NATO ‘decomposing’ in Afghanistan

By xxxevilgrinxxx | Published: October 23, 2009

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Canada’s former top general Rick Hillier has criticized NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.

Former Canadian chief of defense staff has sharply criticized the mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan’s controversial war.

In his new book, Rick Hillier said, “There was no strategy for the mission in Afghanistan” when he took command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

“NATO had started down a road that destroyed much of its credibility and in the end eroded support for the mission in every nation in the alliance,” he wrote.

“Sadly years later, that situation remains unchanged,” the retired general was quoted as saying by AFP.

“Afghanistan has revealed that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse, decomposing” and in need of ‘lifesaving’ or ‘the alliance will be done’, he said.

NATO is vulnerable to ‘any major setback’ in Afghanistan and faces extinction unless it can ‘snatch victory out of feeble efforts’ thus far, according to Hillier.

Canada sent 2,000 troops to Kabul in August 2003, and assumed command of ISAF in February 2004. Some 2,800 troops will remain in Kandahar province until 2011.

The former general also accused NATO of being ‘dominated by jealousies and small, vicious political battles’, adding that the alliance’s ‘lack of cohesion, clarity and professionalism was ominous’ at the start of the Afghan mission.

He lamented that many alliance members are focused on ‘building their own little fiefdom’ instead of preparing troops for deployment.

AGB/AKM