Afghanistan: 'We have forgotten how bad it was,' says UK military chief

James Bucknall

, leader of the return of British forces, is frank about the weaknesses of the campaign, but says surge worked

A task

James Bucknall not lost in his return to UK after 18 months in Kabul.

From his office on the first floor inside the military headquarters "green zone" of the city, the General wrote to the families of British soldiers, sailors and airmen who died during their time there there.

"It's a lot of letters," she said. "Personally, can not close this, but it also makes me more determined to see things."

Bucknall is still open on the military campaign in Afghanistan. Some critics say, not without reason, that he and other NATO commanders are in denial.

There are conflicting views on the extent of irreversible progress has been made in the last two years, and it can still be made in the next two years - before the country's security is required Afghans.

So there is sadness in the diplomatic community on efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, and the willingness of Pakistan to help secure peace. There will be no lasting solution without the first, and no regional stability without the cooperation of the latter.

Not

Bucknall is that the military campaign has turned a corner, but it is not recognized because the public is tired as a dog fight, and wanting to leave NATO.

And he believes that if there is a rush for the exits by the end of 2014 and will be the last miscalculation in the countryside of acceptance has sometimes been shaken by them.

is why he says that the coalition to stay together, and why the search is back, sometimes as important as vision.

• "I think people have forgotten where we were 15 months ago, when things were not very good at all," he said. "We have forgotten how bad it was. I sincerely believe that we can say that the momentum of the insurgency in much of Afghanistan has been reversed. I think we can say that the surge has worked. We can show statistically and otherwise ... We have had many false dawns in this campaign, and underdelivering exaggerated promises, and we must be very careful with that. But we are on track. "

Bucknall points to the fact that in 2006 the fight against a guerrilla army in Afghanistan, a number of organizations that "work in large numbers, is low and remains low, which is the armed to do. "Since then, these groups were forced to retire to become a" terrorist organization ".

"We had a very good winter [last year], in fact, we had a good summer," he said. "Now we have to push very hard for the insurgents this winter. It is a time when they want a chance to recover. We have to be planted deep in their minds, they can not achieve its objectives by military means."

These are the conditions, he argues, will push the Taliban leaders to the negotiating table.
An argument against is made with equal force by a coalition of analysts and politicians. Rory Stewart, Conservative MP and an expert in Afghanistan, defended the "surge" may have fueled the insurgency. U. S. Senate urged President Obama Wednesday to bring more troops home sooner. Russian leaders like Viktor Ivanov, head of drug control, said a withdrawal would help stabilize Afghanistan.

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