Sunday, Mar. 16, 2008

National Guard | S.C. leader is a road warrior

Checking on far-flung Palmetto State troops and other forces keeps general on the go

KABUL, Afghanistan — Like a pair of slalom skiers, two SUVs weave through a crowded four-lane highway to Kabul International Airport.

The vehicles make a quick right turn, enter a gate at the airport and park next to a ramp, where a small jet plane waits.

Seemingly in stride, Brig. Gen. Bob Livingston and his entourage from nearby Camp Phoenix step aboard the plane, plunk down in leather seats and prepare for takeoff.

Their destination is Kandahar Province, the home of the Taliban and a hotbed of the insurgency that is threatening the Afghan government. And Livingston is off to see if he can help fix a problem.

Livingston, who rose from a private to one-star leader of the S.C. National Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team, estimates he spends about 60 percent of his time in Afghanistan on the road.

“People in briefings can tell you all kinds of good things,” Livingston says. “Until you’re on the ground and witness the results of their effort, there’s always some questions.”

The Lexington County native also is commander of Task Force Phoenix. That coalition of forces from 22 nations, based at Camp Phoenix outside Kabul, is charged with training the Afghan army and police.

Under the tutelage of Task Force Phoenix and others, the Afghan army has emerged as one of the most trusted institutions in this war-torn Southwest Asian country.

However, the Afghan police force remains troubled. It has a reputation for being, at best, poorly trained, and, at worst, corrupt.

Livingston and Task Force Phoenix are trying to help fix the police.

‘IT’S A HARD FIGHT’

The 400-mile trip over the snow-capped Hindu Kush Mountains and across the desert floor to dusty Kandahar Airfield takes about an hour.

Livingston’s first stop is the task force’s southern regional command, at the air base. The command is responsible for training police in six provinces that touch on the lawless, porous Pakistani border, a haven for insurgent forces and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

Livingston also plans to visit bases about 20 miles southwest of Kandahar city. Farmers there, in the Zhari and Panjwayi districts, produce grapes, pomegranates, cotton and tobacco. They also grow marijuana and hashish.

U.S. soldiers call it “Indian country.”

While impolitic, the comparison to the American West is apt. U.S. and coalition troops in the districts operate from small patrol bases, similar to the Army forts that dotted the Great Plains and Southwestern U.S. in the 1800s.

“It’s a hard fight out there,” says Col. Tom McGrath, the regional commander.

Two days earlier, a Canadian soldier died when his tank hit a bomb, says McGrath, a former Fort Jackson battalion commander.

However, the local population may be in greater danger.

Preferring to avoid fights with coalition troops, the Taliban has launched a terror campaign against civilians.

In January, insurgents killed a 15-year-old boy after finding a $5 U.S. bill in his pocket, Afghan authorities say. The militants accused the boy of being a spy for U.S. forces, stuffed the bill in his mouth and hanged him.

That incident followed the insurgents’ public execution of a 60-year-old woman and her grandson, both also accused of spying.

Last month, a suicide bomber attacked an outdoor dog-fighting contest near Kandahar city, killing as many as 80 and wounding another 75.

“The people are getting sick of them — the Taliban,” McGrath says. “They’re brutal thugs.”

‘LOOKING FOR THE IDIOTS WHO SET IT OFF’

The next morning, as Livingston’s convoy prepares to leave Kandahar air base, commanders re-emphasize the danger of roadside bombs.

“There are IEDs all over the place,” says Lt. Col. Tom Ritz, of Castle Rock, Colo., referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs.

If there’s a blast, the soldiers traveling with Livingston need to scan the area, not watch the explosion, S.C. National Guard First Sgt. James Williams, of Columbia, instructs.

“You need to be looking for the idiots who set it off,” says Williams.

Livingston and the troops traveling with him climb into armored Humvees and begin an hourlong ride on a two-lane blacktop that takes them through the heart of Kandahar city and into the countryside.

The city of nearly 500,000 shows the ravages of 30 years of war. When the Russians invaded in 1979, they forced Afghans into the cities from the countryside. In the civil war that followed the Russian withdrawal, Afghan warlords bombed and rocketed the cities, including Kandahar.

But everything seems peaceful as the convoy rolls through.

In the marketplace, carcasses of freshly slaughtered lambs and goats hang from the butcher shop ceilings. Donkeys pull carts of fruits and vegetables, old men watch the traffic from the storefronts, and women shop, covered in shimmering, light-blue burkas.

A few months ago, the troops would have been met with empty stares from the men and rock-throwing children.

But, on this day, the children run to the roadside and wave as the Humvees pass.

‘SHOW THEM WHAT RIGHT LOOKS LIKE’

About a half-hour later, the convoy reaches Camp Wilson, a coalition base west of Kandahar city.

The base consists mostly of sand- and rock-filled blast barriers, tents and a masonry building pockmarked by past firefights.

Before he meets with the base commanders, Livingston gathers the S.C. contingent at Camp Wilson for a pep talk and update on what is happening around the country.

Major strides have been made by the Afghan forces, Livingston says. The number of Afghan soldiers absent without leave has dropped to 8 percent, from 18 percent a year ago, and half the Afghan soldiers are re-enlisting, up from 18 percent, Livingston tells the S.C. troops.

“The ANSF (Afghan National Security Force) is much, much stronger this spring,” Livingston adds.

Getting the S.C. soldiers — scattered at more than 100 Afghan bases — to see the big picture is part of his job, Livingston says.

“You find they get very narrow vision at times because they have to concentrate on what they’re doing,” Livingston says. “We’re so isolated ... it’s very difficult to get news downrange.”

But Livingston also is here to gather information.

While his commanders’ assessments are upbeat, they also indicate plenty of work lies ahead.

Canadian Army Capt. Dan Bird, who has been in Afghanistan less than a month, fills Livingston in on efforts to work with and earn the trust of the local residents.

“We, as coalition forces, need to get them (local residents) to a point where they’ll feel we’ll be here forever,” Livingston responds, adding the residual force will be the Afghan police.

But, for now, those police need coalition mentors who supervise and advise, and also fight alongside the Afghans when needed. The mentors also call in helicopters to evacuate wounded troops and close-air support from coalition fighter-bombers.

The local police are being retrained but will need support until they can operate on their own, Livingston says. The past practice — of training the Afghan police officers and then sending them back to their districts without supervision — hasn’t worked.

Too often the new police officers were assigned to corrupt commanders who siphoned off their pay. To make money, some police officers set up checkpoints to rob motorists or looked the other way when drug runners passed through.

“We have to make sure they don’t go back to their old ways,” Livingston says. “We have to show them what right looks like.”

‘DON’T WORRY. WE WILL KEEP IT UP’

As Livingston’s convoy approaches a police substation a few miles from Camp Wilson, it passes the charred wreckage of an Afghan police commander’s green Ford pickup.

The truck is on its side, about 100 feet off the road. That’s where it landed after a bomb killed the commander.

Canadian Army Capt. Curtis Chow thinks the police commander was targeted for assassination. He also thinks the locals knew in advance and let it happen because they disliked the commander, who had a reputation for being corrupt and a bully.

“We rely on the locals to tell us what are ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ routes,” Chow says.

However, on the day the police commander died, there were no indications that a bomb had been planted along the road. “That’s why we think the locals allowed him to get bombed,” says Chow.

There have been no attacks in the area since December, says Capt. Hunter Hill, of Atlanta, a member of the 218th. Hill attributes the drop in attacks to a greater police presence in the area and winter, which slows fighting in Afghanistan each year.

At the crossroads village of Raji, Livingston and Hill stop to check with the local police chief.

A slight man with a beard, and grenade launcher slung over his shoulder, the chief insists Livingston and Hill stay for chai — the Afghan custom of sharing a cup of hot, sweetened tea with friends.

Livingston sits cross-legged on an Afghan rug that police officers had spread on the ground. The chief says morale has improved now that his officers are getting paid regularly. His more-motivated police force is helping make the village more secure, diminishing the Taliban’s influence, the chief adds.

“Y’all are doing a good job out here,” Livingston says, between sips of tea. “Keep it up.”

“Don’t worry. We will keep it up,” the chief says through an interpreter.

As Livingston and the chief talk, curious villagers gather nearby to catch a glimpse of the U.S. general and his soldiers. Fathers hold up their babies for a better view, and children wave and offer thumbs up.

‘A LONG WAY TO GO’

At each stop at a police station, Livingston, a former combat engineer, asks questions.

Is there enough body armor? Do the police have the right weapons? Do the police officers understand their mission? Is there enough support from higher up?

How long the war will last in this area depends on how hard the Taliban is willing to fight, says Capt. Jim Poland, of Seekonk, Mass., a police mentor.

“The Taliban’s from this area,” says Poland, a Rhode Island National Guardsman. “How bad do they want to hold on?”

But Livingston sees progress. Still, he adds, developing the Afghan police “certainly has some challenges.”

“We have a long way to go. But we have an established police force now that has the capability of defending themselves and putting pressure on the Taliban.”

By midafternoon on the third day of the trip south, it’s time to leave.

The same jet plane that flew Livingston to Kandahar is waiting on the runway to take the general’s party back to Kabul.

Before boarding the plane, Livingston has orders for S.C. National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Bobby Albert, the senior enlisted leader of the south command, and Canadian navy Cmdr. Michael Burke, the command’s chief of staff.

A stickler for detail, Livingston wants Albert and Burke to make sure the task force emblem — the phoenix — is painted on all the command’s Humvees, instead of some less-official artwork.

“Having a skull (painted) on a Humvee is not the image we’re trying to project,” Livingston says. “The Afghans share a heritage with the Greeks, and so the bird that rises out of its ashes carries a powerful message to the hopeful Afghans.”

Livingston climbs aboard the jet.

Lt. Col. Robert Spires, of Lexington, who heads the task force’s engineer section, sits next to Livingston.

As the plane taxies onto the runway, Spires shares plans for beefing up the electrical power plant at Kandahar city.