Speeches
Transcript of Ambassador William Wood's International Press Roundtable
July 17, 2007
AMBASSADOR WOOD: We’ll talk about whatever you want to talk about.
QUESTION: How far have you pushed with the idea of ground or air spraying and how far can this go?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think the illicit narcotics trade here threatens all of the most important goals of the government of Afghanistan and all of our most important goals for Afghanistan, particularly in the security and the governance area. I think there is growing recognition both nationally and internationally of the importance of the illicit narcotics trade and the threat it poses. I think there is a growing international consensus and increased efforts to interdict shipments and drug leaders and drug labs and precursors. There is not yet an international consensus on the subject of eradication. We’re working toward that.
Of course the role of the government of Afghanistan is absolutely central to everything. I think there is also increased recognition by the government of Afghanistan of the threat posed by the illicit narcotics trade. Certainly we’re getting good support for the interdiction side of the equation. But again, I think the government of Afghanistan itself has not yet made up its mind about what the best approach to eradication is. Our eradication effort in the last year -- I think was disappointing. It only reached about 20,000 hectares. This is drugs and crime. The UNODC estimates it’s something on the order of three million Afghans are directly or indirectly involved in the drug trade and they estimate that the number of Afghan drug addicts is growing rapidly, including perhaps 10,000 children who are exposed to drugs directly or indirectly. That’s an absolutely central issue.
QUESTION: This is the first hard number I think we’ve heard from anyone who would be in the know about this year’s crop. Everyone at the UN has said oh, about the same, or maybe a little bit more than last year. You’re saying 185?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I’m saying preliminary. I don’t want to be tagged with that number, but I think it is up. The number last year was 169. I think it’s up to 185.
QUESTION: When you talk about these being preliminary figures, is based on UN or US estimates?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: We rely primarily on UN estimates, but certainly we are part of the UN estimation process, so it’s not that straightforward.
QUESTION: Is this number that you just shared, even though it was expected, does this have anything to do with the dismissal of Minister Qaderi?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: No. I think the dismissal of Minister Qaderi was genuinely for health reasons.
QUESTION: If you’re put in a driving seat then how do you bring this number down next year, or two years from now?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think that there are a variety of ways. But I think it all comes down to two things… three things. Alternate livelihoods -- providing those who grow drugs an alternative, and we’ve been doing that. Helmand Province has received more than $200 million in U.S. assistance between 2002 and 2006. And in 2007 if Helmand Province were a country it would be our fifth largest recipient of development assistance at $270 million.
So, alternative livelihoods is part of the equation. Interdiction is clearly part of the equation. Going after shipments of drugs; going after shipments of specialized precursors; going after drug labs. UNODC estimates that 90% of the heroin coming out of Afghanistan is converted from opium to heroin inside Afghanistan. This is a new development. And it represents, to my way of thinking, a new vulnerability.
So the interdiction part is an important part. But it can’t all be interdiction. Unfortunately drugs, because of their value, are like diamonds. They are small, they are high value, they are easily transportable. And no one has ever found a successful way to stop people from picking diamonds up off the ground and trying to sell them. If the diamonds are on the ground people will try to pick them up and try to sell them. So we’ve got to eradicate them from the ground. So I’m a strong believer not only in eradication, but in forced eradication. Let me be clear why.
Voluntary eradication puts all of the burden on the farmer, who is the weakest link in the chain. Unless you have forced eradication you rely on the farmer to say yes, I will choose to grow legitimate crops and I will stand up to the drug trafficker myself. I don’t think that’s fair to the farmer. I think that the people who have the strength, the people who have the power, that is to say national governments, provincial governments, should take the responsibility and also provide assistance and support to the farmer so that he has a good alternative. But the farmer is the weakest link in the chain and we can’t, I think, ask him to stand up to drug traffickers who are really quite serious about their business and are proven to be violent in their pursuit of their profits.
QUESTION: You said that Helmand receives $200 million in aid… [inaudible]
AMBASSADOR WOOD: $2 million: 2002 – 2006. $270 million in 2007. So that’s a big increase, and all of that, of course, has not worked through the system yet.
QUESTION: Helmand on its own is estimated to produce about 50% of the world’s heroin. Has this money been well spent?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: We’re estimating about 85,000 hectares for Helmand.
QUESTION: Has this money been well spent?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Opium poppy cultivation has risen every year in Helmand so to the degree that the aid is directly related to stopping opium poppy cultivation, I would say it has not had an effect. To the degree that it is also, however, trying to make the lives of the people in Helmand better, I think it has succeeded in making their lives better. The reason there that is a road between Lashkar Gah and the Ring Road and the reason the Ring Road goes through Helmand is precisely that assistance.
We are creating an infrastructure that will allow them to be more prosperous and more successful, legitimate farmers and legitimate businessmen. There are more hospitals, there are more schools. And of course all of that is worthwhile in and of itself. All of that is worthwhile in strengthening and helping the people of Afghanistan. So to that degree, in that sense, this aid has achieved its goals. But to the degree it is also meant to provide a substitute for drug cultivation, to the degree it is meant to discourage drug cultivation, it has not been successful.
QUESTION: Voluntary eradication: you said it’s not fair on the farmer. Surely, going along spraying this guy's crops, destroying the crops by aerial means -- that’s not fair on the farmer either.
AMBASSADOR WOOD: By that logic then anybody who breaks into a 7-11 should be allowed to do so because he’s just trying to make a living.
We need to remove drug cultivation as an option. Both because it threatens security and governance and stability in Afghanistan, and because the product of drug cultivation is taking lives inside of Afghanistan and outside of Afghanistan through addiction and other criminal activities.
Even in the case of forced eradication, we can provide the farmers with sufficient assistance to tide them over until they can produce another crop, a legitimate crop. One of the characteristics in Afghanistan is, as you know, even if your drug crop were eradicated as late as May, there would still be time for you to plant a crop, harvest it, and have income for the next year, especially if you’ve received special assistance in the interim. And I agree that those who cultivate drugs are victims. But in some cases they are participating in their victimization and in other cases they are not strong enough to break out of this cycle without a stronger hand.
QUESTION: You had mentioned that heroin production is up in this country, that the actual process of converting to heroin, is up. Do you know where? Where is this going on? Is this going on in Helmand? Where are you finding it?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I don’t really have very many details. I can tell you that some of it is going on in the south and some of it is going on in the north.
QUESTION: You can’t name provinces?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I’d rather not name provinces. I’d rather not get it wrong. But I can tell you absolutely, it is not confined exclusively to Helmand or Kandahar or Uruzgan.
QUESTION: What is your assessment - I know you’ve been here three months, I’m going to ask you to look back a little bit further than that – but what is your assessment of how the war is going? The war against the Taliban? The war to stabilize Afghanistan?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: First I have to compare the reality of today with the initial sets of briefings that I got when I was first invited by the Secretary to take this job. And, there is no question that the so-called expected spring offensive for the Taliban has been a bad season for the Taliban. When I first began to look into Afghanistan, people were talking about the capture or isolation of Kandahar City. Well not only has that not happened, but Kandahar as a province -- although there’s been lots of violence -- has actually had a pretty good spring and early summer.
Although we have seen some major insurgent attacks, for the most part the violence has been terroristic violence rather than insurgent violence. The Taliban seems to have given up on trying to rally the people to support it against the government and now is engaged more and more in untargeted violence or violence targeted against the people. We have had, as you know, cases of school children who were killed, of teachers that were killed, beheadings of children, just a general air of violence. And I think one of the problems we all face at the moment is because the Taliban and their criminal allies are moving to more terroristic tactics. Even though the security situation is better, it doesn’t necessarily feel better because of this unease. Terrorism, unfortunately, produces the terror that it seeks to produce. It is not an impotent tactic. It does not threaten national institutions, it does not threaten governance in the way that an insurgency or more serious warfare does, but it does create this gnawing insecurity, this sense of personal insecurity. And so, on the one hand, I think that the institutions of the nation, the development of the nation, the prosperity of the nation, the health of the nation, the education of the nation, are all better. In the sense of personal security, however, it’s not better. And I think that’s a concern.
QUESTION: By way of follow-up, the emphasis, the shift has been to have Afghan police and soldiers more and more leading the charge. What’s your assessment? Has that been a success given the fact that we just attended a press conference a few days ago saying that training is behind?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Certainly, both because the Afghans want it and because we want it. International training is designed to give the Afghan Army and National Police ultimately a completely self sustaining role. That’s going to take a long time. Certainly, just over the last six months we’ve seen the Afghan Army playing a larger and larger role on the battlefield and in some cases conduct independent operations, in other cases conduct autonomous operations backed up by international quick reaction forces, and things like that.
The police are also playing a larger and larger role. Virtually no entry into a suspicious house occurs now that is not led by the Afghan Police. It is very important to the international forces as well as to the Afghan community that the first face through a door be an Afghan face, so that they can both accomplish the task but also avoid unnecessarily frightening family members who may be there and avoid unnecessarily violating any cultural differences that might come into play. And avoid seeming as though there are these foreigners who just blow through doors and houses and people’s lives.
The training program for the Afghan Army is I think moving along very well, and we are all extremely pleased. For the police, it’s been more complicated. It’s slower, but frankly, the job is more complicated. Police tend to be deployed in smaller units in more isolated locations.
In addition to a straightforward security role the thing that makes the police the police is their relationship with the community. Sometimes the community is a complicated one. In some cases bringing police in from the outside so they’re not connected to the local power relationships has been the goal, but that makes it harder for the police to establish a connection with the people. That’s the theory behind the Afghan National Police.
There is also, however, the Afghan Auxiliary Police, who are recruited precisely because they come from the neighborhood, and they already know who’s who, what’s what, and what’s at the end of the street.
We’re finding that the combination of the two -- the National Police with a national perspective, with better training, more professional leadership -- and the Auxiliary Police with more local knowledge -- the combination of the two is I think providing a synergy. It all works very well where there is strong leadership, an active governor, good dialogue with the provincial council, the district councils and local elders. It doesn’t work so well where the elements of the national government are isolated from the elements of the local government and the local community.
So I think it’s a complicated process. We’re still working to improve both training and post-training deployment and activity, but I think that we’re generally pleased with the results.
We’re also seeing some experimental things. I mentioned earlier that the Taliban had been targeting increasingly schools and teachers and students. The Ministry of Education is developing a program which it will run to try to get communities to work internally more effectively to protect their schools and teachers and students, because everybody wants their kids to be safe and everybody wants their kids to be educated.
So I think we’re seeing lots of things going on. I think it’s a very dynamic environment. We certainly are committed to doing more of the things that seem to be working and shifting away from any aspect that doesn’t seem to be working, always in close coordination with what the government of Afghanistan and President Karzai want.
QUESTION: Can we bring in the neighbor to the East?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Sure. Although it’s not my consular district.
QUESTION: The U.S. Army has continued to say that the North Waziristan Peace Agreement has been troublesome for them and that the number of infiltrations is still as high as it was last fall when the agreement first went into effect. And yet you have President Musharraf fighting to keep the agreement in place despite that fact that the militants don’t want it. So it seems like President Musharraf is fighting for something that the US military has said this is hurting us, this is hurting the peace process in Afghanistan. Do you have -- obviously it’s his own sovereign country -- but do you want to see that move one way or the other, or what are the rumblings in Pakistan, what kind of effect are they having here?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I really do think that’s a question that should be focused in Islamabad rather than Kabul, but let me answer it this way. First, infiltration, recruitment, training, command and control remain problems from Pakistan. I think that Pakistan and President Musharraf have increased their activity over the last year to respond to that problem, I think that they are increasing it still, whether or not it’s been moving troops to the west, more activity by the frontier corps. The problem of infiltration, the problem of foreign involvement – and by that I don’t just mean people from Pakistan -- is not yet resolved. It remains an important element of the equation.
As I said in my confirmation hearings, Pakistan is doing a lot. It could do more. Afghanistan is doing a lot. It could do more to bridge the gap in the border areas. We are very enthusiastic about the Bilateral Peace Jirga that is going to be held between representatives of Afghanistan and Pakistan next month. We hope that it will be a demonstration of mutual respect and mutual rejection of extremism.
President Musharraf and President Karzai had a good meeting in Ankara, I guess six weeks, two months ago. I think the dialogue is there, I think that the commitment is there, and we’re optimistic.
QUESTION: What do you expect from the jirgas? What’s your guys’ reading of the procedures? What are your guys telling you?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: This will be my first big jirga. So I’m looking forward to it with really some fascination. But what I understand is that it will be several days, that in fact there will be plenary sessions at the beginning and the end, and there will sort of be smaller sessions in the intervening days to address specific questions. I’m hopeful that, again, there will be a show of solidarity and mutual respect from both sides, and I’m hopeful that it will reject extremism, that it will have a firm rejection of extremism by both sides.
One of the interesting characteristics that President Karzai explained to me one day is that in a jirga there aren’t sides. Everybody’s together, and it’s a discussion among people who are together. It’s not viewed as this delegation meeting that delegation. It is viewed as everybody being together and trying to address together the issues. I hope it’s successful.
QUESTION: Are you playing down expectations, or is your statement here of I hope that it will be a demonstration of mutual respect and mutual rejection of extremism, is that just an acknowledgement that you don’t expect this process to come up with anything concrete?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think that my explanation of what we expect to get out of it is identical to the explanation of what we all hoped to get out of it when the idea was first proposed. So no, I don’t think I’m playing anything down. I think I’m being consistent. I could be wrong about that, but I think I’m right.
QUESTION: I was in Pakistan recently and somebody was telling me that from the Pakistani perspective one of the great insecurities about Afghanistan is non-recognition of the border, and that if Afghanistan did recogniz the Durand Line a lot of Pakistan’s worries would be eased. Do you think Afghanistan should recognize the Durand Line?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Certainly there’s been lots of discussion about the border. I don’t think that’s what the jirga is about and I don’t think it’s what infiltration is about. I think it’s an issue between the two countries which both sides take seriously. But I don’t believe that effective cooperation between the two is even made difficult by the question. I think because it has become a frequent topic of conversation it may have become harder for both sides to solve. So I’m not going to contribute to the conversation by adding to it.
QUESTION: President Karzai has stated that more could be done by NATO and US to diminish the number of civilian casualties. What is being done to decrease the number of civilians being killed in military operations?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Civilian casualties are a tragedy wherever and whenever they occur. And I can tell you from personal experience with both Afghan military leaders and international military leaders here, it is a source of personal regret.
There is no case that I’m aware of where there have been civilian casualties that procedures and activities haven’t been reviewed precisely in order to avoid a repetition. And more to the point, the international forces here have reached an agreement with the Ministry of Defense and it’s still going through final clearance by both sides, to further reduce the possibility of civilian casualties.
I have noticed, however, an interesting phenomenon. When there are civilian casualties involving international forces, ISAF, others, frequently meet with the governor of the district leaders, the local shura. And in almost every case, after discussion the request of the local officials and the local elders is for more international forces to be stationed there rather than fewer. The preferred solution is more international forces so that the kind of pitched battles, the kinds of attacks by the insurgents can be deterred. Everyone has genuine confidence that the international forces would avoid civilian casualties if they could, which is why the local officials and leaders are prepared to invite more of them into their neighborhood.
QUESTION: Does the agreement extend to the activities of US Special Forces, which seem to operate under different rules of engagement and don’t seem to be accountable?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think it’s wrong to say U.S. forces operate under completely different rules of engagement. Second of all, I think it’s completely wrong to say that they are in any way less accountable.
QUESTION: Not publicly you can’t at least.
AMBASSADOR WOOD: We think that US forces are just as accountable as anybody else. And we take our responsibilities extremely seriously.
I will say that U.S. forces have also been the most active. The United States was given command of Regional Command East when it was the most conflictive region of the country. Regional Command East still has numerically more military engagements than any other part of the country. However, the east is substantially more stable than it was several years ago and this also allows U.S. forces to support ISAF in other parts of the country. But I reject the notion that we have substantially different ROE or that we are less accountable.
QUESTION: Can you say anything more about the agreement that you mentioned?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I can’t because it’s still in clearance. But I can say that, well, as I think Minister Wardak’s public statement of two weeks ago indicated, we were moving toward agreement then, and I think that final agreement will occur very soon. I would encourage you to talk to people in ISAF or others who were involved in the negotiation because that’s not my job. My job is to understand it and make sure that I’m part of the accountability process.
QUESTION: Along the military lines, will you be meeting with General Pace?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Yes.
QUESTION: Do you know what he’s looking for here or what he wants to talk about, what he wants to see?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I don’t know what’s on his agenda. General Pace and I have met many times when I was in Colombia, and he stopped by the last time he was in Afghanistan, I guess about two and a half months ago. What we usually do is I give him my overall impression in every sector -- security, political, economic, humanitarian, social, regional -- and he gives me a flavor of his thinking and the military thinking in Washington and we talk about issues that he might be thinking about here in Afghanistan. It’s a very free-flowing conversation. I think General Pace has done an extraordinary job. He doesn’t think I’m so bad. So we try to focus on problems and solutions.
QUESTION: You alluded a second ago, what you said was that locals always ask for more international troops--
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Not always. I didn’t say always. Frequently.
QUESTION: Frequently ask for more international troops, more international presence. That leads me to wonder if you would support more international troops or more American troops here, and if that’s something you would recommend to General Pace.
AMBASSADOR WOOD: The United States believes that we’re pretty much where we should be in terms of our deployments here, but we also would hope that some of our allies and friends could provide some more support. And in particular, with fewer restrictions on their deployments.
Going beyond that, I completely understand why localities might want more international troops there. I defer to my military colleagues, but I think that part of the key to waging a successful anti-insurgency campaign is mobility. So I understand why people in a given location might want more military personnel stationed in that location and that would be good for that location, but it would give the insurgents or the terrorists free rein to operate elsewhere. So I think that mobility is a key to the strategy. So you do get sometimes an increase in troops stationed in a given location and they may be permanent, they may be temporary, but in the long run building up static defensive positions is not the solution to the problem.
QUESTION: How serious would it be if any of these nations would pull out, especially some of the European nations? The Italians, Germans, Spanish? Or Canadians? Do you see that as a threat? Do you see that as a threat this year?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I don’t see any of our colleagues pulling out. Obviously since we would like everyone to contribute more, anyone contributing less would be undesirable.
QUESTION: Would you like to see some of other nations, you get fresh nations like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic bringing in troops while people like Italy and-
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think we’ve seen over the past year more nations coming in and playing a role and I think we can continue to expect to see that. We think it’s great, we think we not only benefit by the strength that they bring but also by the diversity they bring.
QUESTION: I know you choose your words carefully. When you say we expect to continue to see that, referring to more nations coming in.
AMBASSADOR WOOD: We expect to continue to see more nations coming in. I’m not at liberty to go beyond that.
QUESTION: But you 50,000 more now combined forces, roughly, do you see that going to 55, a 10% increase?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I can’t give you a number. I don’t have a number for you.
QUESTION: When you meet General Pace, what is in your briefing papers when it comes to expanding the reconciliation program?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Absolutely. We think that the PTS program, we think that other programs to welcome back into society those who are willing to return to society and who are not guilty of the most egregious crimes are a good thing. As you know, we support the PTS program and we would like to see more insurgents put down their guns and return to their families, and the refugees come home.
QUESTION: Do you think that this process should somehow be coordinated among all the nations, or should certain nations be pulling more weight?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: This has to be Afghan program. It can’t be an American program, it can’t be a French program, this has to be an Afghan program.
QUESTION: Do you get support from other nations?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think there’s wide support internationally for the reintegration program.
QUESTION: When’s the limit when the guys aren’t welcome to come back, in an American view? I mean, apart from Mullah Omar, going down the list, who are the guys who are still out there that you don’t….?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I haven’t got an answer for you on that. I think if this is your question, it’s always dangerous to infer a question when one hasn’t been asked. We’re talking about a reintegration program. We’re not talking about negotiations with the Taliban. The Taliban has given no signs whatsoever of being interested in pursuing anything other than insurgency and terrorist tactics.
QUESTION: As it stands now, you won’t be supporting any such moves?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: There is nothing to support.
QUESTION: On the subject of aid – USAID – spends something like 60-70% of its money that does not go through the government. A large chunk of aid money from the United States doesn’t go through the government. Would you like to see more aid going through the government channels or do you think it’s best to keep it away from greedy and corrupt officials?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: More and more of our assistance is going through the government. Afghanistan is the largest recipient of development assistance in the world. It is taking place in a very complicated environment, and the institutions of the government are new. So there are issues of absorptive capacity both for the assistance itself, but also for the administration and processing of assistance. And we are certainly committed to strengthening the national institutions, and that includes the national institutions that would be in a position to process aid.
So, as occurs in many countries there is a dialogue about the balance, but there’s no disagreement whatsoever about the ultimate goal and that is ultimately an Afghanistan that doesn’t need assistance. But before that step, an Afghanistan that can play a larger role in administrating the assistance that it does receive.
QUESTION: Do you think the system that USAID operates sub-contracting projects to private companies who employee very expensive expatriate technical assistants, doesn’t that mean most of the money goes back to the US?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: Certainly we have as a goal employing Afghans wherever we can. We are spending our assistance funds in the way that we believe is both the most efficient and effective to achieve the goals of humanitarian care and development. Our flagship project for the south is the Kajaki Dam project, to provide electricity for the south. It has been frustrated primarily by Taliban violence against those facilities. But as part of that project we expect at the high point to be employing up to 8,000 Afghans. It is the Taliban that is preventing our employing those 8,000 Afghans, not U.S. policy.
QUESTION: Is there anything new, beyond what the military has said over the past two or three months, on any military aid coming from Iran?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: No. There are clearly some munitions coming out of Iran going into the hands of the Taliban. We believe that the quantity and quality of those munitions are such that the Iranian government must know about it. Beyond that, we really can’t go.
QUESTION: Do you know what subject President Bush and President Karzai will be tackling?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: As you know, the two of them have met frequently. It will be an update as to where each think they we are, and it will be planning for the future. This would be a more sustained conversation because that’s the nature of conversations in Camp David. They are more informal and less time pressured and more personal. And I think that they will sort of map the road ahead over the next year or more.
QUESTION: How important is Afghanistan for America these days?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think it’s very important.
QUESTION: You are putting in a lot of money. Bounty for Osama has gone up, so the price is going up….
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I think Afghanistan is very, very important, and I think it’s recognized as such. First, the fight against the Taliban is a fight against the current and continued ally of al-Qaeda so it has a direct link to the global war on terrorism.
Second, Afghanistan exists in a very complicated neighborhood and it’s important that Afghanistan be a source of stability rather than a source of instability in that neighborhood.
Third, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and it’s been faced with 25-30 years of social division, conflict, violence, and crisis, and so the humanitarian need here is extraordinarily high.
I’ll leave it at that.
QUESTION: Do you work under the assumption that you’ll be working with President Karzai for the next six years?
AMBASSADOR WOOD: That I personally will be?
QUESTION: No, the United States.
AMBASSADOR WOOD: I work on the assumption that there are going to be free and fair elections and at least so far the polls show that President Karzai is by far the most popular leader in the country, across all ethnic groups. But it would be premature for me to pick an outcome of any election.
Thank you.
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