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The World’s Laura Lynch reports on a leaked grim strategic assessment from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman.  This is the World.  It’s been a big week for President Obama.  He arrives in New York today for his first U.N. General Assembly as U.S. Head of State.  Tomorrow he’ll have global warming on his mind during a special U.N. climate change summit.  He’ll also meet with the Israeli Prime Minister and Palestinian President on revising peace talks.  On Wednesday he addresses the general assembly and there’s more.  With all that on his plate, it might seem that another top concern, Afghanistan, is getting short shrift.  But today a grim assessment from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is keeping it center stage.  In a report leaked to the Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal warns a new strategy and more troops are needed or failure may be only a year away.  The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH:  Much of the report reflects what General McChrystal has been saying publicly for weeks.  The mission needs more troops, better equipment, and a fresh approach to winning support from the Afghan people.  But this is a far more detailed study with a stark conclusion.  Change course now or face failure.  While the leaked report was for domestic consumption, other NATO nations were briefed on its contents a few days ago, as was the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai.  Karzai spokesman, Sebghatullah Sanjar, says the Afghan government isn’t against the arrival of more U.S. troops.

SEBGHATULLAH SANJAR:  But the most important thing for us and our people is the place these troops are sent to.  Our official stance is that until our security forces are strengthened, both in terms of numbers and quality, there won’t be a long lasting peace in Afghanistan.

LYNCH:  McChrystal agrees with that.  In his report he calls for an increase in the Afghan army from one hundred and thirty four to two hundred and forty thousand troops and a doubling in the number of police officers to one hundred and sixty thousand.  That’s also on the wish list of the United Nation’s special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide.

KAI EIDE:  I would agree with the view that more international troops are needed and I would emphasize one particular aspect and that is troops that can train and mentor the Afghan police and army.  That, I would say, is very urgently needed.  We need a level of police for instance, that’s far above what we have today.

LYNCH:  Colonel Richard Kemp was a commander of British troops in Afghanistan in 2003.  He says McChrystal is finally coming to terms with the critical problems that have plagued the mission for years.  Too much emphasis on destroying poppy crops and building democracy, too little on defeating the Taliban.

COLONEL RICHARD KEMP:  At last now, there’s a realization we face a very, very serious situation in Afghanistan and we’ve now got to focus on it and sort out the resources and sort out the strategy and get it right.  After all this time, it slipped, it slipped and drifted for too many years and we can’t afford to let it go, I’m not doing that.

LYNCH:  McChrystal’s call for more troops follows years of similar pleas from NATO.  America, along with the UK and Canada have been on the front lines of the fight.  Germany, France, Italy and other NATO countries have sent in troops and resources but have generally stayed away from the battlefield.  Christopher Langston, another former British officer, now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, doesn’t think McChrystal’s assessment will change that.

CHRISTOPHER LANGSTON:  Frankly, not to any great extent, although I do think, that on the training task, that’s the training of the Afghan national security forces; countries may be persuaded to send more troops for that specific reason.

LYNCH:  There is one other problem to contend with.  Langston says Afghanistan’s disputed election isn’t making it any easier for coalition countries to sell people at home on the value of staying in Afghanistan.

LANGSTON:  And then to have a fluid election, with a high level of corruption and being seen to be on the side of the sitting president, this makes life even more difficult when it comes to justifying the support in blood and treasure that countries are giving to the government of Afghanistan.

LYNCH:  McChrystal himself condemns the widespread corruption, abuse of power and weak leadership but he also says NATO troops share some of the blame for distancing themselves from the very people they are there to protect.  In the end, McChrystal says, unless something changes, the coalition just might manage to defeat itself.  For the World, I’m Laura Lynch, in London.

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