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MARCO WERMAN: As we just heard, American Peter Galbraith was the number two official with the UN mission in Afghanistan until last week.  He’s in Bergen, Norway.  Now, Ambassador Galbraith, you were dismissed from your position last week because of differences over how to deal with fraud in the Afghan election.   That dispute has been kind of publically aired over the past five days.  What I’d like to ask you is, where do we go from here?

PETER GALBRAITH:  Well, the problem with the fraud in the Afghanistan elections is that it makes any other part of the international strategy very difficult to execute.  The troop surge that is currently being discussed involves protecting the population and then transitioning to a situation where the Afghan government starts to provide development, essential services, police and army, and that’s very hard to do if you don’t have a credible Afghan government, and that is hard in the circumstances where there’s been an election that’s been characterized by such massive fraud.

WERMAN:  Okay, so according to your logic, in order to deal with Afghanistan at all, you have to deal first with this election fraud.  So how do you deal with it?

GALBRAITH:  Well, if the complaints process produces a run off, then it’s going to be critical to correct the problems that existed in the first round, and that means first closing every polling station where there was fraud, and secondly, it means dismissing the election staff in every place that there was fraud, because the fraud was committed by the election commission staff, or they collaborated in the fraud with the local officials, or they knew about the fraud, and didn’t report it.

WERMAN:  Could any of this happen before the springtime?

GALBRAITH:  It’s going to be extremely difficult.  It’s going to require vigorous, forceful leadership from the head of the UN mission, and from the international community, and so far, that leadership has not been there.

WERMAN:  The UN says it has no mandate to interfere, and the White House has said it’s not interested in nation building, and yet there are these troops on the ground.  Draw for us a connection between this vote, allegedly fraudulent vote, and future mission in Afghanistan.

GALBRAITH:  NATO and its allies will be in Afghanistan for a very long time unless there’s a credible Afghan partner, and that in turn requires a credible government that is seen as legitimate, both by the people who supported the winning candidate, and by the people who did not.  This election was intended to be a milestone on Afghanistan’s path toward democracy and stability.  Instead, it has produced a prolonged political crisis, a great deal of uncertainty.  It’s been the period since the election has represented the biggest strategic gain for the Taliban in eight years of war.  So the political environment has made the military situation much worse for the 100,000 troops.  So I just find it absurd to suggest that the United Nations does not have a mandate to get involved in the election process.  The Security Council in fact has said that the UN should support the Afghan institutions in the holding of free, fair and transparent elections, not fraudulent elections.  And to have sat on the sidelines, to have tried to downplay the fraud, as the head of the UN mission did, has contributed to a crisis that has made it much worse for the United States, Canada and our other allies.

WERMAN:  It does sound like what you’re saying though is that with a partner in Afghanistan whose mandate is dubious, as an elected official, the US and NATO really shouldn’t be there at all.

GALBRAITH:  No, I think that they should be there.  There’s an important counterterrorism mission.  The US and its allies have made an incredible investment, both in terms of money and lives.  It would be a tragedy for that progress to be wiped out.  On the other hand, I don’t believe that much can be accomplished by putting in additional troops at this time for a counter insurgency strategy, which requires a credible Afghan partner, when that partner is not there.

WERMAN:  But people here in the United States, listening to some of the points you’ve raised and some of the issues you’ve raised, I mean, they’ve got to start having quite– they already do have questions presumably about the purpose of the entire American mission in Afghanistan.  I mean, do you think that what you’re saying could be eroding public support here in the US?

GALBRAITH:  I think what happened, I think the fraud, I think the failure of the United Nations and international community to do something about it, is what has eroded support for the mission, not what I am saying about it.  But I understand there’s concern.  When I’m home in Vermont, people would ask me, “Why are we in Afghanistan?” and prior to these events, I could provide an explanation, that begins with the events of 9/11. Now the question that people put to me is, “Why are we in Afghanistan?  Why are we supporting a regime that is blatantly stealing an election?” and it’s very hard to answer that question.

WERMAN:  Peter Galbraith was the UN’s deputy special representative in Afghanistan until last week.  Thank you very much for your time.

GALBRAITH:  Thank you.

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