Four steps to reduce civilian casualties

Today Rick Inderfurth has a piece today arguing that civilian casualties are "rising to the top of the list" of woes in Afghanistan and setting out four steps to reduce them. Let's take a look:

First, the and NATO should publicly adopt the goal of "zero innocent civilian casualties," as recommended a year ago by retired General Barry McCaffrey...to accomplish this, military tactics must change to limit casualties even where this means, in McCaffrey's words, "Taliban units escape destruction by hiding among the people."

So this would essentially be an oath to 'first do no harm'...Such a declaration would be valuable, as long as it was actually observed.

Easier said than done--especially since the current command would tell you they are doing everything possible to avoid civilian deaths. It's clearly not working. McCaffrey, in a June memo (worth reading in its entirety), has some insights into how this approach might be operationalized:

We have to stay out of the cities and push the ANA [Afghan national army] with our backup into civil population control operations. We need to defer on the roads to the civil population while actively countering IED’s and suicide bombers. (Move convoys at night, build by-pass roads, get US military and AID infrastructure out of built-up areas, use ANP [Afghan national police] units to accompany our small unit convoy movements.) Suggest we need to concentrate on the ANA and the ANP…not on large unit US operations.

This requires a shift in how we operate, and a shift in priorities, but one that is not unimaginable. Inderfurth next advocates:

Second, more must be done to put "an Afghan face on operations," as called for by the former NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Richards of Britain. This means closer coordination on military operations with the Afghan Ministry of Defense and the Afghan National Army. Afghan soldiers should also be included in U.S. and NATO military actions to act as a buffer, a longstanding demand of Karzai. It is also imperative to work more closely with the local authorities and do more to respect Afghan sensibilities. U.S. and NATO policies regarding house searches and detentions of residents should be reconsidered.

This is really two recommendations in one: first a larger role for the Afghan military, and second, a shift in search/detention policies. Both are feasible and desirable, especially as the Afghan Army seems prepared to play a larger role.

Third, the United States should conclude a Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan. Such an agreement is intended to clarify the legal terms under which a foreign military is allowed to operate in a country, including locations of bases and access to facilities as well as matters affecting the relations between a military force and civilians. Nearly six years into the U.S. military campaign, a formal, binding understanding with the Afghan government is needed, in part to underscore the political message that the U.S. military is there at the invitation of the Afghan people, not as an "occupier" (which some Afghans are beginning to feel that it is).

Another good recommendation.  The US has proceeded on this issue as if issuing a status of forces agreement would suggest a lack of resolve. It would do precisely the opposite. It would strengthen the credibility of our commitment by laying out, in terms that made sense to our adversaries and our allies, what America's interests and long-term goals in Afghanistan actually are.  (I understand the Pentagon might see benefits to permanent bases in Afghanistan as forward positions to contain Iran and hedge against Russia and China. However, to let these goals drive US Afghanistan policy would be the height of folly, since even if they were valid--and I would question whether they are--they could better achieved in neighboring countries where their pursuit is cheaper and less counterproductive.) We are spending down our goodwill in Afghanistan quickly, and history suggests that once goodwill toward an occupying force is gone, it is gone forever.

Finally, NATO should set up a compensation fund for civilian deaths, injuries or property damage resulting from its military operations in Afghanistan. Since 2002 the United States has appropriated more than $12 million to help Afghan civilians harmed by U.S. operations. The funds are used for medical, rehabilitation and reconstruction aid. But NATO, as a whole, does not have an equivalent program.

Inderfurth implies that the US compensation program is a model, and perhaps it is--I had never seen this figure of $12 million before, which if it's accurate is a remarkable number. Nevertheless, there are some serious problems with the way the US doles out condolence money as well. For one thing, the 19 civilians who were killed by Marines Special Operations forces in March received a mere $2,000 for their loss, while the fifty injured received nothing but an apology. Moreover, as Jon Tracy notes in a May NYT op-ed, there has been a movement to conflate "compensation" payments with "condolence payments" :

Official compensation under the Foreign Claims Act acknowledges wrongdoing; a condolence payment explicitly denies wrongdoing, and the incident is considered, in effect, an accident of war. The Foreign Claims Act offers full compensation for the loss along the lines of what Americans can receive in civil court; condolence involves a nominal payment. But the military has conflated the two, giving condolence payments to the victims' families even as it has investigated and punished wrongdoing by our troops.

So yes, NATO should revisit its policies -- but so should the Pentagon...

Inderfurth's ideas are not new--but they deserve wide circulation at this juncture.

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