If we, on the international side, on the ISAF side, put out a report in good faith that subsequently turns out to be wrong we are held to account in sometimes quite a brutal way by the International and by extend the National media as well. That doesn't happen for the Insurgents. We are doing our best to be first with the truth but we will never compete with an organization that is prepared to put out lies especially if they are not held to account for their lies

Interviewer: But that is not the only issue, the other issues are the distribution of bibles in Farsi and Pashto, the imprisonment of 12 years old child in Guantanamo Bay , using of dogs and forces to intimidate people in the provinces, plus civilian causalities. Obviously these kinds of issues are something that serve the propaganda campaign of the Taliban and they know how good to use it…

DCOM: The truth. I can absolutely categorically tell you that ISAF doesn't distribute bibles in Dari and Pashto or in English, apart from perhaps among its soldiers. So you know again it is easy to make the charge. You very often see the INS when they get frustrated by their occasional inability to blame ISAF for events, going through what is obviously as series of SOPs, Standard Operational Procedure.

First of all they say we created civilian causalities. When we show we didn't, they move to the next one, which is perhaps “well a soldier tried to flush a copy of the Koran down the toilets”. And if that one doesn't work, they will move to the next level, because they know it will be printed by the press because it makes a good story, and it makes a headline.

Interviewer: A lot of cases where the Taliban commit atrocities, if they are put out in the right way it can serve your purpose. Why don't you do that, we don't see a lot of that?

DCOM: Well we do but we also rely on the independent media to report as well on the atrocities of the Insurgents. There was a case, it must have been at the beginning of the year, during the Voter Registration process in the East when a suicide bomber in a four wheel drive vehicle going through a chicane of barriers detonated his car and killed 14 children. I think that was in Khowst Province . That was on camera, video camera. We provided that film to news organizations and I don't think a single one of them ran it. I had to go deep into Google even to find that video which we had provided. Nobody ran it because that was the Insurgents that had created the deaths. Imagine how long it would have run for if accidentally International forces had killed 14 school children walking home.

Interviewer: One of the reasons is that the Taliban basically intimidate and if they want they would kill them. There is no doubt about that. But that's why there are some issues that need to be addressed by you. The information strategy should be implemented by ISAF but we don't see that. It is true that the media has a responsibility but then Taliban don't rely on media either, and they have their information strategy but you don't have the same to counter that.

DCOM: We don't have the same thing but we do have an information strategy, we have an organization that puts out posters, films, so we do have a strategy.

Interviewer: The Mosques are one of the best medium s that is available; they are being mainly controlled by the Government. But when you listen to what they say, they in so many ways serve more the Taliban agenda than the Government. But we see that this is not kind of addressed, nobody cares but this is one of the mediums which leaves the best impact, the most effective impact on the Afghan audience. Are you aware of that, do you do anything about that?

DCOM: I am aware of it; I don't think it is the ISAF business to tell the Government what the Mosques in Afghanistan should be saying…

Interviewer: Even if they were preaching against the ISAF and NATO forces and encouraging people to revolt against the NATO forces.

DCOM: Well if we were aware of that, we would make the government aware of that and expect it to do something about it.

Interviewer: About the Civilian Causalities, what the Taliban do is using the same tactics to trap the ISAF and NATO forces. Have you figured out another tactic to counter that human shield issue that they are using?

DCOM: Well, can you suggest one?

Interviewer: Well if you are able to come up with a military tactic, I am not a military person, but as a military tactic, anything that you can counter. Because, if they keep using civilians as human shields and if you and your forces…

DCOM: The policy is quite clear on the use of civilians as shields by the insurgents. If a soldier knows by responding to enemy fire, he is likely to kill civilians or it is even possible that he might kill civilians, because he doesn't know what is behind the walls of a Qalaa or a compound, he takes no action if he can extract himself without taking action. That is a clear policy of the Commander's tactical directive that has been out for some months now. He will only respond to enemy fire in known circumstances, if he has no choice in order to extract himself in that situation. So that is our tactic. Not to use military force of any form against insurgents if we believe we will or could create civilian casualties unless there is no other alternative for that individual command on the ground to extract himself or save the lives of those he is responsible for.

Interviewer: Coming to the Pakistan issue, problems on the Pakistani side of the border has been a big challenge for the NATO mission inside Afghanistan . Do you think that the latest developments are in favor of this mission and that the Pakistani army is taking the fight to the Taliban?

DCOM: Again, not my businesses at all but since you ask me, I have a view on it. I think what the Pakistani army is now doing with public and political support in the Swat area, and the North West Frontier Province and the FATA is a good thing. They are for the first time I think for many years, recognizing that they have a serious internal insurgency threat, a threat to the existence of their own state and their own way of life and they are taking action against this. They recognize that this is shared against insurgents with the Afghans supported by International Forces certainly on the border area to prevent freedom of cross border movement of insurgents from sanctuaries on one side to the over and vice versa. So all in all, I think what is going on in Pakistan is good news in terms of demonstrating solidarity to defeat the common insurgency.

Interviewer: Are you hopeful that the elections will be held in Afghanistan in a peaceful environment and what are the preparations you are making for that?

DCOM: Well of course, I hope they will be held in a peaceful environment. We have been making preparation for over a year now for these elections. We determined what extra forces we might need and asked for them last summer. And bind large they are being provided and will shortly be arriving in fact in order to get acclimatized and used to the area they are going to operate in.

Of course, responsibility for security for the electoral process lies with the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior. And we are working closely with them on a daily basis. In fact all day, everyday to work out plans for the security for the whole electoral process, not just for the 20 th but also for the movement of material, the collection of material afterwards, and that process is going extremely well.

Interviewer: Additional troops coming, are they on their way?

DCOM: Yes they are coming in a month time, in less than a month time in some case. They are coming at different time, it depends which country is providing. And they will stay until 2 or 3 weeks after the elections. If of course there is an electoral run off which could be on the first of October should that be required then they will stay beyond that date as well so they'll see through the whole electoral process. But I suggest that the responsibility for security is with the ANSF and the concept of the three rings of security with the Police providing the close security of the polling station backed up by the Army at the distance and then with the International Forces providing third ring of support and of course providing capabilities that Afghan forces don't yet have like aerial surveillance, helicopter quick reaction forces

Interviewer: Last question, where do you see Afghanistan in the next five years?

DCOM: Well I hope to see it continuing to improve. I think 2009 is a critical year because a lot of things are happening. There is a big build up of International Forces, especially American Forces in the South which will improve the security situation there. There is further development of the very excellent Army that this country is now building up. There's a good plan for the development of the Police forces and there is no reason why the police force will not be as good as the Army, this is a period of time we need to pay more attention, more concentration on that. International effort has been rejuvenated to some extend by a better mandate and more funding from New York for UNAMA, the Pakistan situation as we discussed as good news and of course for the second time in 5 years, Afghan people are going to choose the President democratically this year, a process which seems to bring quite a lot of enthusiasm and of course the provincial councils. And next year they are going to do district and community councils which will again all be good news.

So if we can continue with this steady progress, we need to make much more progress in security in the South to create more security space, provide freedom of movement for people to be able to move between what is well held and quite peaceful areas, so that they can go back to their business and so on. But I see no reason why that shouldn't gradually continue to improve; there is no silver bullet solution to this, I think defeating an insurgency, you don't have to be great student to military history to know that defeating an insurgency is a long hard grind over quite a long period of time. But once you begin to show process it becomes a self generating thing. Certainly I see no desire from the Afghan people to be ruled by the Taliban. All the polling shows the enthusiasm for the election process so I think we can be optimistic about 2009 and the next five years.

End….