Pentagon mulling increased Afghanistan command role

WASHINGTON – Pentagon officials are quietly considering a significant change in the war command in Afghanistan to extend U.S. control of forces into the country’s volatile south. The idea is partly linked to an expectation of a fresh infusion of U.S. combat troops in the south next year.

Taliban resistance has stiffened in the south since NATO took command there in mid-2006, and some in the Bush administration believe the fight against the Taliban could be strengthened if the U.S., whose span of control is now limited to eastern Afghanistan, were also in charge in part or all of the south.

The internal discussions about expanding the U.S. command role were described in recent Associated Press interviews with several senior defense officials who have direct knowledge but were not authorized to talk about it publicly. All said they thought it unlikely that a decision would be made anytime soon.

Giving the U.S. more control in the south would address one problem cited by U.S. officials: the NATO allies’ practice of rotating commanders every nine months – and their fighting units every six months, in some cases. The 101st Airborne, by comparison, is in eastern Afghanistan on a 15-month deployment. In the U.S. view, nine-month commands are too short to maximize effectiveness.

U.S. combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq are to shrink to 12 months starting in August.

The idea of changing the command structure has not yet developed into a proposal to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The internal discussions reflect concern at a lack of continuity among NATO forces and a view that, in the long run, NATO may be better off focusing mainly on areas of Afghanistan, like the north and west, where there is less fighting but a great need for noncombat aid.

Changing the command structure to give a U.S. general more control in the south would, in effect, mark a partial “re-Americanization” of the combat mission. That could be politically controversial, given U.S. interests in maintaining close ties with NATO in fighting terrorism.

NATO now has overall responsibility for the mission in Afghanistan, and that would not change if a U.S. general were to be put in charge in the southern sector. But it would give the Americans a greater degree of control.

The defense officials doubted a decision would be made before fall and possibly not until a new administration takes office in 2009. Two officials said there appears to be no high-level advocate for making such a change in the near term, although there is growing concern that while higher U.S. troop levels in Iraq have helped reduce violence there, the trends in Afghanistan are less positive.

In the meantime, as an interim step, there are plans to beef up the NATO command headquarters in southern Afghanistan with additional NATO and U.S. staff, one senior official said.

There are now about 34,000 US troops in Afghanistan – the most at any time during the war, which began in October 2001. They include 3,400 Marines who arrived this month as reinforcements for combat missions in the south and to help train Afghan security forces.