By Vincent J. Curtis
Date: 8 Dec 10
Dateline: Forward Operating Base Rushmore
This interview took place in LTC Beckman’s office at FOB Rushmore on Dec 8, 2010. LTC Beckman is forty-three years old, and calls Hampton Illinois his home town. He is the commanding officer of the 4th BSTB, Task Force Currahee, 4th BCT, 101st Airborne Division.
VJC. I’m here representing the Buffalo News, and I’m trying to get a grunt’s-eye view of the war; and from that get an assessment of our prospects for success, and get a view of what victory is going to look like around here.
IB. Okay. Hoo-wah.
VJC: How long have you been in the military?
IB: Twenty-one years.
Q. You enlisted as an officer?
A. Officer.
Q. You are an airborne Ranger, so you are infantry?
A. No, I’m an engineer.
Q. Have you done a tour here before, or is this your first tour of Afghanistan?
A. This is my first tour of Afghanistan. I did serve one tour in Iraq, 2004 to 2005, and I’ve served quite a lot in Korea, three different tours over there, seven years in Korea.
Q. What is your job here?
A. I’m a battalion commander of the 4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, which has an Engineer company, Military Intelligence company, a Signal company, and a Headquarters company. The Headquarters company has a military police platoon. Here in Afghanistan, the Engineer company is doing route clearance missions for the brigade, the Signal company is doing communications missions for the brigade, and the Military Intelligence company is doing military intelligence missions for the brigade. What I’m mainly focused on is the partnering with the Afghan Uniformed Police here in Paktika provincial headquarters here at Sharana. We use my battalion staff, staff sections S1, S2, S3, S4, plus the Headquarters company, the company leadership and the military police platoon. That organization is focused on training and developing the Afghan uniformed police.
Q. That’s the primary mission of this base, isn’t it?
A. Yes. Well, this base here is also focused on the Afghan National Army. That’s not my primary mission, that’s the SFA team, they’re focused on developing the brigade of the ANA. My primary mission is the AUP.
Q. There are different components to the AUP, can you tell me what they are?
A. It’s pretty confusing, but its actually the Afghan National Police, the ANP. The ANP consists of the Afghan Uniformed Police, the ANCOP, the Afghan National Civil Order Police, and the Afghan Border Police, ABP.
Q. There’s an intelligence school here as well, is there not?
A. There’s the NDS here.
Q. What does that stand for?
A. I think it stands for National Defense Service.
Q. What is the difference between an AUP and an ANCOP?
A. The AUP are the police that are out in the districts. They’re out in the smaller towns throughout Paktika., and throughout the country. The ANCOP are more specifically trained as a unit to deploy somewhere as a unit.
Q. How big a unit, platoon, company, battalion?
A. Throughout Afghanistan there are several battalions.
Q. They’re like a fire brigade who go into an area that’s been heavily infiltrated by the Taliban and they’re supposed to go in there and clean the mess up?
A. Well, that’s one thing that they could be used for, yes.
Q. What else could they be used for?
A. You take an ANCOP unit and put it into a district, and pull all the AUP out and let the ANCOP take over security in that area while we pull the AUP out and train them. That’s one of the missions that they’re designed to do. So, we can pull the whole district AUP out all at one time, train up the entire district of police, and then when we’re done training them, put them back in and move the ANCOP to another location.
Q. So the average ANCOP unit would consist of a lot more switched on individuals than you would find in the average AUP unit, is that correct?
A. Yes, that’s my assessment.
Q. When a person volunteers to become a police, how does he get slotted into one of these?
A. We have recruiters, there’s a recruiter here at the HQ, that when someone wants to become a patrolman they come on in, talk to the recruiter, and then they’re screened, they have a screening process looking at the history of that individual, if they have anything on record, and then they have to be sponsored by tribal elders, a village elder, they have to have two sponsors.
Q. They have written records for these people?
A. Written records?
Q. It seems to me that this place would have changing names changing faces changing records would be an easy thing to do. It would almost be farcical to maintain written records around here. But that’s what we rely on?
A. Yes. That’s basically what they have right now.
Q. Well, that’s the truth. That’s what I want to hear. So the mission here then is that you’ve got a guard force that looks after the place. You have a school or several schools here, you’ve got the headquarters for the quick reaction force, and you have the headquarters of the main commander of the police forces in the Paktika province whose name is “Dahlet Khan.”
A. Dowlat Khan.
Q. And he’s the provincial police chief?
A. Yes.
Q. And his boss is the provincial governor, is that correct? That’s his line of authority or does he also go through the police line as well?
A. Right, His boss is the commander of the 505th zone, which is Major-General Amadzan.
Q. So, this fellow Dowlat Khan, he’s a brigadier general, is that correct?
A. That’s right. So they report to the zone. The zone commander is responsible for several provinces. But they also report directly to the governor. The governor is primarily responsible for security, stability, development of the province, so the ANA within the province report to the governor and the AUP report to the governor.
Q. I’m going to ask some sensitive questions, so if you don’t want to answer them I’ll understand. What’s your assessment of these men? What’s your assessment of Dowlat Khan?
A. Assessment of Dowlat Khan. Okay. Number one, I consider him an Afghan patriot, he’s very charismatic, he has the right message, he promotes peace and stability and development through the government, and I think he’s an effective police chief.
Q. He’s effective, in your opinion?
A. Yes.
Q. Does he go out and visit his troops?
A. Yes. He sure does. Every chance he gets.
Q. You think he’s got the skill set to be in that job, maybe not up to our standards, he’s got the kind of skill to do the job he’s got?
A. Yes.
Q. So you’ve got some faith in this guy?
A. I do. Absolutely.
Q. Can the provincial governor and Karzai have faith in him too?
A. Yes.
Q. What about this LTC Haroom (Battalion Commander of the Quick Reaction Force Battalion stationed at FOB Rushmore.) What’s your assessment of him?
A. I really don’t have an assessment of him. I’m not partnered with him directly. Captain Stiles would be more partnered with him than I am.
Q. What do you think is the major obstacle or barrier to getting the police up to a standard that’s required for them to be able to take over complete control of security of this place?
A. For one thing, I think it just takes time to develop the systems, to train the force, to equip the force, and to get good, effective police. It takes time.
Q. With the time frame of a draw down beginning around 2012, with complete withdrawal by 2014, take that as a standard, is that enough time?
A. I’m not sure. I support the timeline that has been set, and I think it is achievable. I think it is achievable. We’re going to have to maintain a presence here.
Q. Beyond 2014?
A. I think we’re going to have to maintain a presence. It may not be combat forces, but we’ve got to maintain a NATO presence, an engagement, an international security presence to continue to help beyond 2014.
Q. Now, is that just to be a conscience, or is that because the national character is not such that they would be able to stand up all by themselves?
A. I think the security forces will be capable of maintaining security and stability, but the entire development of their systems, for example, promotion systems,
Q. The whole business of administering this thing.
A. I think its going to take many years to develop. If we look at how professional our forces are, and how long its take us to develop the systems we have in place, where people are promoted based on their performance.
Q. Merit.
A. Merit. Those systems are going to take some time to develop.
Q. Will they ever develop in a tribal society like you see here?
A. Yes. I believe they will. I believe they will. I have confidence in the Afghan government. They’re ready to develop their own forces.
Q. Let’s talk about the Taliban a little bit. They’re not the all-conquering power that we kind of make them out to be, are they?
A. No.
Q. So why is everybody afraid of them?
A. I don’t know. The Afghan security forces are much stronger than the Taliban.
Q. Militarily, there is no doubt. Militarily there is no doubt that the Afghan forces are superior, and yet we’re afraid of what’s going to happen if we pull out. That sounds to me like a profound difference in motivation. You don’t disagree?
A. I’m not sure I follow you.
Q. Napoleon said that the ratio of morale to strength is as three is to one. Well, we have all the strength, but if the Taliban are still a force to be reckoned with, so much so that we may need to maintain a presence here after 2014, there must be a big difference in motivation between the Taliban and the forces of reason and democracy around here.
A. Hmm.
Q. Is there a reason why the Taliban can trust each other and rely on each other and support each other and yet the people that we’re working with cannot?
A. I think the people we’re working with do trust each other, and there is confidence in the government. I feel pretty positive about the forward direction that the government is making, including the security forces.
Q. Still continuing with the Taliban, let’s say the worse comes to worst and with their 500 fighters sort of take over this province. What is governance going to look like in this place with 500 Taliban running this province?
A. I don’t ever see that happening.
Q. You don’t see them governing or you don’t ever see them taking it over.
A. I don’t ever see them taking it over.
Q. Not while we’re here., but when we pull out and its just the ANA and AUP all by themselves and their constitution, its conceivable that they could collapse, so what is the governance of that province going to look like?
A. I don’t think that will happen. I think the Afghan security forces are strong enough now to resist the Taliban. We are stepping back from them, we’re stepping back from the Afghan security forces, letting them do more and more on their own, which they are capable of doing. We do have some areas where we don’t have any coalition forces present, and are run entirely by Afghan security forces. I think they are capable on their own, and I don’t see it being taken over by the Taliban.
Q. Just one last point, and it concerns corruption. We can give them all the equipment in the world, and probably have, and yet they’re always deficient on the equipment front. No doubt these guys are selling it on the black market. Would you assess this problem as being manageable, out of control, or vastly over-blown.
A. I think its manageable. I think it’s a manageable problem. Its something that we’re focused on, and we’re paying a lot of attention to. I think it’s a manageable problem that we have. We do have lots of Afghan patriots out there, like General Dowlat Khan, that are trying as best they can to fix corruption problems. There’s a lot of inefficiencies in their systems. Their systems are not very well developed. For example, the system of paying cash for employment as opposed to electronic funds transfer, and that’s based on not having banks for them to withdraw their own money from.
Q. We're back to the administration problem again. There seems to be a very severe shortage of educated people.
A. It’s a problem that we’re focused on, but I think it’s a manageable problem.
Q. I know you’re an engineer, and I’d like to ask you an engineering question.
A. All right. Hoo-wah.
Q. Are we going to be able to build enough all-weather, good surface roads to make winning this war a lot easier, or is that going to be left to the Afghans?
A. I have confidence in our ability to help them build roads. But that’s not really in my lane, that’s a PRT matter, road construction. But I see a lot of new roads being built. The roads are a tremendous help because it helps transportation throughout the province.
Q. Commerce.
A. Right, commerce – critically important. Any time we go out into a remote area and talk to the elders out there that’s what they’re concerned with: when are the roads going to be built? It’s a challenge out here in Paktika because we’re removed from the main stream.
VJC. Thank-you very much for the interview. It was very informative, and I appreciate the time you have given me.
IB. Absolutely. Thank-you.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment