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### Viewing cable 08BERLIN1690, GERMANY: VISIT OF KUNAR AND WARDAK GOVERNORS HELPS

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
08BERLIN1690 | 2008-12-19 13:01 | 2011-01-25 00:12 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Berlin

`

    VZCZCXYZ0000
    OO RUEHWEB

    DE RUEHRL #1690/01 3541332
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    O 191332Z DEC 08
    FM AMEMBASSY BERLIN
    TO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
    RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2888
    INFO RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
    RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 0479
    RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL PRIORITY 0599
    RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
    RHMFISS/COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
    RHMFISS/CDRUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE PRIORITY
    RHMFISS/HQ USAFE RAMSTEIN AB GE PRIORITY
    RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
    RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
    RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 001690

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2018

    TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR NATO EUN GM AF TU

    SUBJECT: GERMANY: VISIT OF KUNAR AND WARDAK GOVERNORS HELPS
    ADVANCE OUR AFGHANISTAN AGENDA

    Classified By: POLITICAL M...

    183990
    2008-12-19
    08BERLIN1690
    Embassy Berlin

    CONFIDENTIAL

    C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 00169

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2018

    TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR NATO EUN GM AF TU

    SUBJECT: GERMANY: VISIT OF KUNAR AND WARDAK GOVERNORS HELPS

    ADVANCE OUR AFGHANISTAN AGENDA

    Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER COUNSELOR JEFF RATHKE.

    REASONS:

    1.4 (B) AND (D).

    ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. During a December 18 visit to Berlin, the
    governors of Kunar and Wardak provinces pressed for greater
    German assistance with the training and equipping of the
    Afghan Border Police (ABP) and the Afghan National Police
    (ANP). In a surprise announcement, the Interior Ministry
    revealed that Germany planned to establish a new training
    academy for the ABP in Kabul that will train up to 500 border
    police officers at a time. While acknowledging ongoing
    security challenges, both governors strongly disputed claims
    that a majority of the country is controlled by the Taliban.
    They argued that security trends are actually positive, and
    welcomed additional international troops to help prepare the
    ground for further advancements on development and
    governance. The governors also emphasized the need for the
    international community to focus its efforts at the district
    level and to eliminate discrepancies in development aid among
    provinces. The governors invited journalists during a press
    conference to come to Kunar and Wardak to see for themselves
    that the comprehensive approach is working. If Embassy Kabul
    were willing, and funding for a visit by a group of ten to
    twelve German journalists could be arranged, we would
    advocate taking them up on the offer. END SUMMARY.

    THE PROGRAM

    ¶2. (SBU) Kunar Governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi and Wardak
    Governor Halim Fedai visited Berlin December 18, courtesy of
    a PA program jointly sponsored by Embassy Kabul and USNATO,
    which took them first to Brussels and then to Paris. The two
    governors, together with their Embassy Kabul escorts, flew on
    to Munich after their stay in Berlin for a further two days
    of meetings and events before departing back to Afghanistan
    (Munich program to be reported septel). The governors had a
    full program in Berlin, which included a roundtable with more
    than a dozen German parliamentarians and separate meetings
    with the state secretaries at the Ministry of Interior (MOI)
    and Foreign Office (MFA). The governors also participated in
    a press conference featuring leading journalists from print
    and electronic media, whose questions focused on security,
    corruption and the state of development in Kunar and Wardak.
    Coverage so far in print media has been skeptical, but
    overall positive. At the end of the day, the governors came
    to the Embassy for a wrap-up session with the Charge.

    CONTROLLING THE BORDER WITH PAKISTAN

    ¶3. (C) In all the meetings, Kunar Governor Wahidi emphasized
    Kunar's geographic position as an eastern province with a
    240-kilometer border with Pakistan. He complained that his
    province only had 600 of the 3,000 Afghan Border Police (ABP)
    needed to properly control this border and he appealed to his
    German interlocutors to provide greater assistance with the
    training and equipping of the ABP. MOI State Secretary
    August Hanning agreed that having a fully functioning and
    effective border police force was decisive in achieving
    success in Afghanistan, and in a surprise announcement,
    revealed that Germany was planning to establish a ABP
    training academy in Kabul, in an old Russian building right
    next to the existing German-run Afghan National Police (ANP)
    academy.

    ¶4. (C) On the margins of the meeting, MOI officials indicated
    that the academy would focus its work on training
    higher-level police officers in the ABP and that the plan was
    to accommodate up to 500 students at time. They were not
    sure how long the course of instruction would last,
    indicating that this was still under consideration. They
    invited us to return in January to get a fuller picture of
    their plans for the academy.

    ¶5. (C) During the meeting with parliamentarians, Elke Hoff of
    the Free Democratic Party (FDP), who is a regular visitor to
    Afghanistan, said that while Pakistan was ready to work with
    Afghanistan in reinforcing and controlling their common
    border, Afghanistan's reluctance to accept the Durand Line
    seemed to be hindering cooperation. Wahidi rejected the need
    for Afghanistan to formally recognize the Durand Line
    (something he claimed that Afghanistan was simply not in a
    position to deal with at the current time) in order to enable
    effective control of the border with Pakistan. He argued
    that since many tribes straddle both sides of the border,
    border control could not, in any event, consist of erecting
    barriers and checkpoints that limited the legitimate travel
    of tribal members back and forth between Pakistan and
    Afghanistan. Instead, he called for an increased and
    permanent presence of ABP on the border to deter, prevent and
    respond to the entry of insurgents from Pakistan.

    EQUIPPING THE POLICE

    ¶6. (C) Wardak Governor Fedai also focused on the police in
    his remarks, stressing that the challenges went far beyond
    training. He noted that the Afghan National Police (ANP)
    lacked the necessary communication equipment to talk to each
    other, relying solely on personal cell phones, which
    frequently did not work at night. He said the Afghanistan
    National Development Strategy (ANDS) called for the
    construction of nine police stations in Wardak, but these
    remained unfunded. He complained that the police throughout
    Afghanistan lack uniforms, vehicles, fuel, accommodations,
    explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) equipment and the tools
    necessary to do forensic investigations. He agreed with
    German parliamentarians who thought that police salaries had
    to be increased significantly to discourage corruption. But
    while he argued for a salary of $300 to 500 per month, Wahidi
    was more cautious, noting that police salaries were already
    on par with that of the Afghan National Army (ANA).

    DISPUTING CLAIMS REGARDING SECURITY SITUATION

    ¶7. (C) Both governors disputed recent studies and reports
    that have concluded that more than 70 percent of the country
    is controlled by the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
    They claimed that all of the districts in their respective
    provinces were in the hands of the government, although
    Wahidi acknowledged that parts of the mountainous border
    region of Kunar were not always under full control due to
    the lack of sufficient border police. He also made the point
    that the frequency of attacks alone do not indicate that the
    Taliban is strong -- in fact, suicide bombings are clearly a
    tactic of the weak.

    ¶8. (C) The governors also criticized the media for giving the
    perception that the security situation in Wardak and other
    RC-East provinces continued to worsen over the past year.
    Fedai argued that while it was true that security had
    deteriorated in Wardak in 2006 and 2007, things had turned
    around in 2008. He noted that while four of Wardak's nine
    districts had temporarily fallen under Taliban control in
    2007, this had not happened at all in 2008. There were no
    permanent bases for insurgents in Wardak. He also
    criticized the media for failing to distinguish between
    insurgent and criminal activities, claiming that some 70
    percent of the security incidents in Wardak were criminally
    motivated and not ideological attacks against the government.

    WHY MORE TROOPS ARE NEEDED

    ¶9. (SBU) At the press conference, the governors were asked
    why they were asking for the deployment of additional foreign
    troops if, in fact, the Taliban were getting weaker and the
    security situation was improving. The governors pointed out
    that the additional foreign troops were necessary to fill
    continuing security gaps until sufficient numbers of the ANA,
    ANP, ABP and other Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)
    were trained and equipped to do the job themselves. In
    response to a question about President-Elect Obama deciding
    to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Wahidi
    responded: He didn't decide to send them -- we asked for
    them! Wahidi noted that these troops would help prepare
    the ground to enable further advances on development and
    governance.

    ¶10. (C) In the wrap-up session with the Charge, Afghan
    Ambassador to Germany Zulfacar reported that new Afghan
    Interior Minister Atmar had made the same point to his German
    counterpart the previous week during an introductory visit to
    Berlin. Atmar had emphasized that there are currently not
    enough security forces to hold territory after it has been
    cleared, thereby allowing the Taliban to come back in and
    negate the beneficial effect of the military operations.

    DISCREPANCIES IN DEVELOPMENT AID

    ¶11. (C) The governors highlighted the wide discrepancy in the
    distribution of development aid by PRT lead nations, as
    exemplified in their own two provinces. Wahidi noted that
    the U.S. had spent some $82 million for a wide variety of
    projects in Kunar in the past year. Fedai said that the
    Turkish PRT in Wardak, by comparison, had only spent a total
    of $15 million on projects in the province over the past
    three years, out of a total of $100 million for the whole
    country. He said that other international actors like the
    EU were needed to provide supplementary resources in
    provinces where the PRT was led by a relatively poorer
    country, like Turkey. MFA State Secretary Reinhard
    Silberberg said more should be done to get rich Islamic
    countries like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which are
    natural partners for Afghanistan, more involved in supporting
    the development effort. He noted that while Germany had
    pledged some $420 million over the next three years at the
    Paris Conference this past summer, Saudi Arabia had committed
    just $20 million.

    EMPHASIS ON DISTRICT LEVEL

    ¶12. (C) Both governors emphasized the need for the
    international community to focus its efforts at the district
    level in Afghanistan, noting that most Afghans do not live in
    Kabul or a provincial capital, but rather in small rural
    villages across the country. They praised CSTC-A's Focused
    District Development (FDD) police training and mentoring as
    an example of a program that correctly takes account of this
    reality. Both MFA State Secretary Silberberg and MOI State
    Secretary Hanning confirmed that they found the case for the
    FDD program to be compelling, which was why Germany planned
    to participate in FDD on a bilateral basis in selected
    northern districts beginning in January.
    ¶13. (C) Silberberg also conceded that the EU Police Mission
    (EUPOL) -- which up until now has focused its work on the
    Afghan Ministry of Interior in Kabul and on giving strategic
    advice on how to set up the ANP and other Afghan police
    forces -- should be reoriented to focus more attention on
    police training. He indicated that Germany was pressing
    EUPOL in this direction. Green Party Defense Spokesman
    Winfried Nachtwei told us after the parliamentary meeting
    with the governors that his judgment about the irrelevance of
    EUPOL had been confirmed by the fact that neither Wahidi nor
    Fedai knew anything about it and talked only about the
    success of FDD.

    TAKING THE GOVERNORS UP ON THEIR INVITATION?

    ¶14. (SBU) The governors invited journalists during the press
    conference to come to Kunar and Wardak to see for themselves
    that the comprehensive approach is working. This presents
    obvious logistical challenges, but if Embassy Kabul were
    willing, and funding for a visit by a group of ten to twelve
    German journalists could be arranged, we would advocate
    taking them up on the offer. While bringing Afghan officials
    to Brussels on a USNATO tour is certainly beneficial, we have
    found there is no replacement for sending German journalists
    to Afghanistan. It is relatively easy for journalists to
    visit Mazar and Kunduz through trips sponsored by the German
    military, but we have seen the most effective coverage in
    German media when reporters visit multiple provinces and PRTs
    outside the north.

    SIDE BENEFIT: MENTORING OUR AFGHAN COLLEAGUES

    ¶15. (C) This is the third time within the past year that we
    have had Afghan governors stop in Berlin as part of a
    USNATO/Embassy Kabul-sponsored tour to Brussels. In addition
    to giving us an excellent opportunity to advance our
    Afghanistan agenda, both in private meetings with
    high-ranking German officials and through public diplomacy,
    these visits have also facilitated growing cooperation
    between Mission Germany and the Afghan Embassy here in
    Berlin. With each succeeding visit, the Afghans take on more
    and more responsibility for planning the program and
    scheduling the appointments. We have successfully used these
    visits to mentor our Afghan counterparts on organizing VIP
    visits and making contacts in the German government and
    Bundestag.
    Koenig

`