After five years of fitful progress and setbacks, NATO now has a chance to make a fresh, and perhaps final, go at defeating the Taliban, said Gen. David Richards, the commanders of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"If we fail to deliver on the promises that they feel have been made to them, quite understandably, for another year -- and a lot of it is perception rather than reality, I have to say, but perceptions matter day to day -- then I think the position next year in 2007 will be no better than it was in the summer of this year," Richards told Pentagon reporters in a videoteleconference.

"And to be frank, if we can't (begin to change things) this winter, then I'm going to be saying to all the other people involved in this, 'What more can we do for you? You know, we're giving you these opportunities. There are still risks, but start, please, delivering,' because at some point the military can do no more because we don't offer solutions to all the other complex issues that are confronting the country. We are just part of the solution, and we're doing our bit," he said.

The coalition squandered its initial victory over the Taliban in 2001 and 2002 by not sustaining security and effectively rebuilding, Richards said.

"You know, at the end of 2001, the Taliban were defeated, weren't they? You know, wonderful work by a lot of people, mainly American and Afghan, and it looked all pretty hunky-dory," he said. "This is not just my view but that of many others ... with the benefit of hindsight, you know, we thought it was all done, success was there and we could adopt a sort of peacetime approach to it and didn't treat it as aggressively as a problem ... that we should have done."

In the months after the Taliban was toppled, there was no enduring security presence to maintain control and the international reconstruction effort did not yield the results the Afghan people believed had been promised, he said.

"And the Taliban exploited it, and they exploited this sense of frustration among the people who just didn't see all the good things that have been talked about, started to come about."

Richards thinks there is an opportunity now to break that cycle. NATO forces dealt a strong blow to Taliban forces in fierce fights this summer, which gave NATO "psychological transcendence" over the Taliban, which had reasserted itself in southern Afghanistan.

"There is no doubt anymore that NATO can fight when it's required to do so, and it inflicted the biggest single defeat on the Taliban that had occurred since 2001," said Richards. "And it forced them to revert to asymmetric tactics -- suicide bombing and that sort of thing. But having done that, we are now in a position where we've got to build on it, because fighting for its own sake in a counter-insurgency will get us nowhere over time."

Richards said the six months is not a firm deadline for fixing Afghanistan, but instead a window to show the Afghan people that real progress is possible if they stick with the 37-member NATO coalition force, their own security forces and President Hamid Karzai's still-struggling government.

If improvements are not made, the Taliban will be able to win back a place with the people, he warned.

"Not all of them -- and I have been misquoted recently -- are going to fall to the Taliban or start being persuaded by the propaganda, but increasing numbers will say, 'Listen, we want you to succeed, but we can't wait forever. I've got children here who need security, who need to be fed, who we don't want to have the risk of being caught up in fighting. And we're happy to have fighting as long as we see progress, but if there's fighting and no progress, then at some stage we'd rather have the rotten future offered by the Taliban than the hopeful future that we all wish you to deliver, but I'm sorry, you're taking a bit longer in the delivery.'"

Richards is commanding a coordinated national security and reconstruction campaign using NATO's 31,000 troops and Afghan security forces in discrete areas around the country.

"That will lead to this impression we need to create in the minds of the average Afghan that the government is working, the international community is delivering on its promises and that NATO ISAF, in its new guise, is able to deliver the required security," he said. "And one reason we're doing it in bite-size chunks is we don't want to move on to the next stage until we've got an enduring security presence in the first stage."

NATO this month took over all day-to-day security operations in Afghanistan from U.S. forces. About 11,500 U.S. troops and 20,000 troops from other nations now fall under Richard's command. Another 10,000 U.S. troops are operating as a separate counter-terrorist force in Afghanistan, targeting al-Qaida leaders.

Richards said he still needs an additional battalion, about 1,000 more soldiers, to serve as a theater reserve force.

"I am unabashed about saying that I do need that reserve force, because at the moment if there's a problem or an opportunity, I find it sometimes hard to mitigate, on the one hand, and exploit, on the other. And just one battalion group properly equipped would be a priceless asset. We're getting by. We've stabilized the situation here this fall, but we could have done even better with that asset," he said.

"We need to sustain it, and that means more boots staying on the ground, whether it's Afghan Army or Afghan Police or our own forces," he said. "I don't want to get into moralizing, but we really do owe these people something, not just out of self-interest, because we can't afford a return to the Taliban, but they've helped fight our wars for us, and we now need to deliver our side of that bargain," Richards said.

earlier related report
A Deal In North Waziristan
Pakistan's recent controversial ceasefire with militants in the turbulent North Waziristan border region was authorized by fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The Australian reported Oct. 16 that officials in Islamabad, speaking on condition of anonymity, have confirmed the situation.

The confirmation of the direct involvement of Mullah Omar and his senior supporters in the secret Sept. 5 Waziristan accord implies that the arrangement could be used to help negotiate an agreement to bring the Taliban into an arrangement with the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

While original media reports portrayed the agreement as simply a regional arrangement with North Waziristan, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his senior officials are believed to be in hiding, it has now emerged that the ceasefire arrangement included top Taliban leaders on a "most wanted" list in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani media reports that following implementation of the ceasefire, the Taliban fugitives were then pardoned by the Pakistani government and now live more or less openly in North Waziristan.

In defense of the arrangement, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said NATO coalition commanders not only approved the Waziristan accords, but encouraged him to conclude a similar accord with the Taliban across a broader front.

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