Disagreement Between Mullen and McNeill
BY Herschel Smith
16 years, 9 months ago
In U.S. Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns, I reported on the disparity between Major General Rodriguez and open source information concerning the split in the Taliban, and the resultant focus on two fronts this spring – one in Afghanistan and the other in Pakistan. The poor intelligence analysis didn’t stop here. In The Afghanistan Narrative I reported on the disparate views within not only NATO, but also the Pentagon, as to the state of the insurgency and counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. I followed this up with World in Disarray – Lack of Strategies in which I pointed out more public and vocal disagreements (up to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) concerning the state of the campaign in Afghanistan. Finally, the main stream media picks up on the lack of coordination and coherent analysis for Afghanistan. The Air Force Times reports on the split views between Mullen and McNeill.
The Taliban is not “resurgent” in Afghanistan, said the U.S. general who commands the 42,000-member NATO force there, contradicting the Defense Department view, expressed most recently before Congress during two hearings Wednesday by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen.
In his written statements submitted for the record to the House and Senate armed services committees, Mullen said, “In Afghanistan, we are seeing a growing insurgency, increasing violence, and a burgeoning drug trade fueled by widespread poppy cultivation.”
At a Wednesday morning press conference at the Pentagon, Army Gen. Dan McNeill agreed with the second two points but took exception to Mullen’s claim of the insurgency’s growth.
“Admiral Mullen has his view,” said McNeill, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force for the past year. “I’ve got mine, too.”
First, this is a sad state of affairs – not the disagreement between senior officials (which can he healthy in cases), but rather, the lack of intelligence analysis and doctrinal coherence in the campaign in Afghanistan. This – in itself – is a pointer to issues with leadership. Second, it should be noted that a blogger is again at the forefront of the analysis, preceeding the main stream media by days in this case (and months in others).
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