NATO pledges to win Afghan battle
Foreign Desk Report

RIGA—NATO has clinched agreement to bolster its troubled mission in Afghanistan by sending more troops and cutting restrictions on forces already there, while admitting that gaps remain.
Leaders of the 26-nation bloc including US President George W. Bush also notably backed a French proposal to set up a “contact group” to coordinate action to prevent Afghanistan slipping back towards chaos.
Closer to its traditional home ground, they also agreed to admit Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Hercegovina to its Partnership for Peace programme, a decade after the wars which ripped the Balkans apart.
The pledge on Afghanistan, announced at the end of a two-day summit, came after the United States and Britain in particular lobbied for more troops and fewer caveats on the forces in the violence-wracked country.
Specifically European heavyweight states like Germany, France, Spain and Italy came under pressure to do more in southern Afghanistan, where British-led troops have faced a growing death toll in fighting with Taliban insurgents.
NATO took command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in 2003. It currently comprises some 32,000 troops from 37 nations including 5,500 Britons. But it has faced increasingly fierce fighting since moving into the volatile south this year, and in September NATO’s top commander US General James Jones called for 2,500 extra military personnel.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed Wednesday’s agreement. “Everyone accepts this is NATO’s absolutely critical mission,” he said, adding: “There is complete agreement around the table that NATO’s credibility is ... on the line.”
But he also admitted that shortfalls remained, with military chiefs saying that so far 85-90 percent of requirements were in place. “We have made significant progress but we still need to make those last remaining steps.”
NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer highlighted an agreement to deploy forces to help out in emergencies. “In an emergency .. they will support each other. That is the most fundamental demonstration of NATO’s solidarity,” he said.
The NATO secretary general also confirmed that alliance leaders had supported Chirac’s proposal to establish an Afghan “contact group”.
This could be along the lines of such a group set up for the Balkans in the 1990s, comprising the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, to coordinate diplomatic and other action to resolve the conflict. “I have been tasked ... to think about and to forward proposals on the possibility of a contact group for Afghanistan,” he said.
Overall, Scheffer said the NATO summit was good news for the people of Afghanistan. “The bottom line is that, five years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan is making progress,” he said.
While Afghanistan is NATO’s newest and most ambitious mission, there was also positive news on one of its older fronts, with the Partnership for Peace announcements for the three Balkan states.
NATO peacekeepers have spent more than a decade in various countries in the region, and the alliance is keen to point the way forward towards their eventual membership of the bloc itself.
“Taking into account the importance of long-term stability in the Western Balkans and acknowledging the progress made so far ... we have invited these three countries to join Partnership for Peace,” said the NATO declaration.
Also in Riga the NATO chiefs declared “fully operational” the alliance’s flagship 25,000-strong NATO Response Force (NRF).
The force, to be staffed by NATO countries on a six-month rotating basis, will stand ready to be deployed within five days for combat missions, evacuations or disaster relief operations lasting for up to a month.