NATO chief urges nations to send more troops to Afghanistan training mission

NATO: More trainers needed in Afghanistan

BRUSSELS — NATO’s secretary-general urged members of the alliance Thursday to step up efforts to train the rapidly expanding Afghan security services to help the nation defeat the Taliban.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen told NATO’s defense ministers that trainers are needed to help Afghanistan to “stand on its feet as a sovereign country and defend itself from terrorism.”

The talks follow an appeal by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is pressing nations who have failed to offer combat troops to step forward with trainers. Gates estimated 450 more troops are needed to train the security forces — an effort that is important because the alliance wants Afghan troops to replace its forces in the war.

“The question is quite simple,” Fogh Rasmussen told the ministers. “All of you want to provide the conditions for a gradual transition … so that our troops can eventually turn to another road and eventually also withdraw.”

Some countries have dragged their feet and failed to dispatch as many police and army trainers as they pledged last year, generally blaming logistical issues for the shortfall.

There are some 243,000 Afghan army and police officers now, but NATO wants that number to reach 300,000 by 2011.

They face an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 insurgents.

The two-day meeting features ministers from NATO’s 28 member nations and from other allied countries contributing troops to the 122,000-strong NATO force.

The U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal — who also attended the NATO meeting — told reporters that from the time when he took over as top commander a year ago, through the end of this year, Afghan security forces will have grown as much as they did in the previous seven years.

“They are still a force in development,” McChrystal said. “It will take many years for them to reach the kinds of professionalism that we would expect of American military forces.”

In some cases recruits have flocked to the army and police faster than they can be trained, and McChrystal acknowledged problems, particularly with the quality of the police force.

But he said that NATO has reversed the previous model of recruiting and deploying police units before they were trained. Now, training takes place ahead of deployment and NATO trainers are getting to the backlog of untrained officers already on the force, McChrystal said.

AP National Security writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.