Karzai Tells Gates Handover Will Take 20 Years

By Steve Hynd

With General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry on the Hill today to give lawmakers testimony on Obama's Afghan surge, there's a definite gap opening between what the Obama administration says should happen and what Afghan president Karzai is saying. While McChrystal has been keen to stress Obama's 2011 "beginning of the end" date, while not being drawn at all on when the "end of the end" might come - Karzai says 2011 is way too optimistic and that the end is a couple of decades away.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says it could be 20 years before his government is able to pay for security forces strong enough to counter the threat of insurgency.

During a news conference in Kabul with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Mr. Karzai repeated his hope that Afghan forces will be able to take the lead for security in five years. 

Gates admitted, in the same news conference, that a U.S. withdrawal could take "several years" to complete.

 McChrystal, talking about that 2011 date, told lawmakers it was an attempt to mitigate Afghan perceptions of an "occupation".

Afghans “want a partnership, they want assurance from us,” McChrystal said, “but they don’t want us to stay forever. They don’t want foreigners in their country. So, in many ways, the guarantee that we the coalition, will support them but not stay too long is actually a positive as well.” Of course, he adds, his command will have to “prove” its value to the Afghan people “prove that with our actions not just with our words.”

Karzai knows that US and allied forces are guarantors of his own continued survival, he has a vested interest in them being around as long as possible. But with Afghan officials saying NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan and the Afghan Red Cresent saying another nine civilians have been killed and up to 2,000 families made refugees during the current small-scale offensive by US and Afghan forces in Helmand province, the value of more US troops to ordinary Afghan people may be rather more unclear.

Meanwhile, the truth is that McChrystal and Eikenberry's mission on the Hill is far more about placating skeptical U.S. lawmakers and voters than the Afghan people.