Administration officials are conducting what one called a "test run" of the metrics, comparing current numbers in a range of categories with baselines set earlier in the year.
The categories being measured include newly trained Afghan army recruits, Pakistani counterinsurgency missions and on-time delivery of promised U.S. resources.
The results will be used to fine-tune the list before it is presented to Congress by Sept. 24. Lawmakers set that deadline in the spring as a condition for approving additional war funding....
Freed Afghan prisoners leave the central prison of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009. Around 130 Afghan prisoners released from captivity based on the decree of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, honoring the 90th Afghan independence day on Aug. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Abuses by the Afghan government (click here)
Justice system In June an international conference highlighted serious and systematic flaws in Afghanistan’s administration of justice, including the Ministry of Justice, courts, prisons, the police, the army and the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite several years of international support to reform these institutions....
Karzai’s vote lead narrows slightly (click here)
Sardar Ahmed, Agence France-Presse
Kabul, September 01, 2009
President Hamid Karzai’s lead over his main election rival narrowed slightly on Monday as US envoy Richard Holbrooke said Western troops had inflicted “vast damage” on the Taliban.
Holbrooke’s comments struck a rare optimistic note at the same time as the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan submitted a review of the eight-year war, calling for a revised strategy to reverse the “serious” situation.
Afghan officials have announced results from nearly half the polling stations used in the country’s second direct presidential vote, which has been tainted by an escalating Taliban insurgency and abysmal turnout.
Out of 2.87 million valid votes released by the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which has been criticised for favouring the incumbent, Karzai won 1.3 million and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah 954,256....
NATO deaths in Afghanistan hit new high (click here)
Web site: Four U.S. troops deaths put Western toll for ’09 at record 295
...More than 30,000 extra U.S. troops arrived in Afghanistan this year, most part of a package of reinforcements ordered by Obama in May. There are now more than 100,000 Western troops in the country, 63,000 of them Americans.
A NATO statement said the four U.S. service members were killed in the south, the Taliban's heartland, but gave no further details.
That would bring the number of foreign troops who died in Afghanistan this year to 295, according to Web site icasualties.org, which compiles figures. Last year was the previous deadliest year when 294 were killed....
Years wasted in Afghan effort, UN official says
KABUL — The international community has wasted years in Afghanistan by not coordinating its efforts, a top U.N. official said Tuesday on the eve of a meeting by U.S. and European envoys to discuss the country’s recent election and deteriorating security.
Senior officials from 27 countries — including special U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke — were to meet Wednesday in Paris, where officials were expected to urge Afghans to take more responsibility in the almost eight-year international effort to rebuild the country.
Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, said the international community needs to embrace well-coordinated, big-picture goals that will help Afghanistan in the long term.
“The piecemeal approach is not going to get results,” Eide said. “Enough is enough with the piecemeal approach.”
Eide did not elaborate, but he and other critics have complained that foreign governments tend to favor funding small, relatively easy projects without a national impact rather than major missions — such as overhauling the transport network — which would serve as an economic engine for the whole country.
The Paris meeting comes as the country faces mounting security and political challenges. Fighting is increasing; August was the deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces with at least 49 deaths, followed closely by July with 44....
