Daily Times

It is no secret that the US, NATO and Afghan intelligence agencies do not always get things right, and their analysis leads policy makers and military commanders to wrong conclusions. Their poor data, inaccurate intelligence information about Taliban activities, their sources of low quality information and their misinterpretations and flawed strategies often cause civilian casualties and infrastructure damage. In Afghanistan, intelligence is mostly retrieved from newspapers, the internet, military and law enforcement agencies, and civilian informers. Moreover, intelligence gathered by private intelligence and security companies almost always proves to be misleading. In view of their inability to provide accurate information, in October 2013, British intelligence, MI6, immediately called for reinforcements in Afghanistan amidst fears that the country would become an “intelligence vacuum” where terrorists would pose an increased threat to Britain.

As we all know, the intelligence approach of the US and Afghanistan has been incoherent during the last 12 years as they failed to collect true military and civilian intelligence from the majority of districts in eastern and western Afghanistan, and the tribal regions of Pakistan. When we study the role in Afghanistan of NATO intelligence agencies, the CIA, Russian and Chinese intelligence, Defence Clandestine Intelligence and the Pentagon, we come across several stories of intelligence failures in the country, as they have never been able to stabilise the country or counter the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) effectively. For US and NATO intelligence agencies, the information needed by their military commanders to conduct a population-centric counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan was very important but they could not retrieve it from the majority of remote districts. When intelligence is ignored or then twisted to produce a desired result, it is truly a failure. Since the war in Afghanistan, the failure of US foreign policy has created many problems while the intelligence community is resisting becoming a party to fabrication — witness the recent pushback over the issue of counter-insurgency.

The US and its allies’ approach to cooperation on civilian and military levels with Afghan intelligence agencies and the ISI in Balochistan-Kunar province, the tribal areas and Waziristan has never been satisfactory. They failed to gather information about insurgent cells in remote mountainous areas where insurgents prepare to attack coalition forces. The roles of the CIA and Afghan intelligence, and their strategies have been deeply contradictory, particularly since the re-emergence of Taliban networks and their attacks across the Durand Line. They failed to professionalise intelligence cooperation, operations, collection and processes or to provide military and strategic guidance to NATO commanders. For a professional intelligence network to be relevant in counter-insurgency operations, it needs to supply wide-ranging military information from the war zone to commanders and policymakers. That information, along with much else including realistic presentations setting out the entire range of possible outcomes, the time needed to achieve objectives and the intractable issues tied to information collection, must be presented so they are fully integrated into the design and planning of the intervention itself.

In January 2010, a US commander in Afghanistan, Mike Flynn, prepared an intelligence report that revealed some of the worst intelligence failures of the campaign. General Flynn complained that intelligence was working hard but it was doing the wrong job. Later on, he suggested the separation of counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) from intelligence operations. In Fixing Intel, General Flynn sought to drive home the concept that US intelligence needs to collect information about the population of Afghanistan. US military commanders admitted to having very little knowledge of Afghan culture and Taliban insurgents. They showed a predilection for military-led approaches to problems, including those that were essentially political. Research scholar Matt Waldman has also described the flawed policies of the US and its allies in a recent article, saying, “In the eyes of US officials and informed observers, high level US policy-making on Afghanistan was severely impaired by fundamental, structural flaws, many of which are interrelated and reinforcing.” Another US commander, General Eikenberry, criticised the counterinsurgency strategy promoted by General Petraeus. The general rejected the COIN strategy as applied in Afghanistan, in his article published in Foreign Affairs.

Two months ago, a new intelligence report from the US highlighted the failure of intelligence in Afghanistan. The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) warned that the country would quickly fall into chaos if President Hamid Karzai refused to sign a security deal with the US. The NIE, which includes input from 16 intelligence agencies in the US, predicted that the Taliban would become more influential as US forces draw down at the end of 2014. Moreover, in response to these allegations, Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed concern that his country was the victim of a war that only served the interests of the US and its western allies.

“Afghans died in a war that is not ours,” President Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post. President Karzai said he was in trouble for war casualties, including those in US military operations, and felt betrayed by what he described as insufficient US focus on going after Taliban sanctuaries inside Pakistan. The US and its allies should know that Chinese and Russian agencies seek influence in the country as a means of securing their borders. In reality, the presence of US forces in Afghanistan provided China with a sense of stability. Beijing understands that now the US is focusing on terrorist networks in the country, and it is in China’s interest to engage NATO and US forces there. China gives cause for optimism on this matter as it, so far, has succeeded in avoiding any link between its friendship with Pakistan and its interests in Afghanistan. China is seeking the ISI’s help in stabilising Afghanistan. China knows that the ISI has influence in Kabul but wants to deal with Afghan security as a separate issue altogether.

The writer is the author of Punjabi Taliban and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com