Petraeus Touts Special Forces Raids In Afghanistan

By Steve Hynd

General David Petraeus is, in the words of Associated Press' Kimberly Dozier, "talking up" the use of US special forces troops to "try to convince skeptics the war can be won."

More than previous commanders, Gen. David Petraeus has released the results of special operations missions � 235 militant leaders were killed or captured in the last 90 days, another 1,066 rank-and-file insurgents killed and 1,673 detained � to demonstrate the Taliban and their allies are also suffering losses as NATO casualties rise.

Bloomberg's Viola Gienger added that special ops raids in Afghanistan were now four trimes more frequent than at their height in Iraq:

Special units, which draw on intelligence to target and capture or kill militant leaders, conducted 4,002 missions in Afghanistan during the three months ended Aug. 30, an average of more than 40 a day. At the height of the �surge� of troops in Iraq, forces conducted about 10 a day, Petraeus said.

The problem is that there's no way to check General Petraeus' assertions.

Back in March, British Maj. Gen. Richard Barrons, a member of Petraeus' staff, estimated that there were 900 leaders at all levels and 25-36,000 fighters in the entire Afghan Taliban. Petraeus is claiming that special forces alone have removed from combat 26% of the leadership and roughly 10% of the fighters within just three short months.

That claim begs a bunch of questions - not least of which is: "how can it possibly be true?" If that level of attrition happened to the US military it would likely be disrupted, unable to continue fighting. Yet even Petraeus admits that spec-ops forces have not yet reversed the Taliban's momentum.

But if it were true, we'd have to ask what the hell Generals McChrystal, McKiernan and McNeill had been doing during their times in command of US forces in Afghanistan in the preceding eight years.

Then we'd have to ask about just how fast the Afghan Taliban can regenerate its leadership and fighting cadre, as well as how large it's recruiting pool is - i.e. how fast can the Taliban recover its losses.

And we'd have to ask whether the large number of civilian casulaties caused by special forces raids - including the likes of shooting pregnant women - contribute to that regeneration to the extent of rendering any figures Petraeus is touting about Taliban attrition meaningless.

In fact, there are a lot of questions about Petraeus' claims that Petraeus would rather we didn't ask.

Since taking command, Petraeus has used a series of high-profile media interviews to try to reverse the wave of pessimism about the war, especially within Congress and the American public.

Playing up missions by special operations forces - Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Army Rangers and Green Berets - offers a way to demonstrate that the U.S. and its NATO partners are taking the fight to the Taliban.

Petraeus has shared key heretofore classified data with reporters at a level of detail that surprised many U.S. officials here and in Washington.

A senior official in Kabul downplayed the notion that publicizing these details is calculated to win public support, saying it simply highlights one of the war's successes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the commander's strategy.

Special operations missions are now at their highest tempo, with nearly 4,000 carried out between May and August, according to officials here.

U.S. officials are sensitive to the suggestion that Petraeus is using the spec-ops successes for public effect, perhaps because it harks back to the largely discredited body counts of the Vietnam war.

But back in Washington, the release of information was warmly welcomed in some quarters, offsetting the daily drumbeat of rising U.S. casualties. At least 28 U.S. service members have been killed in the past week.

Perhaps the most obvious questions going a-begging are:

If this is really how successful a small cadre of special forces troops doing counter-terrorism can be, why the hells are the other 125,000 American soldiers still in Afghanistan, dying by inches, for a nation-building, "population-centric", counter-insurgency myth? Doesn't this prove Biden was right about the escalation surge?

And, does Petraeus really expect us to believe he isn't waging a campaign of domestic COINTELPRO here, cherry-picking his statistics and not tackling the difficult questions?