WASHINGTON: The Pentagon admitted Tuesday in a report that progress has been "uneven" in the war in Afghanistan, with only modest gains against the Taliban insurgency despite a surge of US and NATO troops.
The cautious tone of the report offered a contrast to more upbeat public declarations from top officials and military leaders, who have touted encouraging signs and said the US military has gained the initiative on the battlefield.
"Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance, and development in operational priority areas," according to the report issued to Congress.
The mixed account of the war’s progress comes before a pivotal White House review next month, in which President Barack Obama is expected to endorse the US strategy that stresses building up Afghan forces while pushing back the Taliban in key southern towns.
The report said violence is at an all-time high in the nine-year-old war, with combat incidents up 300 percent since 2007 and 70 percent since last year, said the report, which did not highlight rising casualties for coalition forces.
The gap between the administration’s portrayal of the war and the official report to Congress in part reflected divisions between US intelligence agencies and the rest of the government, with the spy services tending to take a more pessimistic view, officials said.
The Pentagon described limited progress by the NATO-led force in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, longstanding Taliban bastions that have been the focus of an influx of 30,000 American troops.
The report found "early indications that comprehensive COIN (counter-insurgency) operations are having localized effects in portions of Helmand and Kandahar Provinces."
Despite the presence of nearly 100,000 US troops and nearly 50,000 other foreign forces, the insurgency remained resilient and efforts to cut off safe havens and supply links to neighboring Iran and Pakistan "have not produced measurable results," according to the report, which covered April to September.
While NATO and Afghan forces have "increased pressure on insurgent networks over the past several months, the insurgency has proven resilient with sustained logistics capacity and command and control," said the report, a semi-annual update to Congress.
The insurgency "retains momentum in certain areas" while in others the momentum was shifting in favor of Afghan and NATO-led forces, it said.
One senior defense official, who asked not to be named, told journalists that the report focused on conditions through September and did not reflect "important progress" in recent weeks in military operations surrounding Kandahar city.
Describing the state of the insurgency, the report said the Taliban and its allies were adept at propaganda, exploiting widespread dissatisfaction with the corruption-plagued Kabul government.
The Taliban aimed to inflict enough losses on coalition forces to undermine international support for the war effort and "prompt a rapid withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan," it said.
With Obama promising to begin withdrawing US troops by July 2011 and NATO planning to leave by the end of 2014, the Taliban were working to promote the idea that NATO-led forces would soon depart, the report said.
"The Taliban’s strength lies in the Afghan population’s perception that coalition forces will soon leave, giving credence to the belief that a Taliban victory is inevitable."
The report cited the training of Afghan security forces as "one of the most promising areas of progress," with the Afghan army and police reaching recruitment goals in July, ahead of an October target.
The quality of the Afghan forces and a high attrition rate remained cause for concern, however, according to the report, which was written in coordination with intelligence agencies, the State Department and other government departments.
