Giles Whittell in Washington and James Bone in New York The Nato Secretary-General assured President Obama yesterday that the alliance would stay in Afghanistan “as long as it takes to finish our job”.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Mr Obama used their first meeting to present a united front that masked intense debate within Nato and the US on how to prevail in Afghanistan, given the crisis of legitimacy that has engulfed the Government of President Karzai since last month’s fraudulent election.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, said yesterday that the result of the election would be announced by October 7.
Mr Obama has deferred a decision on new troop deployments until November at the earliest but is under pressure to provide General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, with as many as 40,000 reinforcements.
Kai Eide, the top UN official in the country, called yesterday for more troops to train the Afghan security forces but he urged European nations to supply them — and stopped short of calling for more combat troops.
The UN special representative in Kabul told the Security Council that “expanding the training, mentoring and equipping of the Afghan Army and police cannot be a US effort alone”.
UN officials had said that Mr Eide would appear at the New York session with his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, who left Afghanistan this month after clashing with his boss over how to tackle allegations of election fraud.
However, Mr Galbraith was conspicuously absent yesterday and officials said that he was on his farm in Vermont.
How many reinforcements might come from non-US Nato members will be a key factor in Mr Obama’s ability to sell a new Afghan surge to Congress and the American public if he decides to back General McChrystal’s requirements.
Mr Obama and Mr Rasmussen did not discuss specific numbers yesterday but they agreed that the joint US-Nato mission must remain to “disrupt, dismantle and destroy” al-Qaeda’s network in the region, and that fine-tuning the mission must precede further decisions on troop numbers.
“This is not an American battle, this is a Nato mission,” Mr Obama said.
Mr Rasmussen said he was convinced that the mission was “achievable and will be achieved”, and sought to give the President cover for the very public strategy debate now under way in the US by adding that it “should not be misinterpreted as lack of resolve”.
He had earlier replied to withering criticism of Nato from conservatives in Washington and General McChrystal in Kabul.
“Some look at the operation in Afghanistan and wonder if the Europeans have the will to fight,” he said. “I will not accept from anyone the argument that the Europeans and the Canadians are not paying the price for success in Afghanistan. They are.”
More than 20 countries had lost soldiers in Afghanistan, he noted. About 9,000 non-US reinforcements have arrived there in the past 18 months and the non-US contingent now accounts for 40 per cent of the total number of foreign forces in the country. “I’m not sure all of this gets as much visibility in the US as it deserves,” he said.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Mr Obama used their first meeting to present a united front that masked intense debate within Nato and the US on how to prevail in Afghanistan, given the crisis of legitimacy that has engulfed the Government of President Karzai since last month’s fraudulent election.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, said yesterday that the result of the election would be announced by October 7.
Mr Obama has deferred a decision on new troop deployments until November at the earliest but is under pressure to provide General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, with as many as 40,000 reinforcements.
Kai Eide, the top UN official in the country, called yesterday for more troops to train the Afghan security forces but he urged European nations to supply them — and stopped short of calling for more combat troops.
The UN special representative in Kabul told the Security Council that “expanding the training, mentoring and equipping of the Afghan Army and police cannot be a US effort alone”.
UN officials had said that Mr Eide would appear at the New York session with his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, who left Afghanistan this month after clashing with his boss over how to tackle allegations of election fraud.
However, Mr Galbraith was conspicuously absent yesterday and officials said that he was on his farm in Vermont.
How many reinforcements might come from non-US Nato members will be a key factor in Mr Obama’s ability to sell a new Afghan surge to Congress and the American public if he decides to back General McChrystal’s requirements.
Mr Obama and Mr Rasmussen did not discuss specific numbers yesterday but they agreed that the joint US-Nato mission must remain to “disrupt, dismantle and destroy” al-Qaeda’s network in the region, and that fine-tuning the mission must precede further decisions on troop numbers.
“This is not an American battle, this is a Nato mission,” Mr Obama said.
Mr Rasmussen said he was convinced that the mission was “achievable and will be achieved”, and sought to give the President cover for the very public strategy debate now under way in the US by adding that it “should not be misinterpreted as lack of resolve”.
He had earlier replied to withering criticism of Nato from conservatives in Washington and General McChrystal in Kabul.
“Some look at the operation in Afghanistan and wonder if the Europeans have the will to fight,” he said. “I will not accept from anyone the argument that the Europeans and the Canadians are not paying the price for success in Afghanistan. They are.”
More than 20 countries had lost soldiers in Afghanistan, he noted. About 9,000 non-US reinforcements have arrived there in the past 18 months and the non-US contingent now accounts for 40 per cent of the total number of foreign forces in the country. “I’m not sure all of this gets as much visibility in the US as it deserves,” he said.
Sunday Times
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