CJ Chivers has another great piece on the issues with embedded training elements in the Kunar-Nuristan area:
Many Afghan units, especially in the army, have shown signs of competence at basic missions and skills. But this joint patrol late last year in Nuristan Province, and dozens of others from 2007 to this spring, along with interviews with trainers and the senior officers who supervise them, showed problems on the Afghan and American sides alike.
American training units have been short-staffed and overstretched. Essential equipment has at times proved to be in poor condition or mismatched. Accountability for weapons and munitions has been broadly criticized.
He ought to know: Chivers lead the team that broke the scandal about the masseur selling dud ammunition to the ANA thanks to major failures in the Army acquisitions process. But that story, about ETT/PMT/OMLT units still missing funding, training, and equipment, is simply beyond pathetic. The embedded training mission is what will eventually win the counterinsurgency—or at least make it Afghanistan’s war much more than America’s war. That is a crucial step toward getting the country able to support itself, and it is badly failing. Let’s hope General McChrystal can reverse some of that.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor.