McChrystal: Civilian deaths endanger mission - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

McChrystal: Civilian deaths endanger mission

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — Civilian casualties inflicted by coalition forces are on the rise in Afghanistan and threaten to undo the entire war effort, according to Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, senior U.S. and NATO commander here.

“Because of CivCas [civilian casualties], I think we have just about eroded our credibility here in Afghanistan,” McChrystal said in a quote attributed to him in a PowerPoint presentation by Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall, McChrystal’s senior enlisted adviser, during a May 20 conference of about 50 command sergeants major and other senior enlisted troops here.

“The constant repeat of CivCas is now so dangerous that it threatens the mission.”

The high level of concern over a recent spike in civilian casualty incidents has prompted the International Security Assistance Force to issue new standard operating procedures for “escalation of force” incidents and civilian casualty episodes. The new escalation of force SOP and the wider issue of civilian casualties dominated conversation at the conference, which Hall convened to give the senior enlisted advisers from across the coalition an opportunity to discuss McChrystal’s directives and reach a mutual understanding of them.

McChrystal has made reducing civilian casualties a priority since taking command of ISAF in June 2009, issuing a series of directives aimed at getting coalition troops to think and act with the security of the Afghan people foremost in their minds. But recent months have seen a number of high-profile civilian casualty incidents involving ISAF troops:

• German troops called in an airstrike Sept. 4 that killed dozens of civilians after insurgents hijacked two fuel tankers in Kunduz province.

• A Feb. 22 airstrike called in by U.S. Special Forces troops killed at least 15 civilians in Oruzgan province. A report released Saturday laid blame for the air strike on a Predator operating crew based at Creech Air Force Base, Nev.

• U.S. Force-Afghanistan announced May 20 that the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command was conducting a probe “into allegations that a small number of U.S. soldiers were responsible for the unlawful deaths of as many as three Afghan civilians.”

Nonetheless, the population-centric counterinsurgency approach that McChrystal introduced last year “is working,” Hall said.

ISAF senior leaders believe reducing civilian casualties is essential if they are to avoid defeat. “CivCas is how we lose strategically,” said a line in Hall’s slide briefing, in which he alluded to “insurgent math,” wherein every civilian casualty creates an additional 20 insurgents.

At the beginning of 2005, there were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 insurgents in Afghanistan, Hall said. But then, in the 2005 to 2006 timeframe, “we went very, very kinetic,” he said, meaning coalition forces ramped up the violence. Now the insurgents number 30,000 to 35,000, he said.

Breaking the numbers down further, Hall said that when ISAF inflicts civilian casualties, the result is a 25 percent to 65 percent increase in violence in that area during the next five months. When insurgents are responsible for civilian casualties, violence increases by 10 percent to 25 percent over the next three months, he said. “When we commit civilian casualties, at the end of the day, it hurts our force,” Hall said.

The escalation of force standard operating procedure was rewritten with this in mind. “Escalation of force to me was a terrible SOP ... because it didn’t protect our forces,” Hall told the audience. “It was an SOP that did not allow soldiers to think.”

In an interview, he said, “The old escalation was a process that you went through — step one, step two, step three — you had a card that you were supposed to use. If the enemy really wanted to blow you up he could, because the escalation of force I don’t think really prevented that, because it didn’t allow you to think.”

“In escalation of force incidents, we have never killed an insurgent or a suicide bomber,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Darrin Bohn, the senior enlisted adviser at ISAF Joint Command, the three-star headquarters that runs coalition operations day-to-day.

The new standard operating procedure allows a soldier confronted with a potentially threatening situation — such as a vehicle approaching his convoy at high speed — to view the situation in a wider context, Hall said.

‘Courageous restraint’

ISAF’s use of the phrase “courageous restraint” to describe how troops ought to act in some situations to lower the risk of civilian casualties prompted a lot of discussion at the conference.

Command Sgt. Maj. James Faris, senior enlisted leader at Joint Special Operations Command, which includes the most elite special mission units supported by the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and other organizations, said the feedback he got from JSOC troops was that “they hate the words ‘courageous restraint.’ ”

“Words have meaning, and those two words right there are creating a lot of consternation,” Faris said. It was the responsibility of the senior noncommissioned officers in the room to explain McChrystal’s intent to their troops “without confusing them,” he said.

“It is tough to get that E-6 out there on the ground to understand what it is that we’re asking him to do” when using the phrase “courageous restraint,” Faris said, adding that he much preferred the phrase “tactical patience.”

Faris received support from Bohn. “I don’t particularly like it either,” Bohn said. “I prefer ‘tactical patience’ myself.”

“The phrase General McChrystal seems to use… is ‘courageous action and resolve,’ ” Hall said in the interview, and he dismissed recent media reports that ISAF was considering a “courageous restraint” award. “There was never any serious thought of ... a ‘courageous restraint’ award,” he said. “We’re saying we need to look at the awards system different” in order to ensure that troops who make a brave decision that requires holding fire are recognized.

But Hall said that it has never been the case that troops needed to take offensive action to receive a valorous award. “How many medics have been awarded the Medal of Honor for going out on the battlefield and dragging somebody back?” he said. “He didn’t shoot anybody, he didn’t kill any enemy. He put his life on the line for something.”