Cable: VP Biden- "the need to lower expectations in Afghanistan"

[rainbow4321]

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/04/09SANTIAGO324.html


(C) Summary: During a bilateral meeting on the margins
of the Progressive Governance Leaders Summit in Chile, Vice
President Joseph Biden and British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown discussed the economic crisis in terms of the upcoming
G-20 Summit and Afghanistan and Pakistan. On economic
issues, Brown pressed Vice President Biden to push the
Germans to move forward with $250 billion in special drawing
rights (SDRs) for the IMF, to use IMF gold sales to support
poorest countries and to take the initiative to restart
sectoral negotiations related to Doha. On Pakistan and
Afghanistan, Vice President Biden noted our increased troop
commitment to Afghanistan and the need to lower expectations
as to what is achievable in Afghanistan given enormous
governance issues.


(snip)

(C) Vice President Biden noted that the current U.S.
commitment of 63,000 troops to Afghanistan is the result of a
vigorous internal policy debate and would not be sustainable
politically for more than two years without visible signs of
progress. After two years, the extraordinary cost of
maintaining a robust military presence in Afghanistan would
make additional commitment increasingly difficult. After
Afghan elections the Administration intends to review the
situation again. Currently there is little capacity for the
Afghan government to execute many of the functions of
government. In many areas of the country, local officials
have close to no knowledge of how to govern or even basic
knowledge of payroll or budget. Part of the reason the
Taliban is strengthening is since the Taliban has the local
capacity to settle basic disputes quickly while central
government courts can take six to eight months to process a
case.

(snip)

On Pakistan, Vice President Biden commented that it
was difficult to convince Pakistan to commit to developing
its counter-insurgency potential. The threat from India
leads Pakistan to devote the bulk of its defense spending to
conventional warfare capabilities. However, something must
be done in the meantime. We need to develop our relationship
with Pakistan beyond its current transactional nature to a
long-term strategic partnership. We should begin with $1.5
billion per year in economic assistance that is unconditional
and supplement that with military assistance that is
conditioned on the modernization of its command structure and
active action in the field to combat insurgents. It would be
difficult to convince Congress to support such a plan,
particularly the unconditional civilian component.