Reporter Charles Horman disappeared on Sept. 17, 1973 – days after Gen. Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup – and was found shot weeks later.

He was investigating links between the CIA and the Chilean military.

His death was the subject of the 1982 Oscar-winning film “Missing”.

Judge Jorge Zepeda asked the Chilean Supreme Court to authorize an extradition request, so Ray Davis can stand trial in Chile for the murder of Mr Horman and student Frank Teruggi.

Davis was the commander of the US military mission in Chile at the time.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks with Joyce Horman, the widow of slain American journalist Charles Horman.

• Globalsecurity.org: Pakistan’s anger at U.S. drone strikes growing
• BBC: US criticized in Pakistan drone report
• Wikileaks: new insights into America’s drone war
• Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict

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Lisa Mullins: It was a violent day today in Pakistan’s volatile northwest. In one town a suicide attacker drove a vehicle that was packed with explosives into a hospital for Shiite Muslims. At least 10 people were killed. And in North Waziristan, Pakistani officials said missiles fired by a US drone hit a house and a vehicle, killing at least 4 suspected militants. Drones are unmanned aircraft that are remotely controlled by pilots, who are usually here in the United States. The use of drones allows American forces to target militants without placing troops on the ground. But drone attacks have also led to a number of civilian casualties. And now 15 Pakistanis are suing the CIA over allegations that US drone strikes killed their relatives. There was a protest today in Islamabad to bring attention to the lawsuit. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool was there. He says the protest was organized by an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Aleem Maqbool: What the lawyer is saying who’s representing them, is that the CIA leading the bombing of this area, is like a civilian getting on the plane from the states, coming over to Pakistan, killing somebody and then heading back to the states. Those were his words. So he sees it as murder. He’s representing 15 people in a class action. All of them have lost relatives in these drone strikes and he described to me, what some of these people’s stories were.

Lawyer: There’s one person who has lost both his legs and one eye. He’s a seventh grade student. There’s another person who is come. He’s a child. I have to find out a legal way how I sue on his behalf.

Maqbool: Now the action is at a very early stage. It is in the high court and I should say that the CIA has issued a statement saying, its counter terrorism operations are precise, lawful and effective.

Mullins: What are some of the other accusations that this attorney is making against the United States?

Maqbool: He’s saying essentially that even if they are targeting militants, that it is something that shouldn’t be going on. But I have to say, it’s not just about the United States. A lot of those people protesting are also angry with their own government. They are saying, look. How can the CIA be bombing the tribal areas of Pakistan, if they didn’t have permission from the Pakistani army and the Pakistani authorities? And in fact, interestingly, over the last week or so, perhaps something that a lot of Pakistani suspected was shown in some of these Wikileaks. There was one comment by the Prime Minister in which he said, look, we’ll go to Parliament and say that we don’t approve of these drone strikes but then we’ll ignore them. So he said very much what as I say, a lot of people here suspected. That while they protest and publicly say they don’t want America bombing on Pakistani territory, behind the scenes they support this policy.

Mullins: Is there a feeling in the Pakistani government that they need to cooperate with United States? Or at least look the other way as the US is conducting these drone strikes, which have increased under the Obama administration, because the government itself of Pakistan doesn’t want to be seen as fighting the Taliban, fighting some of their own people.

Maqbool: Oh, absolutely. They want to distance themselves as much as possible from this policy because of exactly that. Ultimately, a lot of those that are killed in these drone strikes are Pakistani citizens. But there is an alternative and that’s one that America is pushing for. And that is for the Pakistani army itself, to go into these areas with a ground offensive. Again, the Pakistani army is reluctant to do that for all kinds of reasons. Some say they are unwilling to do that because they don’t want to make enemies of the Taliban. Others say it’s simply because they don’t have the resources and they’d get a very bloody nose if they did a ground offensive in North Waziristan. But whatever the reason, the Pakistani authorities are reluctant to carry out that ground offensive. And while that carries on, it seems that the strategy of carrying out drone attacks is set to continue. In fact there have been some this week, even in the last few hours, in which more people have been killed.

Mullins: Aleem, do you know what it’s like to be in the tribal areas when there is a drone strike?

Maqbool: I mean, we’ve had descriptions from people there. I spent quite a while in Northwest Pakistan and basically although we can’t get to the tribal areas, some people from there can get in or out. They say that they don’t like to gather in large groups anymore in case they look from the skies as being a group of militants. Some say they were always looking up in the skies wondering when the next drone attack was going to happen.

Mullins: The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool speaking to us from Islamabad, Pakistan. Aleem, thank you very much.

Maqbool: My pleasure.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

One of the prickly bits of information made public by the leaked diplomatic cables is the discord between the US and Pakistan. The relationship has long been a delicate one. It’s made more so by controversial American drone attacks.

The US uses remotely-piloted drone aircraft to go after terror suspects in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

The cables confirmed that Pakistani officials condone the attacks in private while opposing them in public. Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations says the pace of the drone attacks has picked up under in recent years.

“It’s turned from what was a very special and probably highly reserved tactic to one that is now almost a staple of US counterterrorism efforts,” Markey said. “As such we probably need to start asking some bigger questions about it.”

P.W. Singer agrees with Markey that drones deserve more scrutiny. He’s written a book about the military robotics revolution called “Wired for War.”

“Something that was viewed as just science fiction is now the new normal of war,” Singer said. “We’re seeing massive use of unmanned aerial systems.”

Singer says future combat aircraft will not have pilots in them. He says there’s not a single US aerospace company that’s building a manned combat system in terms of research and development right now.

Everything in research and development is unmanned (piloted remotely). Singer points out that the technology is advancing far more quickly than the human ability to grapple with the consequences — that’s as true for robotic airplanes as it is for computers.

If Wikileaks is pushing legal and political boundaries so is drone warfare according to Singer.

“We haven’t declared war in terms of our operations in Pakistan but we’ve carried out over 200 air strikes there.” Singer said. “Congress hasn’t even held a single hearing on it to say they support it or they’re against it.”

Singer has no doubt some of the strikes on terrorism suspects are justified but he worries some of them are not, that killing becomes too easy when the person pulling the trigger is thousands of miles from the battlefield.

He’s not the only one. Critics have long complained that the drone strikes result in too many civilian casualties, and may in fact backfire by angering and alienating local populations.

But Military analyst John Pike of www.globalsecurity.org has a different view.

“What’s the alternative?” Pike asked. “That we want to make it more difficult to kill the enemy? That we want to put our soldiers into a fair fight with the enemy?”

That is perhaps the most powerful attraction of the drones for US policy makers — that they keep the pressure on the enemy while keeping US forces out of harms way.
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Wired.com: Everybody wants drones

On The World:
• The drone war in Pakistan
• America’s third war
• Military analyst Noah Shachtman on the drone war

US troops in Arghandab district, Afghanistan (Photo: Ben Gilbert)

The US military operation in Kandahar is currently focusing on a district to the north, called Arghandab. Arghandab holds the key to controlling the northern roads coming into Kandahar, the area once posed a serious challenge to Soviet military planners, and now NATO troops. Ben Gilbert was in the district last month with troops from the 82nd airborne division. Download MP3

• Multimedia: Ben Gilbert’s photos from Arghandab
• BBC map: foreign troops in Afghanistan
• Military base close to the front
• US strategy in Afghanistan

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KATY CLARK: There’s much speculation about a NATO offensive to take control of the city of Kandahar and its surroundings in southern Afghanistan. US troops there are currently focusing on an area to the north of Kandahar. It’s called Arghandab. This lush valley is considered the “gateway” to Kandahar. The Soviet military got bogged down in Arghandab in the 1980s. The district is now posing similar challenges to NATO. The World’s Ben Gilbert was in Arghandab earlier this summer with US troops from the 82^nd airborne division.

BEN GILBERT:  Captain Claude Lambert is in a unique position among US company commanders in Kandahar province. He and his Delta company paratroopers can walk out the front gate of their base, and enter a park. A real park.

CLAUDE LAMBERT:  We’re trying to put a playground in. Agricultural training center maybe can be located here. Maybe a cool storage, restaurant. Just all in the park.

GILBERT: The park contains rushing irrigation canals, like this one, and all sorts of flowers and manicured gardens. On top of a small hill, there’s even a panoramic view of the Arghandab river valley. Lambert points to a thick jungle of vineyards, wheat fields and fruit groves on the opposite bank.

LAMBERT: And you see Arghandab, shuyens on the western side there, which no coalition forces are in at all, no Arghandab district governments at all.

GILBERT: The west side of the river is controlled by the Taliban. And now it’s the focus of an operation to clear the area of the insurgent’s influence. The Americans describe Arghandab as 50% stable, and 50% contested. And by contested, they mean insurgents attack them with machine guns and IED’s on a daily basis. But Captain Lambert’s troops are almost never attacked on the river’s eastern side. No one really knows why it’s so quiet here. Lambert says topography is key, and that tribal relations and rivalries also play a part. But even in Lambert’s area, there are some villages where the soldiers are greeted with thumbs up and smiles. And other villages are less welcoming.

MALE SPEAKER: 3-7 bravo, this is 3-7. Is your team over the wall yet, over?

MALE SPEAKER: Negative.

MALE SPEAKER: Alright, just let me know when you’re over.

GILBERT: On patrols like this one, Delta Company troops walk through a thick labyrinth of pomegranate groves. Some soldiers say it reminds them of the jungle in Vietnam movies. They climb 6 foot walls, with 60 to 80 pounds of gear, in 115 degree heat. Staff Sergeant Russ Hansen leads the patrol into a village less than a mile away from the base but which takes an hour to get to because of the thick underbrush. He believes an IED exploded near the village a few days before. It killed a local Afghan man working on US funded aid projects. Hansen wants to know if the man was targeted because of his work. A local strongman named Arjan welcomes the soldiers into his garden. Arjan fought the Soviets in this valley and he keeps a well worn assault rifle propped up behind him. Arjan serves the soldiers glasses of fresh pomegranate juice from a silver tray as Hansen asks about the IED.

RUSS HANSEN:  Have you heard anything? Have the people said who they think is responsible for it?

PASHTO SPEAKING

GILBERT: Arjan says he doesn’t know. And he says the bomb really exploded in a village closer to the American base, not this one. Then, he apologizes for not being able to offer the Americans food.

PASHTO SPEAKING

GILBERT: “The security situation is bad right now, or else I would invite you to stay for a meal,” Arjan says. “Hopefully, someday we can have a meal together.” But the soldiers don’t know if they can trust him. They wonder if the AK-47 has been used to shoot at them. After they leave, it doesn’t take long before someone does. As they walk along the river, a shot rings out from less than 100 feet away. The soldiers don’t know who fired the shot. But it appeared to come from a nearby field surrounded by 8-foot high mud walls. So, the soldiers knock down a metal door in the wall. Inside, they find a man with a motorbike, and a spent shell casing. They detain the man for questioning. Private First Class Wesley Burrier guards the prisoner.

WESLEY BURRIER: I say that’s one thing that sucks about this war is that this guy right here could be Taliban and you’d never know it. I’m pretty sure I’ve shaken hands with the Taliban before. You just don’t know.

GILBERT: As the soldiers walk back to their base with the detainee, they stop to watch a couple suspected Taliban watch them from the other side of the river. Then an IED explodes about a mile away. It didn’t hit any American or Afghan security forces, so no one knows what it was. Bit it’s just another unknown to chalk up for Delta Company in Arghandab. They hope the current operation and an influx of additional troops this summer and fall will help to change that. For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert, Arghandab District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.

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• The Wikileaks files and government transparency
• Pakistanis mostly unconcerned over Wikileaks
• Interview with Mexico’s foreign minister Patrica Espinosa

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MARCO WERMAN: The WikiLeaks story has been grabbing headlines, nationally and internationally this week. So has Arizona’s controversial immigration law, after a federal judge put key parts of the measure on ice. For more on how these two stories are being covered beyond US borders we turn to Stephan Bachenheimer, US correspondent for Germany’s Deutsche Welle. And to Angela Kocherga, who covers Mexico and the border for KHOU TV in Texas. Welcome to you both.

STEPHEN BACHENHEIMER:  Thank you.

ANGELA KOCHERGA:  Thank you.

WERMAN: First to you Stephan.  We’ve just heard in that piece by correspondent Alex Gallafent about the evolving image of the group WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. Germany’s Der Spiegel newsmagazine, of course, was one the three outlets Assange turned to to release these documents. How does your German audience view the organization WikiLeaks, rouges or reputable?

BACHENHEIMER: Well, I think it depends who you ask. I think people are quite fascinated with the fact that an organization like that exists. There’s nothing like that in Germany, or nothing on German websites. WikiLeaks does have a section for Germany, but I think people are quite surprised. They know that in America you get sued very quickly, and they’re quite surprised to see that it’s possible to publish all these secret information on the web and it is, if you look at the different media reactions, on the one hand you have the newspapers and they would point out that it is actually the words threaten the life of the Afghanis, for example, the German tabloid with a very large circulations, Bild-Zeitung, asked is this the death penalty for Afghans, so quite some concern there. In Germany it’s still being discussed. Is Afghanistan actually a war or not? What kind of mission are we in ourselves with our soldiers? So many different aspects that were touched upon by the story.

WERMAN: And Angela Kocherga, how does this WikiLeaks story play in Mexico because, I mean Mexico has had its own issues with government secrets in the past?

KOCHERGA: Exactly. And of course this was a major story in Mexico in all the leading newspapers. Although most of the coverage was coming from European or US news sources. The Mexicans are also fascinated by the idea that there’s this alternative source of information that kind of lifts the shroud and provides this look inside the war in Afghanistan. Of course, here Mexico’s coping with its own war, a drug war, and that relentless violence has really overshadowed most other major news stories. I mean we’ve had several key events this week including the kidnapping of four journalists who are now being held hostage and just this morning the US consulate here in Juarez has been shut down for security reasons as the looming car bomb threat hangs over this violent border city.

WERMAN: Now perhaps the far bigger story for your audience, Angela, has been the ruling this week knocking down key portions of Arizona’s immigration law SB1070. We spoke with Mexico’s Foreign Minister on yesterday’s program. She said Mexico’s government is going to do more to reach across the border and provide support for Mexican citizens who are in the US illegally. So, what’s been the reaction from Mexicans you’ve been speaking with about the ruling this week?

KOCHERGA: Well, of course, this is huge news in Mexico and all along the border there were protests, not just on the US side, but in Mexico, especially outside the US embassy in Mexico City. The opponents are furious. They say that they’re calling for a boycott of Arizona because they feel this law is clearly directed at people of Mexican descent and Mexicans themselves, they want to boycott both in terms of trade and travel. They say legal residents and tourists will definitely be harassed by authorities in Arizona and, of course, their Mexican consulate, they’re on alert for any kind of abuses when it comes to Mexican undocumented people in the US.

WERMAN:  Stephan Bachenheimer of Deutsche Welle, has the Arizona immigration debate kind of played in Germany like a latter-day civil rights struggle or do Germans see it as proof of the complexities of US whole assimilation melting pot?

BACHENHEIMER: I think it got a lot of attention. I’m not sure if people understand all the complexities about it. But in general I would say Germans, and that was the press reaction pretty much, are very disappointed to see that the US tries to close its borders. And it’s kind of ironic because that’s what Germany does and that’s what Europe does. But American is still seen, we learned that in school, as a melting pot and its still seen as the ideal, so the feeling is America should take all these people. We don’t do it in Europe, but America should just be default. And so there is lots of disappointment also of course because there is a wall at the border. We tore down our wall. But I think talking about the complexities a lot of Germans would not understand why its possible that so many illegal immigrants are actually in the US, living here, having jobs, because in Germany that would be completely impossible. It’s not that you have to have an ID all the time with you and show it to police, but you have to have an ID, you have to go to the authorities to register where you live. If you don’t do that, you won’t get a bank account, you won’t get a driver’s license, and so on. So you would be a fugitive and they don’t understand how it works in the US.

WERMAN: Angela, what do you think your Mexican audience is missing from the whole Arizona immigration law story that would help their understanding?

KOCHERGA: Well, at this time they become very polarizing issues and the fact of the matter is there are people in the US who do feel, especially in Arizona which receives the majority of undocumented immigrants, that something needs to be done even if they view this as kind of a drastic measure. But Mexico’s also very harsh with any kind of illegal immigrants that cross into the country. There’s some sort of protection, but it’s not on the books and immigrants who come through from Central America or elsewhere and come through Mexico and do a terrible human rights abuses, corrupt police shake them down, I mean they go through a horrible time. And I think Mexico needs to kind of look internally at how it treats the immigrants that come into its country and I think that story’s often left out of the mix as they look at the US crackdown.

WERMAN: Well very good indeed to hear your perspectives. Angela Kocherga covers Mexico and the border for KHOU TV in Texas. Stephan Bachenheimer is the US correspondent for Germany’s Deutsche Welle. Thanks to you both.

BACHENHEIMER: Thanks for having us.

KOCHERGA: Thank you.

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• BBC coverage
• The Wikileaks files and government transparency
• FAQ: Foreign forces in Afghanistan

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. President Obama today offered his condolences to the families of those killed in a plane crash in Pakistan. He issued a statement that said, in part, the American people stand with the people of Pakistan in this moment of tragedy. Mr. Obama was reaching out diplomatically to a key country in the fight against terrorism. The relationship between the United States and Pakistan is routinely strained over the issue of how to deal with the Taliban. The latest irritant, documents leaked to the website WikiLeaks. The documents claim that Pakistan’s intelligence agency covertly helped the Taliban in Afghanistan. Big news here, but not in Pakistan, it turns out. Fahad Desmukh reports from Karachi.

FAHAD DESMUKH:  Like any where in the world, the media in Pakistan relish conspiracies. So you would think that the WikiLeaks revelations would be just the kind of thing they’d love. The secret documents contain over a hundred and eighty reports about the activities of Pakistan’s largest intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence, or the ISI. They accuse the ISI of being involved in everything from sending a thousand motorbikes for would-be suicide bombers in Afghanistan, to plotting an assassination of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, to planning an attack on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad.

KAMRAN SHAFI:  Basically, it is old hat. I mean there’s nothing new in them.

DESMUKH: Kamran Shafi is a Pakistani columnist and a retired Army officer. He says that many Pakistanis believe the WikiLeaks documents may have been willingly released rather than leaked.

SHAFI: As far as Pakistan is concerned, we know all about the ISI and what [INDISCERNABLE] to be doing and what the stories are. So, the more you repeat things, the more the pressure gets ratcheted up.

DESMUKH: The reasoning is that the US wants to pressure the Pakistani government to do more to crack down on extremism. Cyril Almeida is a columnist and an assistant editor at the Dawn newspaper.

CYRIL ALMEIDA: We in Pakistan have heard the “do more” mantra for a long time because these kinds of views are widely held on both sides.

DESMUKH: The general view here is that the more outrageous claims about the ISI are false. But it’s taken almost for granted that the ISI is doing some of the things in Afghanistan it’s been accused of. Mosharraf Zaidi is a columnist for The News International.

MOSHARRAF ZAIDI: Pakistanis, I think, are often torn between being critical of their country’s intelligence services, for good reason, and being true to being Pakistani.

DESMUKH: Zaidi says that Pakistan actually has a strategic interest in being soft on the Taliban in Afghanistan, all the while conducting a war against the Taliban elements within Pakistan.

MOSHARRAF ZAIDI: In so far as whether Pakistan is capable of supporting the Afghan Taliban on one hand and fighting the Pakistani Taliban on the other, that’s very much the case, because the Pakistani Taliban have declared war on Pakistan, on the Pakistani people, on the Pakistani military, on the Pakistani state. The Afghan Taliban have done no such thing.

DESMUKH: Even so, the ISIs actions do raise questions in Pakistan. Should the ISI be deciding policies independently of the civilian government, as it’s perceived to do? Cyril Almeida explains.

ALMEIDA:  There is a sense that the politicians are corrupt and maybe there are some issues that are best handled by national security. An organization that the public perceives is more reliable, more pro-Pakistani, more vibrant and nationalistic.

DESMUKH: For The World, this is Fahad Desmukh in Karachi.

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• Noah Schacthman’s Danger Room blog
• BBC coverage
• Washington condemns Afghanistan leaks
• New York Times: ‘The War Logs’

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The firestorm over the leaking of classified reports about the war in Afghanistan has plenty of life left in it. The whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks revealed the documents. Stories about them appeared in the press yesterday. Now you’d think that the disclosure of all this information might help enlighten the public about what’s going on in Afghanistan. But tens of thousands of documents? Well, that might be too much information. The World’s Alex Gallafent says it’s not at all clear how we’re supposed to make sense of it all.

ALEX GALLAFENT:  President Obama today gave his first public comments about the leaking of the documents.

BARACK OBAMA:  While I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan.

GALLAFENT: Maybe not. But Rebekah Sanderlin is worried. Very worried. She has a personal reason to be concerned. Her husband serves in the US Army. She blogs about family life from her home near Fort Bragg.

REBEKAH SANDERLIN: My biggest fear with this leaked information is that it’s going to cause people to have a knee jerk reaction and then they might rush to judgment.

GALLAFENT: Sanderlin is concerned that people will assume not only that everything in the leak is accurate, but that they’ll think it’s a complete record of what’s been going on in Afghanistan. Sanderlin says she’s generally in favor of transparency. She’s a journalist by trade. But she argues that the documents don’t capture, for example, the information she gets directly from her husband about operations.

SANDERLIN: You know that there is value in there and I think that properly treated, but I think dumping, what was it, 90,000 reports onto the public at once, it’s really just too overwhelming for people to really look at the situations and properly consider it.

GALLAFENT: And yet secret documents are seductive. Secrets are seductive. Steven Aftergood directs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

STEVEN AFTERGOOD: People might think that, oh this is a classified document that I wasn’t supposed to see. It must contain the real truth, as opposed to the truth we think we know. And that assumption is really unwarranted. Classified documents are unlikely to have a higher truth quotient than newspaper reports or other kinds of documents. And it would be unrealistic to think otherwise.

BRUCE RIEDEL: What we have here is really raw data dumped out into the Internet.

GALLAFENT:  Former CIA officer Bruce Riedel says the data are now being mined for stories, for angles, for whatever people want to find. And that includes the Obama Administration.

RIEDEL: Both sides will cherry-pick, I’m sure, from this, but I think that the opponents of the war will probably be more inclined to mine these documents than the administration camp.

GALLAFENT: The Guardian, one of the three newspapers to receive the leaked documents in advance, is inviting its readers to analyze the data themselves and submit their own mash-ups and visualizations of what they find. Some of those reader-generated interpretations of the data may have less to do with the facts than with their biases. But that shouldn’t be a cause for concern, says Alasdair Roberts. He’s the author of Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS: Some people may reach incorrect interpretations, but you have to have faith in the democratic process and the notion that the public at large will eventually sort out what seems to them to be the right interpretation of the facts available.

GALLAFENT: After all, as Roberts points out, the military data are no more complex than, say, financial data from a big investment bank. And few would argue that we need less information about the US mission in Afghanistan. What we need is to understand it. For The World, I’m Alex Gallafent.

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• BBC coverage
• Selection of the secret dispatches
• Wikileaks founder: ‘This is the story of the war’
• What is Wikileaks?
• New York Times: ‘The War Logs’

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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp. This is The World. Today’s lead story in three newspapers in the US, Britain, and Germany is, basically, a history of the past six years of the war in Afghanistan. The articles are based on more than 90,000 classified US military documents. The documents were leaked by the internet site WikiLeaks. And they paint a grimmer picture of the war than the official portrayal. In particular, they assert that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have covertly aided the insurgency in Afghanistan, something Pakistan denies. But that’s not all. The World’s Alex Gallafent begins our coverage.

ALEX GALLAFENT:  The materials cover just about every US military encounter in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009. They include threat reports from intelligence agencies and descriptions of enemy attacks. There are records of meetings with local leaders, and detailed accounts of coalition operations. Most of the documents are classified secret. David Leigh is an editor with The Guardian in London, one of the three newspapers to receive the leaked documents. He says the detailing of the impact on regular Afghans was a particular revelation.

DAVID LEIGH:  The picture that came out was of hundreds of attacks on civilians in which civilians were not only the victims of airstrikes, which we knew about I think because they caused a lot of protests but also, time and again, perfectly innocent drivers and motorcyclists, sometimes women and children, got shot by convoys or patrols just for getting too close, I think because troops are so jumpy and frightened of suicide bombers.

GALLAFENT: Today the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, accused US forces of concealing civilian deaths. Assange told a news conference in London that there could be legal implications.

JULIAN ASSANGE: It is up to a court to decide, clearly, whether something is, in the end, a crime. That said, prima facie, there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material.

GALLAFENT: In addition, Assange pointed to a deadly missile strike ordered by a secret US-led special forces unit that allegedly hunts down and kills senior Taliban targets. WikiLeaks stated goal is to reveal “unethical behavior” by governments and corporations. A recent magazine profile described the organization as a media insurgency. In London, Julian Assange compared the publishing of the Afghanistan documents with the opening of East German secret police files after the collapse of the Soviet Union twenty years ago.

ASSANGE: This is the equivalent of opening the Stasi archives. It is a history, it is an enormous compendium of material that will affect many different people in different ways.

GALLAFENT: Officials in the United States and Afghanistan assert that there is little in the leaked documents that wasn’t previously known. The White House also says that the material is old news, because it predates President Obama’s own strategy for Afghanistan. But others argue that the sheer level of detail contained in the military documents proves that the war in Afghanistan is not going well. Marvin Weinbaum is a former Afghanistan analyst at the State Department.

MARVIN WEINBAUM: There’s no question that in the past there were a number of incidents that we knew of and that were generally publicized where the US naturally, understandably, if you will, tended to minimize the effect of this collateral damage. This though, does give those people in Afghanistan who’ve been critical of the operation obviously a great deal of fuel for their criticism.

GALLAFENT: WikiLeaks is facing criticism in the United States for releasing the archive. Today one lawmaker said its action amounted to “recklessness.” A Pentagon spokesman called the documents release “criminal.” He added that it would take “days if not weeks” to assess the damage to national security. And this won’t be the last of it. WikiLeaks says there’s a lot more material to come. For The World, I’m Alex Gallafent.

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• Multimedia: See Ben Gilbert’s photo slideshow from Kandahar
• Staking out a corner of Taliban country
• The surge in Afghanistan

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MARCO WERMAN: The WikiLeak release of military documents ends in December 2009, when President Obama announced a new strategy to try to shift the tide of the war. That strategy includes beefing up the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. An early test of the Obama plan is expected to take place in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. A much-anticipated offensive there is finally beginning to take shape. The World’s Ben Gilbert sets the scene.

BEN GILBERT:  Kandahar province contains around a million people. About half of them live in the densely populated capital, Kandahar City. The other half lives in rural farming districts. US troops are flooding into the province this summer as part of Operation Hamkari, or “cooperation.” Major General Nick Carter, commander of the US-led International Security Force’s regional command south, says the operation will include two phases, controlling the hinterlands that serve as Taliban safe havens, and securing the city itself.

NICK CARTER:  It’s much more about very weak governance capability and capacity, about a lack of representation for the people, a poor quality of security, predominantly police efficiency and competence, and structures and systems. And it’s about really bringing order to what is a very disorderly environment.

GILBERT: To begin doing that, the US military is beefing up the number of military police training Afghan police in the city. The Americans are also building an outer ring of thirteen checkpoints around the city. Brigadier General Ben Hodges takes weekly tours of Kandahar and its environs. He’s one of the architects of Hamkari.

BEN HODGES: What we are trying to do is separate the insurgent from the population, so there are filters, and separate the insurgents from population is one of the tenets of counterinsurgency.

GILBERT: Today, the General visits Checkpoint 710 on the busy Highway 1 on Kandahar’s dangerous western approach. Lt. Colim Kelly of the 82^nd Airborne division is here training the Afghan national police, who are replacing the local police because they were considered too corrupt.

COLIM KELLY: They inspect the licenses and registration, and if they see anything suspicious or they don’t have a license or registration, then they’ll search that vehicle, have all the occupants get out, and we’ll enter them into our biometrics program. So control the flow of traffic into and out of Kandahar City.

GILBERT: The Afghans lined up in their vehicles tell The World they like the new security. Only one, a gardener named Walid who lives in Kandahar, ventures to say he dislikes it.

PASHTO SPEAKING

GILBERT: “The checkpoints are good for security,” Walid says. “But we don’t like waiting in line.” The reluctance of Afghans to criticize the checkpoints is less a sign of how popular they are than an indication of how afraid people are of the government, police and military institutions here. Waheed is a former Afghan newspaper editor and General Hodge’s personal translator.

WAHEED:  They afraid, they say, later on Afghan police, they will come to them and they will hurt them. Honestly, they are afraid.

GILBERT: As Hodges and his entourage leave the checkpoint, someone in a passing car fires a burst of bullets. Then, the day after Hodges visits the checkpoint, the Taliban attack the main headquarters of the Afghan national police, killing four US paratroopers and six Afghans. The incident and the growing insecurity here are on the agenda when General Hodges attends the governor’s security meeting.

HODGES: This is the Kandahar provincial security meeting, takes place every other week, and you have representatives from all the Afghan security forces meet with the governor, and just talk through various security issues and updates, that sort of thing.

GILBERT: Hodges says this meeting is part of the other side of Hamkari, building the capacity of Kandahar’s government and bureaucracy. Torryalay Weesa is governor of Kandahar Province.

TORRYALAY WEESA: We need judges, we need prosecutors, we need financial people, we need census, like the statistical office. It will be difficult to have all these people at once.

GILBERT: Finding people to fill those positions is difficult. Kandahar Mayor Ghulam Hayder Hamidi attempts to govern the city of 500,000 with a staff of only 65. He says there aren’t enough qualified graduates from local universities to fill the jobs.

GHULAM HAYDER HAMIDI: We don’t want to hire some employees which they never went to school, and only they are hired by tribes, by the warlords. We are looking to hire good people.

GILBERT: Another reason: the increasing number of assassinations and intimidation by the Taliban. Hamidi lost his deputy this spring when he was killed as he prayed in a city mosque. Still, other qualified workers have been snatched up by the better paying international organizations in Afghanistan. General Hodges recognizes the challenges, but he says the Kandahar operation builds on lessons from this winter’s operation in Marjah. There’s no point in clearing an area if you’re not ready to hold it. Right now he says Kandahar is in a building phase on areas already held. Later this summer and fall will come more violent clearing operations in Kandahar’s Arghandab and Zhari districts. For the World, I’m Ben Gilbert in Kandahar City, Afghanistan.

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• Photo gallery
• The surge in Afghanistan
• Infrastructure for Afghanistan offensive

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. A bomb exploded today inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan. The attack underscored the recent uptick in violence there. The Taliban is expected to step up its activity against international forces in the coming months. And NATO troops are soon to begin a major offensive in Kandahar. The World’s Ben Gilbert was recently embedded with US Marines in Marjah, site of the US military’s last surge six months ago.

BEN GILBERT:  Patrol Base Chris is located in a mud-walled farming compound surrounded by six foot deep canals, open fields, and bushy tree lines. This used to be a Taliban base until the end of June, when the 1^st platoon of the 3/6 Marine’s Lima Company took it over. Sgt. Edward Detchemendy says the base has been attacked just about every day since.

EDWARD DETCHEMENDY:  Yeah, we call this place la heeata del Diablo, which is the Devil’s Box, because you’re just sitting here and wait for them to attack us. Around 1700 every day, pretty much get shot at. We run out to the road, return fire. We throw everything we have at them, and they still keep attacking us. They’re relentless.

GILBERT: The basic living conditions here at Camp Chris are challenging as well. The Marines are assaulted by flies during the day and by fleas and mosquitoes at night. Their uniforms are stained with salt and dirt, their pants ripped and torn. The men hold them together with duct tape. They eat every meal out of a bag, MRE’s, or meals ready to eat. The marines are partnered with about 50 Afghan National Army soldiers, or ANA. They all live together in the compound. Even so, the training gap and cultural gap is pretty huge. Lance Corporal Johnathan Osmer says the Marines give the Afghans nicknames, mostly from movies, because they can’t pronounce their real names. There’s Toothless, Jackie Chan, Jack Sparrow, Pedro.

JOHNATHAN OSMER: We call him Pedro cause he looks Mexican. His mustache and everything. And has a unibrow. He just left yesterday, he went on leave. He was one of the best ANA soldiers we had.

GILBERT: Why was he good?

OSMER: Just tactics wise. Like he’s always looking around. We tell him to do something, he would do it. You get the 10% that’s like really, really good. And you got another 10% that they’re just – I don’t know, I think they shouldn’t even join the ANA.

GILBERT: That 10% is on display at one of the guard towers on the edge of the compound.  Corporal Matt Scott watches as two Afghan soldiers who are supposed to be scanning the perimeter for Taliban activity instead busy themselves with their cell phones.

MATT SCOTT: You can see it right now. They’re probably just chit chatting. They’re supposedly supposed to be observing their post, but right now they’re looking down. Eventually you’ll get one ANA soldier up there that’s actually going to do his job, and he’s going to observe, and then he’s going to probably tell us what he sees. And he’s going to get somebody else who is not competent, and he’s not going to be looking over the wall, he’s probably looking down at his phone.

GILBERT: The Marines just started training with these young ANA soldiers. Corporal Bryan Webb briefs an Afghan squad leader on the patrol he’s leading tonight. Six ANA soldiers will accompany the Marines on this mission. The Marines are trying to do a census of the Afghans who live in nearby villages. As the Marines walk out into the quiet fields, Corporal Webb scans the ground for IED’s, and the tree line for Taliban spotters or muzzle flashes. He stops two men walking down a path.

BRYAN WEBB: Who’s that group of people that’s sitting over there in the trees right now? The little kid with the white whatever you want to call it on. Yeah, they’re watching us. They’re seeing how far we get away from the compound before the hit it, or either hit us.

GILBERT:  But it’s quiet as the Marines continue their patrol, past stacks of dried poppy stalks, and farmers in their sunflower, bean and corn fields. There’s a bridge the Taliban blew up, and another road we inspect to make sure no one has laid IEDs on it. Webb asks every few farmers the same questions.

WEBB: When’s the last time you’ve seen the Taliban at here?

GILBERT: He gets various answers. Twenty days to one year. Since they’re not far from the Marine’s compound that gets attacked every day, Webb knows they’re lying either to cover for the Taliban, or because they’re scared, or both. The light is fading and Webb didn’t get a chance to ask any census questions or hand out any of the literature. We return to patrol base Chris without a fight, along a road pockmarked with holes from IED’s that have exploded over the last few months. Later that night, the men eat and smoke and watch movies. Lance Corporal Johnathan Osmer shows me photos from his six months in Afghanistan.

OSMER: There’s a freshly dug hole in the road right next to where this guy was farming at. And so we started questioning him about it. He said he didn’t know anything about it. We start walking, we started getting shot at by [INDISCERNABLE], I guess, and this guy, [SOUNDS LIKE] Baroni seen him go and pick up an RPG and shoot it at us. It flew right between me and you, and then it went towards the front of the patrol.

GILBERT: The Marines fall asleep in the one air conditioned tent on their base, or under the stars in the middle of the compound. Although a few shots are fired in the night, there is no attack, and it’s quiet into the next day. But the Marines get antsy. They’re bored, and they know an attack will eventually come. It does, two days later. None of 1^st platoon Marines or their Afghan partners are hurt. They hope it stays that way for the remainder of their tour, which ends in just a few short weeks. For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert at Patrol Base Chris, Marjah, Afghanistan.

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• BBC: Mapping U.S. drone and Islamic militant attacks
• America’s third war
• Video: U.S. drone attacks increase

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MARCO WERMAN: US forces have often relied on unmanned aircraft, or drones, to kill Taliban leaders. Some drone attacks have occurred in Afghanistan. But it’s the drone strikes in Pakistan that have gotten the most attention. The strikes have often killed civilians along with the targeted militants. The Pentagon doesn’t comment on suspected drone attacks. But according to new research by the BBC, more than 700 people have died in Pakistan as a result of 80-plus US drone attacks there since January 2009. You can see a digital map at BBC.com/news. To find out how the attacks have affected the Pakistani Taliban, The BBC’s Urdu Service spoke to a Taliban leader in North Waziristan. This man, identified as Mufti Khaled, admitted the strikes have disrupted the Taliban’s operations. Haroon Rashid is the BBC’s Islamabad Bureau Chief. He’s the one who spoke to the Taliban leader who told him how the strikes have affected the militants.

HAROON RASHID:  They are more careful now. They have put in force more stringent steps to ensure that their leadership is safe and that their leaders don’t gather for meetings. They don’t stay at one place for long time and they have stopped communicating through telephone or other wireless communications.

WERMAN:  And as long as these drone attacks are happening, how does the Taliban communicate with each other?

RASHID: They rely more on human to human communication, I believe. And I think communication through mobile phones or wireless [INDISCERNABLE] are out of question for them at the moment.

WERMAN: Now new BBC research has shown that at least 87 US drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas have taken place since President Obama took office. And that’s compared to 25 drone attacks under the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency. Apart from what Mufti Khaled told you about how they’re shifting their strategy, did he speak about the overall effect these attacks are having?

RASHID: I mean he has admitted that these drone attacks are restricting their movement, have somehow put a restraint on their efforts to [SOUNDS LIKE] fire at the Americans and their allied forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but he seemed quite sure that this was a temporary thing. And in fact one of the statements that Taliban emailed to me said that they are preparing some technological step to counter these drone attacks.

WERMAN: What about civilian deaths from the drone attacks? Is there any reliable information about how many non-militants have been killed?

RASHID: I mean it depends on who you are talking to. If you are talking to the Taliban they will claim that most of the deaths from these drone attacks have been of women and children. But if you speak to some of the ordinary residents who have come out from that region and we have been able to speak to them, they say that these drone attacks are more or less precise and they are hitting the right targets of Taliban and they have somehow paralyzed some of their operations. But actually what is the situation on the ground? It is difficult to get because both the military and the Taliban don’t want any independent journalists or researchers in that area.

WERMAN: Haroon, I’m interested in how you actually came across Mufti Khaled and had this conversation. Did he contact you as a representative of the Taliban or were you trying to make contact with him?

RASHID: Well, because of these drone attacks most of the Taliban leadership has gone underground and they are not calling media or journalists as they used to do. But there is one guy, [INDISCERNABLE] Omar, who still calls up media to give Taliban [SOUNDS LIKE] version and he says that Taliban have set up a Taliban media center in North Waziristan to put their story across the world. So he calls up from time to time and I asked him whether I can speak to some senior Taliban leader on this drone issue and that is how he arranged Mufti Khaled for me to speak to him on telephone.

WERMAN:  Haroon Rashid, the BBC’s Islamabad Bureau Chief. Thank you very much for your time.

RASHID: Thank you.

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• BBC coverage
• Working outside Afghan security bubble

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. A host of dignitaries were in Kabul today for a conference aimed at charting Afghanistan’s future. The meeting ended with fresh promises from the United States and others to continue support for Afghanistan and its leader. Donors have already spent some 29 billion dollars. The re-affirmation comes just as NATO and Afghan forces are launching a major operation to drive out the Taliban. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH:  In the hours before the conference began, NATO troops killed a group of insurgents that had been planning an attack. And militants fired rockets near the airport, preventing some delegations from landing in Kabul. In spite of those stark reminders of insecurity, Afghan president Hamid Karzai still made some bold predictions to delegates. Afghan security forces will take charge by 2014.

HAMID KARZAI:  Our goal is to transform the three organs of our national security forces into trusted national institutions dedicated to fulfilling their constitutional duty of ensuring the integrity and security of our county.

LYNCH: In Washington, President Barack Obama was quick to highlight Karzai’s assurances as reason enough for optimism.

BARACK OBAMA: The Kabul conference shows that Afghanistan has the support of the international community, including the United States, which will remain a long-term partner for the security and progress of the Afghan people.

LYNCH: For most European countries, any transition to Afghan control that would allow them to take their troops home cannot happen swiftly enough. The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, says this conference marks the start of a fundamental shift.

BAN KI-MOON: Never before have we had a more concrete vision of Afghanistan’s future and moreover this vision was created by the Afghan people and government.

LYNCH: The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, admits he’s still worried about the vast sums of money coming under Karzai’s control under the new plan. But he does see some signs of progress.

BERNARD KOUCHNER: Complete confidence, no? Let’s say, first, we are holding this conference in Kabul, one year ago, two years ago. It was impossible. Second, he more or less proposed to all the people respecting the constitution, having respect for human rights and women’s right.

LYNCH: Most speakers at the conference focused on the future. But one of Afghanistan’s neighbors, Iran, couldn’t resist a chance to blame the international coalition for creating more problems than it’s solved. This is Iran’s Foreign Minister, Manuchehr Mottaki.

PERSIAN SPEAKING

MANUCHEHR MOTTAKI:  Foreign forces entered Afghanistan with an aim to restore stability and security, and to reconstruct the country. But after nine years, security conditions, drug trafficking, refugees, poverty, infrastructure, and political stability all remain problems.

LYNCH: There are Afghans, too, who worry that past performance suggests future failure. Mohammed Daud Sultanzoy is an independent MP. He accuses Karzai of making empty promises.

MOHAMMED DAUD SULTANZOY: Training a national army is not just equipment and tactical training. It’s also creating a national culture and that would be the most difficult aspect of training a national security force in Afghanistan by 2014. I wish that would be practical, but I don’t think we will have that sort of a timetable. It looks like more like a political timetable than realistic.

LYNCH: After nearly a decade Afghans would love to see an end to the war. But it will be harder to persuade many of them to make peace with the Taliban. Sultanzoy himself represents a district where Taliban forces are active. His own experience suggests making peace won’t be easy.

SULTANZOY: Four days ago, they killed one of my cousins. How could I go and sit with someone who has killed a member of a family? These are very important issues. We can sit with people and talk if they’re really serious. We should draw a line. We cannot talk with war criminals. We cannot talk with bandits.

LYNCH: The participants at today’s conference say they feel a sense of urgency, a belief that time is running out. In the next year, both Dutch and Canadian troops will withdraw from the volatile south of the country and other nations are under pressure at home to pull out soon. So Karzai must deliver on his promises or risk seeing his nation plunged back into civil war if and when all the international troops go home. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch.

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• BBC coverage

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Kabul. She’s there to take part in a major international conference on Afghanistan tomorrow. The BBC’s Kim Ghattas is travelling with Mrs. Clinton. Kim, what is expected to come out of this meeting in Kabul?

KIM GHATTAS:  Well, it’s mostly probably a show of support for the Afghan government. More and more NATO allies, the United States, want the Afghan government to take the lead whether it’s in construction, reconstruction, whether it’s in the political process. So it’s a show of support for the Afghan government. Also we will see the launch of the reintegration program. That’s the reintegration of low-level fighters from various militant groups who are low level enough that they can be reintegrated into the life without too much concern about what it means about political [SOUNDS LIKE] reconfirmation for the country. It’s quite a crucial conference for Afghanistan for the war effort. But it’s mostly, as I said, a way of showing support and of, in essence, putting a positive spin on what is a very difficult situation.

WERMAN:  Now Kim, the situation in Afghanistan is closely tied to that of its neighbor, Pakistan. Secretary Clinton was just there. She took part in a town hall meeting and announced some major aid projects. Here’s Secretary Clinton speaking earlier today.

HILLARY CLINTON: All of these programs were made possible by the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act which tripled our non-military aid to Pakistan to seven and a half billion dollars over five years. These projects are evidence of our commitment to broadening and deepening our strategic engagement with Pakistan.

WERMAN: Kim Ghattas, where is the money going? What are the major projects there in Pakistan that have been announced?

GHATTAS: It’s the agricultural sector, it’s the health sector, its energy, very important for Pakistanis, and water. And Mrs. Clinton said that water was not something that the State Department had thought of initially, but that it was suggested to them by the Pakistanis and she started this as an example of how projects carried out in Pakistan were improving because they were responding to the demands of the Pakistanis.

WERMAN: And what seems to be behind this initiative? I mean how does Secretary Clinton think this aid package will help the overall policy for the region?

GHATTAS: Part of what Pakistan is being requested to do by the Americans is to cut down on the militants who feed the violence in Afghanistan. To cut down on the military, not only does the government need to take action, but the militants need to find that they don’t get any support any more from the local population and to deprive them of that support, we need to change the mood in Pakistan. That’s how the Americans view it, that’s how the State Department views it. But trying in essence to buy the love of Pakistani people.

WERMAN: Doubts persist among many Pakistanis about connections between extremists and their own government’s military. Can seven and a half billion dollars buy their love?

GHATTAS: I have to say that it looks as though there is starting to be a change, very small perhaps, in the attitude towards the United States. I worked with the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she visited Pakistan last year and she fielded some very tough questions from students and journalists who made very clear that they did not trust Americans when they told them that they were Pakistan’s long-term friend. This time around at the town hall meeting and at the media interview she gave, there was still some mistrust, but the tone was different. It was a little bit friendlier. There were more questions about how are these projects going to work and what more can you offer. So, the tone is changing. It’s going to take a sustained effort, but Hillary Clinton said that this was part of a strategic dialogue and this is what this 7.5 billion dollar package over five years is aimed to do.

WERMAN:  The BBC’s Kim Ghattas in Kabul. Thank you so much.

GHATTAS: You’re very welcome.

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• The surge in Afghanistan
• BBC coverage

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JEB SHARP:  I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World.  The change of commanders in Afghanistan does not affect U.S. commitment to the fight there.  That’s what Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon today.  He also said overall U.S. strategy won’t change, even if the new commander might tweak it a bit.  General David Petraeus is stepping in as top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at a very delicate time.  American and NATO troops are preparing for a key offensive in Kandahar Province.  Casualties are already high now.  June has been the deadliest month for international forces since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001.  Nowhere is the violence more apparent than at the trauma ward at Kandahar Air Field.  Ben Gilbert is embedded with U.S. troops there and sends this report.  Please be aware this story contains graphic descriptions that some may find disturbing.

BEN GILBERT:  The American flags at Kandahar Air Field have flown at half mast most days this month.  That means the body of an American service member is on base waiting to be flown back to the U.S.  The 12 bed emergency trauma center here at Kandahar Air Field is in high demand.  U.S. Navy Commander Mike Mullins runs day to day operations at the hospital.  He says as more troops have been deployed into and around the Taliban spiritual heartland of Kandahar, casualties have increased.

COMMANDER MIKE MULLINS:  The last two weeks have been very busy.  We always hope for no casualties, but again, you will take care of who shows up.

GILBERT: Most patients arrive by medevac helicopter, the Army’s air ambulance that ferries wounded troops in from the field.  On a recent morning, the first soldier arrived at 8:43 a.m.  He was on a patrol searching for IED’s.  A bomb went off under his vehicle.  About 70% of troop casualties are caused by these improvised explosive devices.  The helicopter drops him off about 500 feet from the hospital.  An ambulance brings him to the door.  His leg was broken.  He’s stabilized and will be okay.  A half hour later two other soldiers arrive from the same unit. They had been securing the helicopter landing zone for the first soldier when another IED went off.  One has shrapnel to the face, the other to the neck.  It’s 9:04 a.m.  The roll the patient with the head wound inside the trauma center and get to work.  The man’s face is full of blood.  A piece of shrapnel tore open the front of his right thigh, then burrowed a quarter-sized hole into his left inner leg.  And his skull is fractured, an x-ray shows.  But the fact that he was talking and moving around when he first arrived is a good sign.  He was eventually flown to Germany and expected to survive, but also to lose his eye from the shrapnel wound.  As the team finishes working on him, Commander Mullins tells me there’s another patient on the way.

MULLINS:  We just know it got posted.

GILBERT: So its 9:40 in the morning and this is the third call of the morning?

MULLINS: Yeah, third call.  It’s an IED blast.

GILBERT: Four NATO troops in the Kandahar area were wounded by IED’s in about a two hour time frame on this day.  The next morning brings more of the same.  The hospital staff rolls three Afghan police officers in on stretchers.  They were wounded in a blast.  One policeman’s heart is not beating.  Both his legs are broken, his body is limp and pale.  The trauma team works frantically to revive him.  They cut open his chest and the doctor begins massaging the patient’s heart with his hand.  Lieutenant Colonel Rob Stiegelmar, a Canadian doctor here, says it’s called cardiac massage.

MALE VOICE 1:  You can see his hand moving, squeezing the heart directly.  So it’s more efficient CPR than pushing on the chest.  This is only done if someone loses vital signs within 10 minutes.

GILBERT: They do get the heart working again.  They try to shock him to get a steady beat.  But after 20 minutes, one of the man’s pupils is dilated.  They make the call to stop resuscitating the police officer.  The doctors declare him dead a few minutes later.  The trauma center here takes all comers, Afghan troops. U.S. service men, locals and even insurgents.  So there is little question with the build up of troops and an expected increase in violence, that the hospital staff will find themselves working at this pace for many months to come.  For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert at the Role 3 Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan.

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• BBC coverage
• McChrystal summoned over article
• Rolling Stone: “The Runaway General”

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JEB SHARP:  I’m Jeb Sharp.  This is The World.  President Obama has accepted the resignation of American’s Commanding General in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  I did so with considerable regret.  But also with certainty that it is the right thing for our mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for our country.

SHARP: President Obama speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House this afternoon.  McChrystal’s departure follows the publication in Rolling Stone magazine of disrespectful remarks from General McChrystal and his staff about members of the administration.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  I don’t make this decision based on any difference in policy with General McChrystal as we are in full agreement about our strategy.  Nor do I make this decision out of any sense of personal insult.  Stan McChrystal has always shown great courtesy and carried out my orders faithfully.  I’ve got great admiration for his and for his long record of service in uniform.

SHARP: But the President went on.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a Private, a General, or a President.  As difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe that it is the right decision for our national security.  The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a Commanding General.  It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system and it erodes the trust that is necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.

SHARP: General McChrystal had been summoned back to Washington and met one on one with President Obama this morning.  He will be replaced by David Petraeus, the head of Central Command and Chrystal’s’ boss.  The scandal comes as the war in Afghanistan hangs in the balance.  Scott Wilson is White House reporter for the Washington Post.  Scott, what happened today?

SCOTT WILSON:  Well, General McChrystal arrived very early this morning from Afghanistan, met first with Secretary Gates, the Defense Secretary for about half an hour and then went to the White House for a very short 22 minute meeting with President Obama.  And at that point left the White House compound.  At that point it became pretty clear that the had been relieved of his command because there was a monthly Situation Room meeting to review Afghanistan policy and progress that he would not be attending.  That was the first indication that he was dismissed.  I think the big surprise was that David Petraeus was named as his replacement.  In some ways it’s a demotion, technically for General Petraeus in that he was overseeing Afghanistan as part of the broader Central Command.  But then again, in practical terms, this will be the second war he’s called upon to essentially turn around and will look very good on a resume of an already extremely successful General.

SHARP: On the question of General Stanley McChrystal, what was it, do you think, that really ticked off the administration in the end?

WILSON: Well, a couple things.  It exposed, first of all, the management of a war that had really gone awry.  There is one thing that this President really does not like and it is that kind of personality driven dissention that this episode really exposed.  General McChrystal not getting along at all with General Eikenberry, the Ambassador in Kabul, with Richard Holbrooke, these are big personalities fighting in really very petty ways at times.  And some of the language used in the article was extremely petty.  So it really undermined, I think, the General McChrystal’s credibility in the President’s eyes.  He didn’t think it was possible for General McChrystal to really command the respect of not only other civilian leadership, but even with the ranks of his own troops after some of the comments that were published and what that revealed about his attitude.

SHARP: Even so, the timing couldn’t be worse.  With the war in Afghanistan at a very delicate point, and allied forces poised to move against the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, what do you think this means for the war in Afghanistan?

WILSON: Well, before General Petraeus’ choice, I think that’s why it was really an open question about whether or not President Obama would dismiss General McChrystal.  As you said, the learning curve would have been extremely high even for General McChrystal’s deputy who is a much different kind of officer; this is General Rodriguez.  But in putting Petraeus into that role, the learning curve is much less steep.  Not only has he been ostensibly overseeing a lot of the Afghanistan operation, he literally wrote the manual on counter-insurgency, has signed off on not only the strategy that was adopted last fall, but every element of it since then.  So it was not clear that David Petraeus was a choice at all heading into today and now emerging from the day it looks like there really is a lot less disruption that will probably take place as a result of his appointment.

SHARP: Scott Wilson, White House correspondent for the Washington Post, thank you very much.

WILSON: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.