U.S. intelligence report on Afghanistan sees stalemate
Source: Los Angeles Times
The U.S. intelligence community says in a secret new assessment that the war in Afghanistan is mired in stalemate, and warns that security gains from an increase in American troops have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan, according to U.S. officials.
The sobering judgments, laid out in a classified National Intelligence Estimate completed last month and delivered to the White House, appeared at odds with recent optimistic statements by Pentagon officials and have deepened divisions between U.S. intelligence agencies and American military commanders about progress in the decade-old war.
The detailed document, known as an NIE, runs more than 100 pages and represents the consensus view of the CIA and 15 other U.S. intelligence agencies. Similar in tone to an NIE prepared a year ago, it challenges the Pentagon's claim to have achieved lasting security gains in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials who have read or been briefed on its contents.
In a section looking at future scenarios, the NIE also asserts that the Afghan government in Kabul may not be able to survive as the U.S. steadily pulls out its troops and reduces military and civilian assistance.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-intel-afghan-20120112,0,6949277,full.story
lovuian
(19,362 posts)the Russians couldn't
we have been there a decade
and it is draining the treasury
octothorpe
(962 posts)It was over 3 billion in economic aid and over 5 billion in military aid. That's not counting the cost of the military out there either...
Where did all that money go? I was searching the internet for examples of projects those billions of dollar completed, but there isn't much. For sure not a 100 billion dollars worth. Some roads, some utility plants and schools. We can't even say we're helping the Afghan people much and making their life better.