In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

and reliable an ally as one could hope for—he said he would try to help, but judicial matters were not handled by his ministry.”¹⁰

Needless to say, the Italian reforms did not earn Afghanistan’s justice system high marks. The World Bank ranked Afghanistan in the top 2 percent of most corrupt countries worldwide every year between 2002 and 2006, with little difference between the late Taliban years.¹¹ And Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization based in Berlin that monitored corruption, ranked Afghanistan almost at the bottom—172 out of 179—of its corruption index. Only a few countries, such as Haiti, Iraq, and Somalia, were more corrupt than Afghanistan.¹² In fact, the World Bank judged that Afghanistan’s justice system had worsened over the period of Italy’s tenure. By 2007, for example, Afghanistan ranked in the top 99.5 percent of most ineffective justice systems worldwide. It compared poorly even with other countries in the region, such as Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.¹³

There was little improvement in other areas, including the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants. The United States, the UN, and the Afghan government, with Japanese funding, collected a significant number of heavy weapons. But Afghanistan was still awash in weapons and ammunition, and there was an increase in the number of insurgent and other illegal groups. Warlords such as Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad retained large militia forces. Even Ismail Khan, who was brought to Kabul by President Karzai to serve as minister of water and energy, still commanded a formidable militia force in western Afghanistan. “The disarmament program was not successful,” remarked NSC staffer Daoud Yaqub; it only “went after low-hanging fruit.” The more powerful leaders refused to disband their militias. Since Coalition forces offered rewards for disbanding militias, commanders frequently demobilized “ghost soldiers” who never existed. This was one of many monetary inducements that proved counterproductive. An Afghan could turn in an AK-47 and get as much as $200 from the government. Some entrepreneurial Afghans realized that this was “profitable since AK-47s could be purchased in Pakistan for less than half that price.”¹⁴

NATO’s Expansion

With the lead-nation approach stumbling, it seemed NATO would be given a second chance to play a more serious part. The United States had occasionally discussed an increased NATO role in Afghanistan in the early years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime. On a trip to Gardez in 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had told senior U.S. military officials in Afghanistan, including General Eikenberry, that he was tired of being blamed for preventing NATO from expanding its mission in Afghanistan. Now he wondered whether it was worth putting NATO to the test.¹⁵

In 2003, General James Jones, who had recently become NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, was at an ambassadors’ lunch at the British Embassy in Brussels. He had prepared extensively to answer questions on a range of NATO issues, especially Bosnia and Kosovo. But he was surprised to hear one question repeatedly from the group: “How do we get NATO to Afghanistan?” After the meeting, he went back to his staff and began to put together an operational plan for Afghanistan. In August 2003, NATO officially took command of the International Security Assistance Force. It was based in Kabul, with its chain of command extending directly to NATO headquarters in Brunssum, Netherlands, and Mons, Belgium. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the NATO mission beyond Kabul.¹⁶ On October 24, 2003, the German Bundestag voted to send German troops to the quiet, northern province of Kunduz. A stronghold of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan during the late 1990s, the region was remarkably diverse. Tajiks, Uzbeks, Pashtuns, and Hazaras lived in relative peace, farming wheat, rice, and millet. About 230 additional soldiers were deployed by NATO, marking the first time that ISAF soldiers operated outside of Kabul.¹⁷

General Jones presented a detailed operational plan to NATO defense ministers in February 2004. The plan that was eventually developed, illustrated in Figure 14.1, called for a series of phased expansions beginning in Kabul and then working counterclockwise to the north, west, south, and the east. Over the next eight months, NATO completed Stage 1 of its expansion to the north. On June 28, 2004, NATO proclaimed the creation of four new Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in northern Afghanistan: in Mazar-e-Sharif, Meymaneh, Feyzabad, and Baghlan. Stage 1 was completed in October 2004. NATO’s takeover had begun.¹⁸

With the Iraq insurgency worsening, senior U.S. policymakers decided to hand off more responsibility to NATO in Afghanistan, thus freeing up U.S. forces to go to Iraq. In 2005, during a series of video teleconferences with senior U.S. military officials, including Lieutenant General David Barno, Secretary Rumsfeld argued that the United States needed to “reduce the amount of money it was spending in Afghanistan and the number of troops it had deployed there.” With losses mounting in Iraq, Rumsfeld said these numbers were “not sustainable.” At the time, the United States was spending between $600 million and $1 billion per month in Afghanistan and had roughly six battalions of infantry soldiers stationed there. NATO was a perfect organization to fill in the gaps left by redirected U.S. troops. NATO was looking for a twenty-first-century mission, and Afghanistan would suit the bill.²⁰ Other senior military officials supported the secretary.

FIGURE 14.1 Stages of NATO Expansion, 2007¹⁹

One of the strongest advocates for NATO’s increased involvement was John Abizaid, who had been head of U.S. Central Command since July 7, 2003. Abizaid was born in Coleville, California, to a Lebanese-American father and an American mother. He learned Arabic and earned the nickname “the mad Arab.” His faculty adviser at Harvard University, where he received a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies, praised his intellect, stating that his 100-page paper on Saudi Arabia’s defense “was absolutely the best seminar paper I ever got in my 30-plus years at Harvard.”²¹ Abizaid had been tapped for great responsibility early in his career. In 1983, during a briefing at Fort Knox, Army Vice Chief of Staff General Max Thurman turned to his colleagues and exclaimed: “Let me tell you, there is this young captain who’s going to be one of the Army’s future leaders.” Thurman then meticulously went through the captain’s past record and said he would be a general unless he screwed up somewhere along the line. “His name is John Abizaid. Watch out for him.”²²

With support from influential Americans such as Rumsfeld and Abizaid, Stage 2 of NATO’s expansion followed in September 2005, when NATO expanded to the west under the regional command of Italy.²³ It established Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Badghis, Farah, Ghor, and Herat Provinces. Abizaid remarked in late 2005: “It makes sense that as NATO forces go in…we could drop some of the U.S. requirements somewhat.”²⁴ While NATO countries began to ramp up activities in Afghanistan, the United States continued to discuss downsizing. In December 2005, for example, Rumsfeld signed orders to reduce American troop levels in Afghanistan. Under the plan, the number of U.S. forces would decrease from 19,000 in December to 16,000 by the spring of 2006. The fourth brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, would send a battalion task force of 1,300 soldiers instead of the entire unit of more than 4,000 troops.²⁵

For some NATO countries, Afghanistan presented a chance to rejuvenate the alliance that had been torn apart by the war in Iraq. On January 22, 2003, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder had issued a joint declaration opposing the Bush administration in Iraq.²⁶ The date commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the Franco-German Treaty negotiated by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer as a bulwark against American hegemony. During his 2002 reelection campaign, Schroder ran on a political platform that emphasized German opposition to the U.S. war against Iraq.²⁷ When the United States and Britain pushed for a second United Nations Security Council resolution in March 2003 that would effectively authorize military action, Berlin and Paris were opposed. As Chirac explained on French television, his government would oppose the resolution “quelles que soient les circonstances” (whatever the circumstances).²⁸ Both countries also refused to offer significant political and military support to the reconstruction effort after major combat ended, even as U.S. casualties began to mount.²⁹

There was nearly universal consensus among member countries that this was one of the most serious schisms between Europe and the United States since the formation of NATO. “The road to Iraqi disarmament has produced the gravest crisis within the Atlantic Alliance since its creation five decades ago,” concluded former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.³⁰ U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell remarked: “Who’s breaking up the alliance?…The alliance is breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities.”³¹ Ivo Daalder, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington and former director for European affairs in the Clinton administration’s National Security Council, argued that one consequence of the war in Iraq “is the effective end of Atlanticism—American and European foreign policies no longer center around the transatlantic alliance.”³² Nevertheless, there was broad consensus among NATO members that Afghanistan was a