UN mission chief slams 'flaws' in Afghan strategy

The head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan today strongly criticised President Barack Obama’s troop surge, warning that the international coalition’s military strategy had “serious flaws”.

With international leaders gathered in London for talks on Afghanistan’s future, Kai Eide warned that pouring in more troops risked entrenching the international military presence, putting back their eventual withdrawal.

He said there was now a danger that the expected offensive against the Taliban in Helmand province, where the main British taskforce is based, would simply lead to more civilian casualties.

Mr Eide, who leaves later this year, also criticised the way much of the international aid effort had been channelled into what he scathingly described as “quick impact, quick collapse” projects rather than long-term development work.

He said that there needed to be a greater effort to achieve political progress rather than relying on the use of military force.

“There is a danger with the military surge that the military will take on more civilian tasks. That will be absolutely wrong. I think that will mean more quick-impact and quick-collapse programmes,” he told the BBC.

“I think that will mean that the military will get more entrenched and it will take longer for us to talk about any kind of meaningful reduction in the troop level.

“I believe that we base our efforts much too much on the military strategy and not on the political strategy. I believe that strategy has serious flaws that should be corrected.”

He said there was a need for more sustainable development projects, which meant directing more aid to the relatively peaceful central and northern regions which were the main “growth engines”.

“Unfortunately, what we have seen is that the major contributors spend more and more resources in the conflict areas of the country where the impact is rather limited,” he said.