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| April 25, 2002 |
Afghanistan: Following up Anaconda
Mark Burgess, Research Assistant, mburgess@cdi.org
It is just over half a year since the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan began. As Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command said on the 6 month anniversary of the first American and British aircraft and cruise missile strikes on al Qaeda and Taliban forces, much has been achieved in the war thus far. However, as Franks also acknowledged, much still remains to be done. Like the wider war on terrorism of which it is part, the current military campaign in Afghanistan will not end in a single decisive victory. Furthermore, despite premature pronouncements by Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, the recent Anaconda operation did not mark the end of the Afghan campaign. Indeed, the United Kingdom’s announcement that it is to deploy 1,700 combat troops to Afghanistan has caused some commentators to question the degree of success enjoyed by the operation.
According to the noted British military historian, John Keegan, the new British deployment "makes it clear […] that Anaconda has not wholly succeeded and that an extra push is required." However, leaving aside the polemics of whether any military operation can ever "wholly succeed," U.S. military officials maintain that their recent efforts to eradicate al Qaeda and Taliban pockets in Afghanistan’s Shah-I-Kot region killed high numbers of enemy fighters, including many second and third tier enemy commanders -- the equivalent of a conventional army's majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels. Such men are not readily replaceable. Moreover, the battle also saw Americans successfully pass the first real (if relatively small) test of their resolve in the face of casualties. It also saw an enemy base camp destroyed, even if the force using it was perhaps not totally annihilated. As such, Anaconda, while not decisive, was a considerable success. This does not mean that there is not still much to be achieved in Afghanistan, as the deployment of the British Commandos shows. Moreover, recent events on the ground in Afghanistan indicate that more enemy troops may have escaped Anaconda than previously appeared to be the case.
Allied Afghan troops have long contended that most of the al Qaeda and Taliban force that the operation was intended to destroy actually escaped. Gen. Franks has denied such claims, citing video evidence from Predator drones launched immediately after air strikes that showed heaps of rumble where previously groups of enemy fighter had been spotted. U.S. Special Forces on the ground also reported that high numbers of al Qaeda and Taliban troops perished in these strikes, claims that may never be conclusively proven given the massive destruction wrought during Anaconda. As such, it is equally difficult to totally dispel the doubts about exactly how many enemy forces actually died during the operation.
Such doubts have become more pronounced in recent days, with U.S. forces searching the area over which Anaconda was conducted finding few bodies to validate Pentagon claims that the operation killed hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. For instance, a two day sweep of a gorge code-named Ginger, while uncovering enough emplacements, weapons, and ammunition to sustain at least 200 enemy troops, discovered just three bodies. In addition, according to Lt. Col. Steven Townsend, commander of the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, the unit who carried out the search, just 10 sacks of foodstuffs were uncovered -- far from enough to feed the hundreds of fighters believed to have been holed up in the area.
Similarly, the radio intercepts of al Qaeda and Taliban forces calling for wooden coffins and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) to extract their dead that Gen. Franks has cited as evidence of high enemy losses has also been questioned. Not only did the coffins and SUVs not make it through the U.S. cordon (by Franks’ own admission), but traditionally, Muslims do not bury their dead in coffins. While it is true that some enemy dead may remain buried in the caves of Shah-I-Kot, it is also possible that the radio intercepts may have been decoys, and the messages sent to convince those eavesdropping that al Qaeda and Taliban forces suffered more casualties than was the case. If so, this would appear to tie in with claims that large numbers of enemy fighters escaped across the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Meanwhile, the newly deployed British Royal Marines of 45 Commando, taking part in operations believed to center on the area previously cleared during Anaconda, have discovered freshly laid bobby traps, indicating enemy activity in the area since Anaconda ended. A lack of enemy resistance points to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters again withdrawing, possibly to sanctuaries across the nearby Pakistani border. Another recent operation by a company of Royal Marines (this time from 40 Commando) resulted in the same conclusion, with the British commander, and a U.S. officer both expressing the belief that al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives had fled to Pakistani tribal areas. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf is loath to let U.S. and allied forces operate within his borders lest he destabilize his own government. Indeed, despite his sending 12,000 troops to the frontier, the tribal areas remain largely beyond the control of Musharraf himself, making the region an ideal base from which al Qaeda can conduct a guerilla campaign in Afghanistan.
As such considerations indicate, questioning the degree of success enjoyed by Anaconda in no way detracts from the performance of those who carried out the operation. Rather, such self-criticism will help enhance any such future offensives. Nor is the issue about how many al Qaeda or Taliban fighters were killed during Anaconda or even whether the operation was a success or not -- in the strictly tactical sense it was. A much more important question is how many al Qaeda and Taliban fighters escaped Anaconda and where they are now. If, as seems the case, significant numbers of them have fled to the tribal areas across the Pakistan border, action must be taken before these fighters can redeploy in small guerilla units that will prove difficult and perhaps costly to track and destroy, especially if their staging areas remain out of bounds to American and allied forces. Given this, this week’s announcement that Musharraf has granted American advisers permission to accompany Pakistani troops into his country’s tribal areas is welcome, if long overdue. Hopefully, it will not turn out to be a case of closing the stable door when the horse has already bolted.
No Deal on the Status of the Caspian Sea -- Presidents of the five states surrounding the Caspian Sea -- Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan -- failed to reach an agreement on dividing the sea's waters and minerals. The Caspian, a landlocked body of water, is home to some of the world's largest oil and gas deposits. At a meeting in Turkmenistan Tuesday and Wednesday, the five states hoped to resolve the legal questions surrounding access to the sea's mineral riches. Disagreements have slowed down effort to commercially exploit the deposits, at times even threatening to grow into open conflict. In the summer of 2001, an Iranian gunboat threatened ships working for British Petroleum under contract with the government of Azerbaijan. In response, Turkey -- a traditional ally of Azerbaijan -- staged a show of military air power over Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Moscow, which used to control most of the Caspian in the Soviet era, has been quietly beefing up its Caspian Sea naval fleet in preparation for a possible confrontation.
Contractor Selected to Begin Alaska NMD Construction -- The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract for the first construction in Alaska related to U.S. efforts to develop a national missile defense (NMD) system. Fluor Alaska, Inc. has been awarded a three-year contract worth up to $250 million for the construction of "test bed" facilities at Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Eareckson Air Force Station on Shemya Island, AK. The construction focuses on support infrastructure and does not include work on missile silos or the installation of missiles. The two sites are involved in the testing associated with development of an NMD system, and could be used as part of a limited defense system that may be deployed as soon as 2004.
Russian Defense Industry Stumbling -- According to the Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti the Russian defense industry is suffering severely due to a lack of orders from the military, surviving only on the strength of its exports. According to Vedomosti, whose coverage focuses on world politics and economics, last year the Russians produced only one new naval vessel -- the nuclear submarine Gepard. The situation is even worse in other branches -- the Air Force has not ordered new planes or helicopters for over a decade, and will not do so before 2005, or even 2010.
Pentagon Seeks Environmental Law Exemptions -- The Defense Department has asked Congress to be exempted from certain environmental laws, stating that compliance will restrict certain types of training, and will therefore impact military readiness. In an official statement, the Pentagon asserts that the requested changes would either be "neutral" or would have "strongly positive" effects on the environment. The changes in law, if approved by Congress, would be included in the annual defense authorization legislation. The matter is causing jurisdictional problems on Capitol Hill, however, since several other committees have jurisdiction over environmental regulations.
Quotation of the Week -- "By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall. Marshall know that our military victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings. After 1945, the United States of America was the only nation in the world strong enough to help rebuild a Europe and a Japan that had been decimated by World War II. Today, our former enemies are our friends. And Europe and Japan are strong partners in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. This transformation is a powerful testimony to the success of Marshall’s vision, and a beacon to light the path that we, too, must follow," President George W. Bush, speech at the Virginia Military Institute, April 17, 2002.
This Week on SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV -- "Fuzzy Foreign Policy?"
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This Week’s Episode: "Fuzzy Foreign Policy?"
SUPERPOWER takes a critical look at the current U.S. foreign policy and the way it is perceived by those it affects the most. From an apparent reversal in the Middle East to a lack of clarity on the situation in Venezuela, does the United States have a doctrine which it is observing or is this policy in fact, fuzzy? How does the rest of the world see this?
Joining Lisa Simeone will be Jacobo Goldstein La Tribuna and syndicated columnist Husain Haqqani.
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