By Viola Gienger March 9 (Bloomberg) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates heard from front-line participants in the Afghan war today, pinning awards for bravery on U.S. soldiers and Marines and shaking hands with farmers selling goods in a revived market. Gates flew to the southern province of Kandahar on his second day in Afghanistan to meet with commanders and visit a forward operating base that has borne heavy casualties and will play a role in the war’s next major offensive. He then traveled to a combat post in neighboring Helmand Province, where a re-opened mud-hut market in the town of Now Zad illustrates U.S. hopes of guaranteeing enough security in most of Afghanistan to restore commerce and a semblance of normal life. “Essentially for four years, that town was a complete ghost town. There wasn’t anybody there,” Gates told reporters traveling with him to the base flanked by mountains with patches of fertile, green farmland in a distant valley. U.S. Marines working with Afghan soldiers and British troops in Operation Cobra’s Anger in December wiped out the insurgents who controlled the area, according to commanders. The market, made of the adobe-like material common in rural Afghanistan, now has about 15 shops selling juice and produce such as potatoes. Residents are beginning to return to the town, once the second-largest in the province. The operation became a model for an offensive the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan is wrapping up in Marjah, farther south in Helmand Province. That, in turn, provides lessons for a bigger and more complex operation being planned in Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban. Security Worries Now Zad also shows the difficulties facing international organizations in supporting development after areas are cleared of insurgents and security improves. Gates heard appeals from the market stall operators in the town for faster demining of roads so they can get more of their goods to markets elsewhere and customers can come to them. “I feel reinforced the path we’re on is the right path,” Gates said after the visit. It also is “going to take a while, and it’s going to be complicated.” Afghan Brigadier General Muhiudin Ghori, who accompanied Gates on his tour, agreed change would take time, in part because of the low levels of education and literacy in his country. Afghan and American troops have formed a “brotherhood,” he said in an interview, speaking through an interpreter. They eat together, work together, fight together, and ties are growing “step by step.” Combat Intensifies The risks are climbing for American troops. Gates awarded two Silver Stars in Kandahar and a Purple Heart in Helmand Province. One of the Silver Star recipients, Lieutenant Colonel John Morgan of Virginia Beach, Virginia, led a group of attack and armed-reconnaissance aircraft in August to rescue an ambushed bomb-clearing patrol. The Pentagon chief also visited the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, which has lost 22 soldiers and seen 62 wounded in seven months on the ground. The unit was diverted from a planned mission in Iraq and was deployed last year to Afghanistan, said battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Neumann. The switch was part of President Barack Obama ’s shift of troops after taking office. The battalion’s new charge was to secure the northern approach to Kandahar City, which included the pomegranate- and wheat-growing Arghandab River Valley, the site of an irrigation dam built with U.S. funding in the 1950s. That meant scaling tall mud walls the farmers use to delineate the property so the soldiers could avoid roads and other areas littered with roadside bombs. ‘Fight Our Way’ “We really had to fight our way to get to the population,” Neumann told reporters traveling with Gates, illustrating his remarks with a computer-slide presentation. U.S. soldiers intercepted militants earlier today who were planting bombs on a route into a village that was going to be used by a medical unit to assist villagers, Neumann said. The action by the reconnaissance platoon prevented an aid effort “from being interrupted by Tommy Taliban,” Neumann said, using a nickname for the enemy fighter. Gates assured the soldiers that he had personally read a memo that their commander had written on improvements needed to the Stryker combat troop-transport vehicle, and he said he would move “urgently” on the recommendations. “You all have had a very tough tour here,” Gates told them in front of a cement block carved with the names of those who died. “You’re in an area that once again is going to be important, part of a decisive phase in this campaign, and once again you will be the tip of the spear.” Gates cautioned against raising expectations too fast. “It’s a poor country to start with and has been through 30 years of war,” he told reporters. “It seems to me, just looking at it, somebody having a roof over their head and being able to work their farm and send their children to school — for a lot of Afghans today sounds like a pretty good life.” To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Now Zad, Afghanistan, at vgienger@bloomberg.net
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Gates Sees Afghan War Gains, Risks as Fight Expands in Taliban Heartland
