Logo

BARAKI BARAK, Afghanistan — It was a golden opportunity for the Afghan police to make themselves look good and the Taliban look bad.
Earlier this month, Taliban fighters had set fire to an electrical generator donated by the U.S. military to a nearby village. So U.S. Army Capt. Paul Shepard suggested that Afghan police send over a patrol. "It's a chance to show the people you are still concerned, while the Taliban aren't going to do anything for them," he said.

The Afghan commander, Col. Anamullah, who like many other Afghans goes by just one name, apologetically replied that he didn't have any officers to spare. Shepard pressed again, arguing that even sending just a few men was worth the trouble.

After an awkward moment, one of the local politicians in the room, Yasin Lodin, spoke up: "You should just tell him," he advised Anamullah. "It is not safe to send the police there by themselves."

No patrol was sent, illustrating the difficulties the U.S. military is having as it tries to produce a competent and fully independent Afghan army and police force. After nearly eight years of war, Afghanistan's security forces are still plagued by corruption, high levels of absenteeism, a lack of proper training and an excessive dependence on their American counterparts, U.S. commanders and troops in the field say.

The security forces' persistent flaws are one of the biggest considerations facing President Obama as he evaluates potentially major changes to the U.S. war strategy here.

Other recent complications include the resurgence of the Taliban insurgency and this summer's disputed presidential elections, but the performance of the Afghan army has a direct impact on how long the U.S. military must remain here. In describing his long-term exit strategy for Afghanistan, Obama has spoken of the need to produce a large, professional Afghan force that will take control so that U.S. troops can then depart — much as is happening in Iraq.

U.S. troops in Baraki Barak, a farming district 45 miles south of Kabul, say they are making some progress in training the Afghans. But they also describe challenges that are, in some ways, greater than those faced in Iraq. They tell of being abandoned by Afghan units while out on patrol, and of Afghan police and soldiers who steal cellphones and other items. Shepard, the Army captain, says that at any given time, 25% of the Afghan police unit in his district is either on leave or AWOL.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has proposed nearly doubling the size of the Afghan army to 240,000 troops as part of a broad set of recommendations he has recently made to Obama, including the deployment of an unspecified number of additional U.S. troops.

Yet Afghan forces have been limited by a lack of quality recruits in a country of 28 million people where less than one-third of the adult population is literate, malnutrition is high, and the Taliban often pays its foot soldiers better wages.

"In Iraq, when we stood up the Army, we were starting with a strong base. It's a country that had officers and soldiers with years of experience fighting Iran," says Sgt. 1st Class Donald Coleman, who helped train soldiers in Iraq and is now based in Baraki Barak.