[R-G] U.S. sees lessons for Afghan war in Colombia

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502747.html

U.S. sees lessons for Afghan war in Colombia

By Patrick Markey
Reuters
Thursday, March 5, 2009; 5:51 PM

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Lessons from Colombia's U.S.-backed war against  
insurgents and drug traffickers could be applied to Washington's  
expanding military campaign in Afghanistan, the top U.S. military  
officer said on Thursday.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told  
reporters in Bogota the Andean country's ideas on counterinsurgency,  
building governance in areas once abandoned by the state and economic  
development were fundamental.

"There are parts of it that would be very applicable to other parts of  
the world, especially Afghanistan," he said.

President Barack Obama's administration is currently reviewing U.S.  
policy for Afghanistan as Washington prepares to send in a further  
17,000 troops to try to turn around an increasingly violent conflict.

Once a powerful rebel force of 17,000 fighters that controlled large  
areas, Colombia's FARC insurgency movement has been driven back into  
the jungles and mountains. Bombings and kidnappings have dropped  
sharply under President Alvaro Uribe.

Better troop training, more mobility with helicopters and improved  
intelligence have helped the army cut off rebel communications and  
supplies and isolated units from leadership.

Washington has supplied more than $5 billion to Colombia to help  
combat guerrillas and the cocaine trade fueling the conflict but  
critics question the success of the anti-narcotics program. The U.N.  
estimates 27 percent more land was used for coca production at the end  
of 2007 than a year before.

U.S. officials have said the Plan Colombia aid package could be an  
"overarching" model for Pakistan and Afghanistan, where poppy  
cultivation for opium is helping finance a determined Taliban militant  
insurgency.

Afghan police have already trained with their Colombian counterparts  
and Bogota is studying sending troops to Afghanistan to help out in  
eradication and de-mining.

Colombia, which supplies about 600 tonnes of cocaine a year, once  
relied almost entirely on fumigation to destroy coca, but has stepped  
up manual eradication which is considered to have a more lasting impact.

Colombia and U.S. authorities now hope a pilot program that better  
combines tough security with immediate economic development and  
alternatives for coca farmers can be used to keep violence in check  
and attack drug output.

Despite a drop in production last year, Afghanistan still supplies  
more than 90 percent of the world's opium, a raw ingredient of heroin.  
The drug trade injects $3 billion a year in the Afghan economy and  
helps fund the Taliban.

(Editing by David Storey)