The London Free Press, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would like the primary role to change hands.
BRUSSELS — The United States would like NATO eventually to take over the military mission in Afghanistan, where an American-dominated force is still hunting down remnants of the Taliban rule that collapsed two years ago, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. In an interview on the eve of a NATO defence ministers conference, Rumsfeld said he had not proposed such a transition from U.S. control but it was a goal “we certainly have favoured.”
Rumsfeld arrived in Brussels for NATO talks on a range of defence and security issues, including the situation in Iraq and the outlook for a realignment of U.S. forces in Europe. The latter topic is focused mainly on ways of reducing or shifting U.S. troops in Europe to make the overall American military more suited to fighting terrorism and other nontraditional threats.
Defence ministers are meeting today and Tuesday, followed by talks among foreign ministers Thursday and Friday. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham will represent Canada at the talks.
Commenting on an expanded NATO role in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld praised the alliance for taking a first, limited step by assuming control over the International Security Assistance Force that keeps the peace in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and trying to put together even more troops so the mission can be expanded beyond Kabul to as many as six provincial cities. The ISAF includes almost 2,000 Canadian soldiers.
The ISAF security force has not been involved in the American-led combat missions against Taliban holdouts. However, Canadian soldiers had joined their American counterparts in a previous combat mission in 2002.
During a visit to Kabul, Defence Minister John McCallum reiterated Canada's long-term commitment to Afghan reconstruction.
He said that could mean taking Canadian soldiers out of Bosnia to free them up for Afghanistan. Plans are already in place to reduce Canada's troop commitment in Bosnia by 50 per cent before April.
In advance of this week's NATO talks, alliance officials expressed confidence that plans will proceed for a German-led NATO security force to move into the northern Afghan city of Kunduz within weeks.
That operation is supposed to be a pilot project for a broader NATO plan to provide protection for “provincial reconstruction teams” in other cities — if it can muster the troops.
“I think it's a good thing,” Rumsfeld said. “And my guess is it will happen.”
He added NATO involvement eventually might expand even further.
“At some point the task may mature to the point where NATO would want to take on a still larger responsibility,” he said.
While the Pentagon chief did not foresee alliance troops replacing U.S. troops entirely, he would not rule out NATO eventually taking primary control of the military mission.
“I'm not predicting anything, but we certainly have favoured that, over time,” Rumsfeld said.
The United States has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan.
