Here is another reason why intelligent folks know we cannot leave Afghanistan beginning in July of 2011.

Editor's notes: before you read this and start with the Bush Blame Game, stop and think. The report, indeed, deserves criticism but the criticism should be directed at the NATO originators, not Bush or Obama, for that matter. The end report in this article is this: we will not be ready to draw down troop strength in Afghanistan 12 months from now. It remains a mystery that the smartest president in American history thinks a frequently announced and intentional retreat is a satisfactory war strategy. The heart break in all this is the realization that so many solders in that theater of action will have died IN VAIN because of this decision and Obama's incompetence as the Commander in Chief. If the lives of thousands of solders make any difference to the American electorate, Obama will be escorted out of office in November of 2012 -- jds.

By Kevin Sieff in Washington Published: June 6 2010 Financial Times:

A US government audit to be released at the end of this month will cast doubt on the $25bn effort to build Afghan military and police forces, a blow to the cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s exit strategy. According to the audit, the standards used to appraise the Afghan forces since 2005 were woefully inadequate, inflating their abilities. The Nato-led coalition’s rating system measured forces based on such factors as training and equipment, rather than a metric that would more accurately assess their fighting abilities, the report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction concludes.

Military officials acknowledge the rating system’s inadequacies. “It became clear to us that the assessment wasn’t giving a clear picture of the actual operational readiness of Afghan National Security Forces,” said Colonel Dennis Devery, deputy director of the ANSF development assistance bureau. For nearly five years, the Capability Milestone measure was used to advertise the growing number of competent Afghan soldiers. It said 22 Afghan National Army units were considered “fully capable” by May 2009 – a rapid improvement, as not a single unit met that standard until 2008. PERMALINK

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