US report says Afghanistan conflict rapidly worsening

Thu Oct 9, 12:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Concern over Afghanistan's downward spiral rose another notch Thursday, amid reports of a draft US intelligence assessment detailing its slide into corruption, drugs and insurgent violence.

The New York Times said the draft National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) casts doubts on the ability of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to stem the resurgence of the Taliban.

A spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence would not acknowledge the existence of an NIE on Afghanistan, but other officials said the assessement had been expected to be completed soon.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she expected to be briefed soon on the classified assessment, which represents the consensus view of 16 US intelligence agencies.

"We have asked for the intelligence community to take a look, it's important that it do so," Rice told reporters during a meeting in Washington with Maris Riekstins, Latvia's foreign minister.

"I would just cite that Afghanistan is a difficult place. It has made progress since 2001. We have all talked about new circumstances that have arisen there, and we are doing a review to see what more we can do," she added.

A US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the downbeat "tone and direction" of the intelligence assessment was not unexpected.

"We heard about this for several weeks, and (were) not surprised by the tone it conveyed -- that the situation in Afghanistan was getting worse, certainly not better, and that a lot more attention was needed to try to remedy what is going on," said the official.

The White House has already launched an urgent strategy review led by Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, a deputy national security adviser and coordinator of the US war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Defense Department, State Department, Treasury and other key government agencies are taking part in the review, US officials have said.

Rice said the State Department was reviewing its operations, including those involving the Provincial Reconstruction Teams where civilian experts travel with military protection to remote parts of the country to help rebuild it.

"We are looking also at what we can do to be more supportive of the ministries that President (Hamid) Karzai has put up," she added.

Lute will lead a team of specialists to Afghanistan to review the situation, the Times said, citing a senior administration official.

General David McKiernan, the top US commander in Afghanistan, has asked for four more combat brigades and support forces -- as many as 20,000 more US troops -- to beef up the 33,000-strong US force battling an intensifying insurgency.

So far, the administration has promised one combat brigade by February, citing constraints imposed by the war in Iraq.

Military commanders have warned that a political solution is needed, but that corruption and a flourishing narcotics trade are undermining public support for the central government.

The draft intelligence estimate concludes that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the Karzai government and by increasingly sophisticated insurgent attacks from safe havens in Pakistan, the Times said.

The report says heroin trade by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy, it said.

Militant networks operating from Pakistan, meanwhile, have coalesced into a more complex insurgency capable of more sophisticated military operations, US military officials have said.

The Washington Post said the NIE describes a Pakistan-based extremist network with three elements: Pakistani extremists allied with Kashmiri militants; Afghan Taliban; and traditional tribal groups in western Pakistan that assist the other groups.

"Al-Qaeda, composed largely of Arabs, and increasingly, Uzbeks, Chechens and other Central Asians, is described as sitting atop the structure, providing money and training to the others in exchange for sanctuary," the newspaper said.