FORWARD OPERATING BASE was JOYCE Afghanistan U.S. commanders offered visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates sober assessments of the effort in large swaths of eastern Afghanistan, sounding alarm about the influx of fighters as the White House completes a report expected to point to signs of progress in the country's south.
Reuters Secretary of Defense Robert Gates listens to a briefing from Lt. Col. J.b. Vowell Afghanistan Tuesday.The on-the-ground assessments from hard-hit forward operating bases in the east stood in contrast to more upbeat assertions by Pentagon and White House officials about security gains overall, as the U.S.-led coalition focuses resources on the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
Commanders in the east warned of their limited ability to deliver lasting progress as long as Pakistan offers militants sanctuary on its territory.
At FOB Joyce in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. J.b. Vowell, told Mr. Gates that there has been a surge in attacks and an influx of fighters from across Pakistan's border, just a few miles away.
He described Kunar as an increasingly challenging and "tenacious" place for American troops and their allies. Mr. Gates acknowledged "tough terrain" and "a tough fight" in mountainous eastern Afghanistan But he said he didn't consider what he heard from field commanders there to be "necessarily more grim than what I've heard elsewhere."
U.S. Army Maj. Gene. John Campbell, the coalition's regional commander for eastern Afghanistan said progress was being made, citing a drop in roadside bombings, improved security in some areas and other indicators. "It's not grim everywhere," he told reporters after meeting Mr. Gates. "Every district is different." Districts in some it's very, very good. "Don't make a generalization about Afghanistan."
Before Mr.. Gates's arrival in Afghanistan, his spokesman, Geoff Morrell, highlighted what he called "tremendous" progress in the war overall, and said Mr.. Gates's briefings in the field back would "inform" discussions by policymakers in Washington.
The White House is due to complete its report on Mr. Obama's was strategy around Dec. 15. Officials said it would point to tentative signs of progress, particularly in the south, the Taliban heartland, where most of the 30,000 additional troops authorized by Mr.. Obama last December have been deployed.
A senior defense official said he anticipated the report would likely find that the surge has "enabled the expansion of the security bubbles in Helmand and Kandahar and around Kabul and in some smaller areas in the east," clearing the way for the start of the transition of security responsibility to the Afghans next year.
Mr. Morrell said "there is no final product so it is premature to draw any definitive conclusions."
As Mr. Gates arrived in Afghanistan, British Prime Minister David Cameron told a press conference in Kabul that he has also seen was "much progress" in the effort, something that would allow British troops, deployed mostly in Helmand, to start withdrawing next year.
Here in Kunar where insurgent attacks are frequent and some areas of the province, such as the Korengal Valley, were essentially abandoned by coalition forces this year - Lt. Col. Vowell told Mr. Gates the insurgency is fueled by a mix of Afghan corruption, illiteracy and poverty.
Attacks in the area, Lt. Col. Vowell said, rose 200% in June compared with the same month a year ago.
Maj. Gene. Campbell told reporters that the fighting near FOB Joyce was so fierce in recent days that he had to decide whether or not to "bring the secretary even up here." But he said progress was being made, citing a drop in roadside bombings, improved security in some areas and other indicators.
Mr. Gates, who also visited FOB Connolly, where six U.S. soldiers of Afghan border police officer shot and killed last month, acknowledged that troops close to the border with Pakistan "face some special challenges" but said of what headway being made.
Commanders in the east singled out the Haqqani militant network, based in the Pakistani tribal area of northern Waziristan, as their biggest threat. "We shouldn 't make any bones about it they' ve got sanctuary in Pakistan], they go back and forth across the border," Maj. Gene. Campbell said.
Mounting U.S. frustration with Pakistan burst into the open in September in White House blunt to unusually report to Congress that accused of refusing to take Islamabad on militants aligned with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda, particularly in North Waziristan.
Gene. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said he understood that Pakistan will decide when the timing is right to act. The Central Intelligence Agency has stepped up drone strikes targeting the militants in Pakistan's tribal areas.
To try to tamp down the insurgency on the Afghan side of the border, Maj. Gene. Campbell said he plans to recommend moving troops out of some isolated, hard-to-defend bases in eastern Afghanistan to concentrate more of them in larger population centers.
"I can't be everywhere," he said. "We've got to give it some time to work."
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