President Obama is in Europe this week to sell allies on a new strategy for
The good news is that the new American president has a sharp new strategy for
Do not expect to see our new government rushing to the front line in the refocused war against al Qaeda that Barack Obama promises to wage.
We did that in December 2001, when New Zealand joined the international effort to hunt down the terrorists responsible for the September 11
We stopped doing that in November 2005, when the NZSAS returned to
The curtailment of combat deployment and the continuance of military provincial reconstruction have never been fully explained, just like the shift in our alliance relationship in October 2006 when we stopped being part of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and became part of the NATO International Security Assistance Force instead.
We do know from the brief delivered last November to the incoming Minister of Defence, Dr Wayne Mapp, that “the NZDF is being stretched by the sustainment of existing peace support operations – particularly
Apparently, NZDF was even more stretched when combat duty was part of the mix. Our SAS troops acquitted themselves well in battle – but they were not equipped or resourced with the back-up to hold or process their prisoners.
Last year, NZDF admitted that between 50 and 70 prisoner captured by the NZSAS in snatch and grab raids during 2002 were bundled over to our American allies as quickly as possible. Standard NZDF procedures for the identification of prisoners were not followed.
This year, my Official Information Act inquiries have uncovered more about what happened when
Censored copies of official cables obtained from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade under the OIA confirm this deficiency in our war management capacity.
In 2006, the Americans were willing to follow up our request for information on the status of the Afghani prisoners taken by the NZSAS. The process came to a grinding halt when the Americans “asked if there was any further information
The cable exchange between our embassy in
We can only be thankful that the NZDF Kiwibase in Bamiyan or the security patrols by the resident provincial reconstruction team have not been seriously threatened by the Taliban or al Qaeda - so far.
If they were, and our troops captured assailants jeopardizing their mission, they would not be in any better position to handle prisoners than the NZSAS was in 2002.
As members of the International Security Assistance Force, NZDF troops are required to transfer their prisoners to Afghan custody. Unlike other ISAF members,
The new government needs to ensure that agreement is in place, and that the NZDF is properly resourced to meet the challenges that will arise as the new Obama strategy sharpens the conflict between a significantly enlarged US force and the revitalised Taliban and al Qaeda in the run-up to Afghanistan’s election in August.
Last week, Defence Minister Mapp gave a carefully qualified response to my questions about
He reveals that
“You will have noted, however, that the New Zealand government recently renewed the mandate for all current contributions to international stabilization efforts in Afghanistan until 2010, centering on the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamyan Province. This will remain the primary focus of our defence efforts in
We still need to ensure that NZDF is adequately equipped for its existing tasks in what will be a rapidly changing war environment within a matter of weeks.