U.S. AMBASSADOR CROCKER SAYS AFGHANISTAN MOVING TOWARD NEXT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Crocker: Afghanistan on Track for Next Stage in Development
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2012 - Afghanistan is on the right trajectory to move to the next stage in its development, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan C. Crocker said yesterday in an interview with NPR's Renee Montagne.

Nearly a year to the day of his July 25 appointment last year, the career diplomat said he is stepping down at the end of this month due to health reasons.

"What I'll miss the most is the chance to see Afghanistan move to the next stage of its development at every level -- economic, governance and security -- because I think they're on the right trajectory," Crocker said.

"I felt we had a pretty good last year in setting that up," he added. "I would have liked to have been part of the process of seeing it through. I'm confident they will get there. It would have been nice to be on deck to watch them do it."

Crocker was the sixth ambassador to Afghanistan since 2001. He had retired from the Foreign Service in April 2009 after a 37-year career and was serving as dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. In April 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Crocker to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and Crocker came out of retirement to accept the position. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in June 2011.

Crocker served as ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009 after three years as ambassador to Pakistan.

He joined the National War College faculty as international affairs advisor in 2003, and from May to August of that year, he was in Baghdad as the first director of governance for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

From 2001 to 2003, he was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. He served as ambassador to Syria from 1998 to 2001, ambassador to Kuwait from 1994 to 1997, and Ambassador to Lebanon from 1990 to 1993. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1971, he has had assignments in Iran, Qatar, Iraq, Egypt and Washington.

Crocker was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the bombings of the embassy and the Marine barracks in 1983.

As U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, one of Crocker's accomplishments was to help to secure international pledges of aid worth $16 billion at a donor's conference held this month in Tokyo.

"The Tokyo conference and its outcome, I think, is highly significant because it produced a document in which the international community accepts certain obligations to provide funding, and the Afghan government accepts certain obligations to fight corruption, to build institutions," Crocker said.

As the international community sees the Afghan government deliver on its own obligations, the ambassador added, "both the incentive and the pressure on [the] international community to provide the promised assistance simply increases."

According to news reports, Afghanistan agreed to new conditions to deal with internal corruption, and donors agreed to hold a follow-up conference in 2014 in the United Kingdom.

Crocker said he found it "highly encouraging" that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has created a 14-point decree for all ministries to follow as they begin to deliver on their side of the undertaking. "The way he frames it now is that the international community has done everything that Afghanistan could conceivably ask," Crocker said. "It is now up to the Afghans to put their own house in order."

The ambassador also gave three reasons why he expects no civil war in Afghanistan after NATO's combat drawdown is complete at the end of 2014.

"When I got there at the beginning of 2002, it looked like Berlin in 1945," he said, "and that was because of the Afghan civil war. No one wants to go back to that."

A second point, he said, is that "minority groups clearly see their interests [in] having a voice in national decisions."

"No major minority politician is thinking in terms of separatism," he said. "It's all [about] how can they be more, rather than less, involved in Kabul."

A third point is the enemy itself, Crocker said.

"The Taliban and their allies are equal opportunity killers: Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks. ... In a sense, an enemy who indiscriminately kills all Afghans regardless of community or ethnicity or political affiliation has actually been a unifying factor," he said.

Crocker's final impression of the Afghan capital of Kabul, he said, is of "a vibrant, bustling city with shops open, streets crowded, horrendous traffic -- which some would consider a problem, but frankly I see as a sign of confidence in the security and stability of the capital."

There's a long way to go, he said. "But from the devastated ghost town of 2002 to the Kabul of today, it's an extraordinary achievement," he added. "And I leave with the sense of a city that is very, very much alive and moving into the future."

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN TALKS TO THE WASHINGTON POST

Map Credit:  U.S. State Department.
FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Unsung in Afghanistan
Op-EdRyan C. Crocker
Ambassador to Afghanistan The Washington Post
July 6, 2012
I do two things each week at our management meeting: Read aloud the names of colleagues, mostly military but occasionally civilian, who have given their lives in service of our country; and welcome those recently arrived to serve the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies. These volunteers leave homes, family and sometimes careers to work 16-plus hours a day, six to seven days a week, living in shipping containers. All are aware of the threats we face at the embassy and the more frequent indiscriminate fire against field positions.

These are tough jobs, in a tough place, under even tougher conditions. One cannot underestimate our civilian volunteers’ contributions to achieving our goal of creating a peaceful, stable, self-sustaining Afghanistan that can no longer harbor terrorists who would attack the United States. Since I arrived last July, Afghan forces have begun to take the lead on security for about 75 percent of the population. Never before have so many Afghans had access to health care and education, both boys and girls.

In April, it was Afghan forces who repelled simultaneous attacks in four provinces and Kabul. In May, our countries’ presidents signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with mutual commitments that ensure we will be allies well into the future.

While work remains, none of this would have been possible without the American men and women who volunteered to serve here. People like Paul Folmsbee, our senior officer in regional command east, and Karl Rios, head of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Logar Province. Both work closely with local government, security, business, civil and religious leaders. On April 15, during a meeting with the provincial governor, Karl and Paul spent 12 hours under heavy fire. They sent me a stream of updates and at 2 a.m., still under fire, Paul was evacuated with a badly wounded Afghan soldier. Karl remained on site until dawn, when Afghan forces suppressed the last of the attackers. And once they got the all-clear, both returned to work.

This team is motivated by a desire to make a difference for others. A civilian officer in the east is helping facilitate a program to teach 200 madrassa high school students basic computer and Internet skills to better connect them to job opportunities and to the outside world. “When I touched the mouse for the first time and put my eyes on the monitor screen,” said one student, Fatima, “I felt that I was flying to the sky and seeing a new world of brightness, which gave my heart much happiness.”

While our civilian employees are considered targets, we have not simply hunkered down. Regional security officers and drivers risk their lives to support more than a hundred daily engagements, essential to diplomacy, between Americans and Afghans in Kabul and beyond. I was humbled by their work during the attacks against our embassy in September and April, when I joined them in the operations room.

Despite the danger, our civilian and military personnel, working with their Afghan counterparts, regularly travel “outside the wire,” helping Afghans refurbish homes, canals and irrigation systems left dormant or damaged by the insurgency. For International Women’s Day, civilian Jessica Brandt and her military counterpart, Lt. Col. Barbara Crawford, worked with female Afghan partners to stage an empowerment event for more than 400 women.

The U.S. commander, Gen. Marine John Allen, also recognizes the commitment of our civilians. “Many of the men and women of the State Department serve out in the field, riding in the same vehicles as our Marines and soldiers, living in very austere forward operating bases, exposed to the same hardships and the same dangers that our military personnel face. And yet they go unarmed,” he said. “I cannot praise them highly enough. Without them and this close relationship, we would not be able to accomplish all we have so far.”

I’d also like to thank the 859 Afghan staffers who risk their lives every day to work for the betterment of their country and ours. It takes a special kind of heroism for them to serve alongside us. Taj, for instance, has worked for the U.S. government for more than 20 years; he returned from Pakistan after the fall of Taliban as the first local staffer in the reopened embassy. His outreach to imams to discuss religious tolerance and women’s rights under the Koran is achieving measurable results in fighting extremism. Reza helps connect embassy leadership with politicians and thought leaders, supporters and critics, to hear their concerns and ideas.

Working alongside some of the most committed and determined people that Afghanistan and the United States have to offer has deeply enriched the last assignment I will take in the service of my country. It has left me confident about the future of their nation and ours. I have served in a lot of hard places, with a lot of very good people. None has been better than those I have been privileged to call my colleagues here.