Jan. 31, 2008 – NATO experienced military success in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Taliban is resorting to terrorist tactics because its conventional efforts have failed, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters today.
“My view is that militarily, NATO has had a very successful year in 2007,” Gates replied. “The Taliban is occupying no territory in Afghanistan on a continuing basis.”He said he decided after consulting with President Bush to send an additional 3,200 Marines into Afghanistan “because it did not appear that that requirement would be satisfied by anyone else, and I wanted to take advantage of the gains that we had achieved over the past year in the security situation.”
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“...we are seeing more suicide bombings, more use of (improvised explosive devices), and so on, because their conventional military efforts have failed,” he said. “The rise in violence and attacks like we saw in Kabul are manifestations of a group that has lost in regular military terms in 2007 and is turning to terrorism as a substitute for that.”
The secretary repeatedly has pressed NATO to commit more troops to the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan.
[guess we'll call that a 'mixed' report]
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