When Al Qaeda attacked the United States mainland in September 2001 the US reaction was swift and brutal. Terrorist bases in Afghanistan were targeted and bombed and an invasion by a coalition of forces, including Australia, followed. In no time at all Al Qaeda fled to Pakistan and the Taliban was overcome.

Ten years on the situation looks very different. The Taliban is back, fighting continues, casualties are rising and relations between the Afghan National Army and the coalition are troubled.

Now, with plans underway to begin the withdrawal of troops that make up the international coalition, reporter Geoff Thompson takes a hard-headed look at the state of war and peace in Afghanistan. He looks in detail at the objectives set out by the Australian Government justifying this country's involvement. He talks to military experts, political analysts and those who've been part of the campaign to deliver health and education to the people of Afghanistan to assess the state of play.

Uncomfortable questions are asked and answered. Could the Taliban retake the country when the coalition leaves in 2014? Is the Afghan National Army up to the job of protecting the people? Might the only chance of peace involve a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, and what sort of peace would this be for Afghanistan?

"If you're tossing away life, whether Afghan life or American life or an Australian life, if there's not some benefit to the coalition, to the country, to the people of Afghanistan, then you've got ask why are we doing this?" US Military officer

"Blood and Honour", reported by Geoff Thompson and presented by Kerry O'Brien, goes to air Monday 16th April at 8.30pm. It is replayed on Tuesday 17th April at 11.35pm. It can also be seen each Saturday at 8.00pm on ABC News 24, on iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Transcript

BLOOD AND HONOUR - 16th April 2012

GEOFF THOMPSON, REPORTER: Australian troops putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan, just as they do each and every day, fighting a bloody and expensive war our Government rarely wants us to witness. The number of coalition soldiers killed here will soon exceed the near 3,000 civilians who died in the September 11 attacks. Thirty-two of them have been Australians. Five objectives have been repeatedly stated as the reasons for Australia's war in Afghanistan.

Objective one: honour the ANZUS defence treaty with the United States.

On September 11, 2001, then-Prime Minister John Howard was in Washington. His response to the terrorist attacks was as immediate as it was visceral.

JOHN HOWARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER (2001): We will stand by them. We will help them. We will support actions they take to properly retaliate for these acts of bastardry.

(in 2012) I certainly don't have any regrets about Australian involvement, the instantaneous commitment to stand beside the Americans, and I believe very strongly that if we hadn't of gone into Afghanistan then there could well have been multiple further attacks.

I was making it very plain that we would stand beside the Americans, because given what had happened to them, it was a time for 100 per cent allies, not 70 or 80 per cent allies, and I did see that attack and I still do as being an attack on our way of life as much as an attack on the American way of life - and I spoke, I'm sure at that time, for the great bulk of the Australian people.

GEOFF THOMPSON: For the first time in its 50-year history Australia invoked the ANZUS treaty.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER US PRESIDENT (2001): Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Australia, Germany and France pledged forces as the operation unfolds.

JOHN HOWARD: It's always of advantage to this country to have a close alliance with the most powerful democracy in the world - militarily speaking and economically speaking. I think that's self-evident to the Australian people. and there was a time in history when the strength of that alliance was important to Australia's survival, namely in World War II.

JOHN CANTWELL, MAJOR GENERAL, RETIRED: At its heart it's about supporting an alliance with the United States. That's what got us into this when the ANZUS Treaty was invoked.

Is it worth it? I as a Commander asked myself that question many times. And I really really struggle with it. The only way I can see through this, so that I can sleep at night, is to differentiate - to say it's not worth it for the lives that you lose. You could never look at any soldier, sailor or airman and say, your life's forfeit for some political purpose. That's just unacceptable. But at the highest level of strategy, and in the dirty ugly world of international relationships, where it's you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, that those lives become less important. And taking that longer term view, that hardnosed, realpolitik view, that politicians do, and must, it's worth it. But not at the human level.

DAVID KILCULLEN, COUNTERINSURGENCY SPECIALIST: You know, at some point you reach a level where you say, you know, "Enough's enough and it's time for us to focus on providing legitimate support to the alliance, but in ways that don't exposure young Australians to potentially be the last person to die in a war that we're leaving anyway."

I think it's absolutely clear that Australia has done everything and more that was expected of it. So in terms of supporting and honouring the ANZUS alliance I think we can be very clear that we've achieved that objective

GEOFF THOMPSON: Objective two: deny al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan. Denying al Qaeda a safe-haven has been the most consistently stated justification for the war in Afghanistan.

BRUCE REIDEL, SENIOR FELLOW IN FOREIGN POLICY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: On the morning of September 11th 2001, I was in the White House attending the senior staff meeting of the National Security Council. Within minutes, we knew this was al Qaeda and we knew we'd have to do something about Afghanistan, but there was literally no war plan for going into Afghanistan. What we had was a CIA plan to send in a small number of CIA operatives with several million dollars in walking-around money to try to bribe Taliban commanders over to our side, and the concept of operations: we would provide air power and the Northern alliance would provide the manpower on the ground to topple the Taliban. It turned out to be a very simple plan, and one that worked remarkably quickly. Perhaps almost too easily for what came afterwards.

GEOFF THOMPSON: From the outset, Australia was part of the hunt for al Qaeda. 150 special forces troopers landed in Afghanistan in December 2001. It's estimated there were about 5,000 al Qaeda fighters in the country at the time. But even before that job was done, the United States was distracted by Iraq.

DAVID KILCULLEN: That people in the field, in Afghanistan in late December or mid to late December 2001 were already losing support from Central Command Headquarters and losing the attention and planning support and air power that they needed to close the door on Osama bin Laden, because the planners had been directed to start focussing on Iraq.

JOHN HOWARD: I was aware that America had the possibility of a military operation in Iraq in mind, although it would be wrong to say that any final decision had been taken at the end of 2001.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Osama bin Laden escaped to Pakistan, and since 2002 it has remained the main base of al Qaeda's operations in the region.

BRUCE REIDEL: But the only way we can go after them in Pakistan is from bases in Afghanistan. The Seal team that killed Osama bin Laden flew out of a helicopter base in Afghanistan. Had it tried to accomplish that mission from an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, you can be sure it would have failed. It's just too far. The drones that put unrelenting pressure on al Qaeda every day in Pakistan all fly out of Afghanistan. Without bases in Afghanistan we'd be able to put no pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan. And I think we saw very dramatically on May 1st last year that Pakistan is in a very ambiguous relationship, even with the highest leaders of al Qaeda- like Osama bin Laden - who wasn't hiding in a cave in the mountains, he was hiding in the front yard of the Pakistani Army.

ANATOL LIEVEN, AFGHAN-PAKISTAN TERRORISM SPECIALIST: Nobody can guarantee whether or not al Qaeda can come back. What is in all circumstances going to be a very weak Afghan state will not be able to prevent some al Qaeda people coming there, basing themselves there, travelling through. But, what I think can be prevented - certainly in the context of a peace deal with the Taliban, if that is achieved - is to prevent al Qaeda setting up the kind of bases and training camps that it had before 9/11 in Afghanistan.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Objective three: topple the Taliban regime. Before the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan under Taliban rule was already a pariah state. When the Pakistan-backed movement took power in 1996, it imposed a strict regime of Sharia law and killed thousands of civilians. The Taliban's brutal treatment of women attracted international condemnation. But it was their refusal to unconditionally surrender Osama Bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders which led to war with the United States - and allies like Australia.

BRUCE REIDEL: The Taliban were brilliantly and very quickly defeated in 2001. It's clear in retrospect that they'd lost the confidence of the vast majority of Afghans, but with a safe haven in Pakistan and with the active support of the Pakistani Army and Intelligence Service the Taliban have staged one of the great military comeback stories of the last 50 years.

DAVID KILCULLEN: They came back again in 2003, and with support they increased their activity in 2005. So there was a real time window there of two years, at least, where it would have been quite possible to craft a new structure that worked and was based on a genuine reconciliation. It... but it didn't happen.

GEOFF THOMPSON: By 2002, so confident was the coalition that the job of defeating the Taliban was done that Australia withdrew virtually all combat troops from Afghanistan, only to send them back in 2005.

JOHN HOWARD: I mean you might argue well we should have left them all there but I can tell you, if we'd left them we had all left all of our forces there, no matter what anybody was saying about Iraq, we'd have been heavily criticised for keeping forces in a country after the immediate objective had been achieved. Bear in mind that the objective was not "indefinite occupation".

GEOFF THOMPSON: A resurgent Taliban reached the peak of its success in 2009 when it threatened 80 per cent of Afghanistan. In April of that year, Kevin Rudd announced a 40 per cent increase in Australian troops bringing the total number on the ground to 1550 - more than 10 times Australia's original commitment in 2001.

JOHN CANTWELL: We can only do, in my view, what we've been asked to do. And from a military commander when I was there, all I could ask of my soldiers was to do the mission that we'd been assigned. Train the Ur... the Afghan forces in Uruzgan Province to the best of our ability, and that's all we can do. We can't solve Afghanistan. Australia can't solve Afghanistan.

GEOFF THOMPSON: In America, President Obama bowed to pressure from his Afghanistan generals and agreed to a troop surge of 30,000.

BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT (2009): These additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Debate still rages over how effective Obama's Afghanistan surge has been.

DAVID KILCULLEN: The Taliban have adopted more of an urban assassination and bombing tactic because they can't operate so freely in the countryside, and as a consequence you know there's an improvement in security and stability in the countryside. Um, that said, in the same timeframe the insurgency has gotten worse in the east and has spread to the north and the west, so this is a side effect of not having enough troops to do the job across the country simultaneously. We had to press in one area, and we certainly have reduced Taliban activity, there but they've sort of spread around and moved to other areas as we've done that.

DANNY DAVIS, LT COLONEL, US ARMY: At some point this will fall apart, and if we don't change anything my assessment is that this will end in a strategic defeat for the United States and the entire coalition, and at some point that cannot be hidden by positive words. If all of your actual evidence shows that when you leave somewhere the Taliban immediately comes back in, then what possible rationale could you use to see that this time when we leave - 23,000 in the next six months - well, that's going to work, that's going to stay or you know, the remainder, the 68,000 by the end of 2014 and all the rest of the NATO forces - upon what do you base that they're going to succeed when they haven't everywhere else and we're still there?

ANATOL LIEVEN: The problem was that the United States then went on, after 2001, to develop this idea of essentially eliminating the Taliban altogether, excluding the Taliban from Afghanistan. As has become very apparent, that cannot be done.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Objective four: help the Afghan people through development, education and democracy. The law may have begun as a pursuit of al Qaeda. But lofty ideals of helping Afghanistan's people were quickly grafted on to justifications for the invasion.

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER: We see the work that's being done, and the progression people done. I think if we weren't here, the progression of construction would be extremely slow. They would still carry on with their lives, but we're giving them a step up, I believe.

DAVID KILCULLEN: It took seven weeks to kick, you know, the remaining al Qaeda guys out of Afghanistan. Then at the Bonn Conference in late 2001 and early 2002, there was a very maximalist set of nation building objectives kind of tacked onto that military objective, and I think over time people have realised that that was just far too ambitious a set of ideas for the resources that we allocated to it.

GEOFF THOMPSON: It's been estimated that of the $62 billion in aid pledged by international donors since Bonn in 2001, only five per cent reached local Afghans.

ANATOL LIEVEN: Incredible sums have gone to western officials and aid workers in Kabul. Even bigger sums have gone to contractors with enormous profits, enormous overheads, enormous payments for security. Huge payments have been made to consultants; many of whom have hardly actually done any work in Afghanistan. And then of course when money is given to the Afghan authorities, so much of it has been stolen and disappeared in the form of corruption.

DAVID KILCULLEN: You know, Afghans call international assistance "aeroplane aid", I don't know if you've ever heard that term. They say it flies from the west, touches down in Afghanistan and it flies right back to the west. I think it's very true that a lot of the money that's been allocated has been wasted, or has actually been had a negative effect, because it's created money that's either gone to the enemy or gone to corrupt warlords, or corrupt officials who've then used it to oppress or abuse the ordinary population, and it's created instability.

GEOFF THOMPSON: The opportunities now available to women and girls have certainly improved, particularly in major cities like Kabul. Only 5,000 girls were in school in 2001. Now 2.7 million are being educated across Afghanistan.

SUSANNE SCHMEIDL, RESEARCH HEAD, THE LIAISON OFFICE: Quantitatively there are much more schools. There's probably from less than thirty, now two hundred and five. There's madrassas, but most of the gains are for boys. So, I mean you could say they're making some progress in education, but you unfortunately it's still a fairly conservative society, and so why things for women have changed, there's a big, big different between urban and rural centres.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Some infrastructure in Afghanistan, like new roads, might be irreversible. But progress in areas such as women's rights and democracy may not survive the departure of most international forces in 2014.

DANNY DAVIS: There's no doubt that there have been some things succeeded. You know we've built who knows how many schools. Women are, you know, serving in Parliament, they have rights here and there, you know there's roads built, there's been some infrastructure done and beyond question, there's some areas, especially in the southern part of the country, where it's more secure now, no question about that, those are all true statements - but also almost none of them matter. Virtually everywhere we have picked our boots up, this is open source, this is not classified information, you can read this online - the Taliban immediately comes back in to take over.

DAVID KILCULLEN: It's not like we failed to achieve this worthy objective of democracy. We actually sold the Afghans down the river in a sense because we've put in place this very centralised, very controlling government that has no plans to listen to what they want, and I think that's a really significant problem in Afghanistan - it's not like a minor issue that we've got to fix, this, it's the heart of the problem.

JOHN HOWARD: I mean, I want to see democracy everywhere, but I'm not starry-eyed enough to think you're going to have it flourish in Afghanistan in ten years' time. We were never into that - we were always into retaliating and denying the capacity for al Qaeda to come again, and we were successful in that. Very successful.

GEOFF THOMPSON: But the ongoing conflict has meant that very far from being helped, a growing number of ordinary Afghans are paying the ultimate price. Last year, the number of civilian deaths went up for the fifth year in a row. More Afghans civilians were killed last year alone than the number of people who lost their lives in the 2001's September 11 attacks. The UN estimates the Taliban were responsible for 77 per cent of those deaths.

DAVID KILCULLEN: The population is the soft target for the Taliban, and throughout history, insurgents have always preferred to target members of their own community that collaborate with the outsider rather than target the outsider directly. And that's still the pattern in Afghanistan.

DANIEL DAVIS: It doesn't matter to the Afghan people whether they kill them, or the Taliban kills them, or whether our accidents kill them. We brag about, "Oh it's only 23 per cent is the coalition and 77 per cent is the Taliban." They don't care, and you can read open source material from the local media that they confirmed this - it doesn't matter to them who does the killing, it matters to them that we can't stop it.

SUSANNE SCHMEIDL: I mean, for them consistently to say, "Yes, we honourable can leave in 2014 and we're not leaving behind a mess", you have to say, "Yes we're on track, yes we are making progress, yes things are getting better", and sometimes you... you think they're taking crazy pills or you kind of want to smoke what they're smoking, you know, but sometimes I, sometimes I would like to get a general and sit to him and say, "Do you really believe that, or is it something you have to say because you have now those years left? And you want to get your guys out."

GEOFF THOMPSON: Objective five: train Afghanistan's army and police to secure their country. Since President Obama named 2014 as an exit date the NATO mission has focussed on increasing and improving local forces so they can take the lead in securing Afghanistan. The stated goal is to leave behind 195,000 competent Afghan soldiers and 157,000 police. But the challenges are formidable. Afghanistan's army is plagued by corruption, desertion, illiteracy and drug use. The reputation of the police is worse.

DAVID KILCULLEN: I think we've made massive progress, but I think we still have a huge way to go, and it's certainly not a done deal that we're going to get to where we need to be by the end of 2014. I'm quite sceptical about that.

JOHN CANTWELL: The goal for us is to train a single brigade. Now, a brigade of the Afghan Army is around 2000, 2500 people, and it comprises about four groups, called Kandaks, of about 600 or so. And that's essentially the fighting force that we're trying to train up. Now that force is patchy, in terms of its quality and the training it's received. Part of it's going okay, parts of it have a long way to go - but it is as a as a organisation, moving in the right direction.

GEOFF THOMPSON: There has been progress, but as late as last October, no Afghan police units and only one army battalion were judged by the US Defence Department to be effective without international support.

DANNY DAVIS: I mean, tell me where the logic is in this. What we have failed to do in ten full years of war - now into the 11th year - we've already started the return of troops to the tune of 10,000. 23,000 are physically in the process of getting ready to leave, and what we have not been able to do in ten years, now then we're going to say with a con-continual bleeding-off of troops and the money that goes along with it, we're going... the Afghan guys are going to accomplish what they could not do with our presence there without our presence there.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Australian Special Forces in Uruzgan have been criticised for working, not with Government security forces, but the private militia of a local strongman, and now police chief, Matiuallah Khan.

JOHN CANTWELL: Sometimes, the people we deal with are not attractive people. Sometimes they've got to where they are by getting blood on their hands. It would be impossible to find someone in Afghanistan I would judge who hasn't got some blood on their hands somewhere, if they're in a position of power. We just have to accept that. It's ugly, it's unattractive, it's un-Australian, but that's the way it is, so we need to work with it.

SUSANNE SCHMEIDL: You can't say you're pro-government, we are pro-government when you work with groups like that.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Susanne Schmeidl was recently contracted by AusAID to assess local perceptions of Australia's presence in Uruzgan. She is not optimistic about the province's chances after 2014.

SUSANNE SCHMEIDL: A local colleague of mine, you know, when I discuss with him about whether Matiuallah would be able to hold, he said that he thinks that the Taliban might be able to retake Uruzgan in two weeks after the Australians withdraw.

ANATOL LIEVEN: All the evidence suggests that the Afghan security forces will not be strong enough to defeat or contain the Taliban after 2014, the way things are going. There have been so many cases in in recent months, both of attacks on... by Afghan soldiers on Western forces, but also so many cases of rape, extortion, kidnapping, murder, by the Afghan police. That isn't to say that the Afghan state will collapse completely, but in my view, without massive Western support, this army will not be capable of holding most of the Pashtun areas against Taliban attack.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Australian troops have been attacked by the Afghan forces they are training three times now - incidents known in the military as "green on blue" attacks. There have been about 30 such incidents across the coalition since 2007, resulting in 80 deaths. 75 per cent of them have happened since President Obama announced his exit strategy.

DAVID KILCULLEN: The people have thought, well the international community's leaving, I've got to show that I'm not a collaborator, and the way that I do that is I turn on the international community now to demonstrate that anti-coalition credential while there's still time. And I think that that not only explains green on blue, it also explains some of the behaviour we've seen from very senior Afghan leaders, including President Karzai.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Hamid Karzai, who is due to step down as president in 2014, has repeatedly flagged his interest in talks with the Taliban he now calls his "brothers". Ten years ago the Taliban were regarded as an enemy barely worth talking to. Now negotiating with them may be the only plausible path to peace.

BRUCE REIDEL: There can be no political solution to this war unless it's an Afghan political solution. We can't have a peace agreement between Brussels and Kandahar, we need to have a peace agreement between Kabul and Kandahar. The very fact that now the Taliban is thinking about talks is a very encouraging one. But they will be only willing to think about talks as long as they believe that we're not going to just simply walk away 100 per cent from Afghanistan either in 2012 or in 2014.

GEOFF THOMPSON: But the Taliban says there can be no settlement unless international forces leave.

ANATOL LIEVEN: If the United States is determined to keep military bases and Special Forces in Afghanistan for a long period after 2014, then yes, that will make a settlement with the Taliban impossible. The Taliban have stated repeatedly that they cannot possibly agree to that.

GEOFF THOMPSON: And so, a war soon to become Australia's longest continues with no imminent victory or political solution in sight.

DAVID KILCULLEN: We are doing all we can do in the military side and we're actually doing a pretty good job but to what end, where are we heading? And we're not... I don't see the political solution that needs to be in place to allow us to leave in 2014. So that that to my mind is the real problem and it's much bigger and harder to deal with actually than the military stuff.

SUSANNE SCHMEIDL: To be frank it's a bit heartbreaking, it has been a bit heartbreaking for me and for all my colleagues and friends to see how potentially a very, very good opportunity and chance with Afghanistan was squandered.

DANNY DAVIS: If you're just tossing away life whether Afghan life or American life or or Australian life, if there's not some benefit to the coalition, to the country, to the people of Afghanistan, then you've got to ask why are we doing this?

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Why are we still doing this? A question that gets harder to answer for public consumption as the years roll by. It still confronts Defence Minister Stephen Smith, who's just come back from Afghanistan, and joins me now. Stephen Smith, it seems to me that it's not just a case of "Why are we still there?" but, when the coalition is gone, what will it leave behind that will justify the cost?

STEPHEN SMITH, DEFENCE MINISTER: Well, we're still there because it's in our national interest, it's in our national security interest to stay and finish the job, and the job won't finish at the end of 2014, which is why, for the last 12 months or more, Australia has been arguing and saying to its international partners that we need to focus on the post-2014 international community contribution, and that's now seeing a couple of very important issues crystalising for the Chicago NATO Leaders Summit, which the Prime Minister will attend. Firstly, resourcing the Afghan national security forces after 2014, and secondly, what international community support will there continue to be to give support, not just to the security forces, but also to the Afghan institutions.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The American draw-down of troops is on the way. We've seen again overnight from Kabul the presence of the Taliban still very much there. You heard Colonel Davis say, if, with all the might of the coalition forces, combined with the Afghan military, has not been able to stop the killing, has not been able to rid Afghanistan of the insurgency, why is that possible with Afghan forces alone after 2014, no matter how much money you pump in from the outside, on top of the billions and billions that's already been spent?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, Colonel Davis' analysis is not one that I share, it's not one shared by his military seniors, nor is it shared by effectively everyone I spoke to in Afghanistan, in Kandahar, in […] and in Kabul last week.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But that doesn't surprise me, because for any of the senior military or governments to acknowledge any right in what he says, is to acknowledge failure.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I'm not saying that we've got rose-coloured glasses on, or that we're starry-eyed about this; it's difficult, it's dangerous. Risks continue, very high risk - whether it's safe havens in Pakistan, whether its issues about corruption or drugs or governance so far as Afghan governance and institutions are concerned, but the overnight events in Kabul really show, in my view, a number of things - firstly, the entire response was handled by Afghan National Security Forces themselves. They weren't handled by International Security Assistance Force competence, they were handled by the Afghans themselves, and handled, on the advice I have, pretty well. Secondly, we've seen - and I've been saying this for more than 12 months - we will continue to see the Taliban and other associated groups resorting to greater reliance on the roadside bombs, the IEDs, but even more so, greater reliance upon the high profile propaganda-motivated attacks, including suicide bombings, including suicide bombing using children. We've seen more of that. That's because they haven't been able to make up the ground that they've lost in the field, and that's been the case, really, for the last 18 months. The surge, which was United States and International Security Assistance Force has been effective - they have not been able to take back any ground at all, and that's why they have been resorting to the high-profile attacks. And that's also why, for the first we've seen clear indications that they are contemplating having talks. Now, it's in early stages, but it does underline the point Australia has made for a number of years - that this can't and won't just be a combat or military solution. It also needs to be a political solution.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, you disagree with Colonel Davis. Do you also disagree with Susanne Schmeidl, who has been there since 2002, who has significant credibility, who was lead author in the report that was commissioned by AusAID, an Australian government agency. She says, when she hears coalition generals talking about being on-track, making progress, things getting better, she thinks they're taking crazy pills.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, she has been dealing, quite correctly, with the development issues and the governance issues and the services on the ground, and I have repeatedly made the point that, in terms of process or improvement, we find that first on the security front, particularly with the army, there's no doubt the police are lagging behind. But where we find Afghanistan at its worst, the delivery of services and provision of basic facilities to their people, and when I met with the governor and deputy governor of Uruzgan province, the police chief, the director of the National Director of Security, and the army commander of the Fourth Brigade - to a man, they all said the most important thing now are not security issues; the most important things now are developing and providing the services, and whilst we have made...

KERRY O'BRIEN: But this is not a... this is a ticking time bomb. A deadline has been created - how you work that deadline out, I don't know - but a deadline has been created. And that time is ticking down.

STEPHEN SMITH: The deadline is transition to Afghan National Security Forces, to enable them to take lead responsibility for security.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But how... how much confidence do you think the people of Afghanistan, out in the countryside, in provinces like Uruzgan, actually have that their government, which has a very low credibility in Afghanistan, can hold the line against the Taliban. And what do you say, again, to Susanne Schmeidl, when people say to her, in Uruzgan, that the Taliban could be back, will just move back in within two weeks of Australia leaving?

STEPHEN SMITH: To finish my answer: by the time you get to the middle of 2013, you'll have all of the population of Afghanistan under lead responsibility. And that will be the case, with the International Security Assistance Forces essentially playing a background advisory role, a combat role when necessary or required, until the end of 2014. But in 2014, the international community contribution doesn't stop, and it doesn't stop there.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But the combat... on the combat front, it does. While Australian soldiers, now, are being killed by Taliban bombs, President Karzai is referring to Taliban as his "brothers". How do you process that?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, what President Karzai there is what I've said in my own language is, not only does there need to be enhanced security and a military or combat solution which effects peace and security in Afghanistan, there also has to be a political rapprochement, a political settlement, and we're seeing the early signs of what the Afghans describe as "reintegration", where fighters on the ground have been running with the Taliban, and now coming to realise that in many instances, they're not fighting international security assistance force soldiers from overseas, they're fighting their own countrymen, their own brothers...

KERRY O'BRIEN: Works both ways. Works both ways in a civil war.

STEPHEN SMITH: ...and they are laying down their arms. And the legitimate point which development assistance officers make is that we are coming off a very low base, so far as the provision of services is concerned. It's also the case that the further away you are from the population centres, the more difficult it is to control security, and the more difficult it is to provide services on the ground, whether you're a development assistance partner like Australia, or whether you are a provincial or a central government.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But at the same time you want a local political solution. What you're also saying is that the international presence is not going away - it's still going to be there, partly, in... I mean, the Americans are making clear they want to maintain bases of some description there, because they want to continue to drop bombs on insurgency targets, whether it's extremist Taliban or whether it's al Qaeda, which they say they can't do, unless they maintain a base there. The Taliban say, no political settlement until all foreign presence is gone. So, the longer you stay, in their terms, the longer you put off any real solution.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, two things. Firstly, any political solution can only be an Afghan-led political solution. It can only be brought about by the Afghan government speaking to other parties, including the Taliban, and the establishment of the Qatar office of the Taliban is a very early sign that the Taliban may well be interested in going down that road. They'll only do that if they believe two things: if they believe they can't win militarily, and they've made no ground up in the field for effectively 18 months; and if they also believe the international community is there for the long haul, and that's why it's been so important for Afghanistan to enter into long-term strategic partnerships with NATO; it will effect with the United States, it's effecting long-term strategic partnerships with India, with Germany, with France.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Even in retirement, General Cantwell still clearly lives the with anguish of seeing his soldier die, and clearly he's still struggling to justify it. Do you struggle continuing to put Australian lives on the line for what so many see, including front line experts, as a dubious outcome?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, every time, Kerry, there's a fatality, it sends a shockwave through ministers, it sends a shockwave through chiefs of services and chiefs of defence forces, it sends a shockwave through the service itself.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Look, I don't want to be - and I'm not - being a cynic on this, but we've seen spin related to war, in a big way, really, since Vietnam. You have to say these things. You have to say these things. But do you really struggle for what I've said, according to many experts, is a dubious outcome. That's my emphasis - dubious outcome.

STEPHEN SMITH: I am absolutely of the view that we are there and continue to be there in our national security interests; that we can't allow Afghanistan to again become a breeding ground for international terrorism. As we speak, Umar Patek is being tried in Indonesia - he was the bloke who built the Bali bomb. He was trained in Afghanistan. We can't allow this to occur again, because Australian citizens will be at risk. But...

KERRY O'BRIEN: But Pakistan is the new breeding ground. What are you going to do, invade Pakistan, eventually?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, Pakistan is one of the very significant issues and problems that we have. You can do one of two things with Pakistan - you can continue to engage, as we do strongly, as the United States continues to do...

KERRY O'BRIEN: While, while, while dropping bombs from drone...

STEPHEN SMITH: Or ignore it. Pakistan is a significant and complex nation, and it can't be ignored; and we engage with Pakistan as effectively as we can. Kerry, when I speak to my defence ministerial colleagues, they suffer the same array and range of emotions that I do in the face of fatalities. When I ring my US counterpart, my New Zealand counterpart, my UK counterpart in the face of fatalities on their side, they all suffer the same emotions. But in the end, governments make decisions to protect and defend the national security interests of their nation, and we very strongly believe that when we went in there it was the right thing to do. We continue to believe that - not just because we're there with the United States - we are there under a United Nations mandate, as we've been for a decade, with 50 other countries serving the international community's national security interests, and that's why it's the right thing to do, and that's why the 32 families who grieve on a daily basis are not doing that grieving in vain.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Stephen Smith, thanks for talking with us.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks Kerry, thanks very much.

End of transcript

Background Information

KEY REPORTS AND STATS

Gillard to bring troops home early | ABC News | 17 Apr 2012 - Prime Minister Julia Gillard is expected to announce today that Australian troops will be coming home from Afghanistan a year earlier than planned.

Is it worth it? Former commander wrestles with Afghan war | ABC News | 16 Apr 2012 - The former commander of Australian forces in Afghanistan has questioned whether the conflict has been worth the lives lost.

Revealed: the moment we almost lost the US alliance | The Australian | 16 Apr 2012 - The US threatened the future of the ANZUS treaty, the cornerstone of Australia's security framework, over alarms about Gough Whitlam's foreign policy in mid-1973.

Plan to spend millions on Afghanistan uncovered | The Age | 14 Apr 2012 - Australia is five weeks away from signing a crucial strategic agreement with Afghanistan that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and outline Australia's postwar role there, but the government has yet to inform the public of its existence.

ADF Battle casualties in Afghanistan | Department of Defence - Information about Australian Defence Force personnel wounded and killed in action.

Afghanistan Annual Report 2011: Protection of civilians in armed conflict | UNAMA | Feb 2012 - 2011 marked the fifth year in a row that civilian casualties have increased in the armed conflict in Afghanistan, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said, in its 2011 Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, prepared in coordination with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Changes in the tactics of the parties to the conflict were responsible for an eight per cent increase in Afghan civilian deaths in 2011 compared to 2010. Read the report. [PDF 1.4Mb]

Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan | US Dept. of Defense | Oct 2011 - Since the last Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its Afghan partners have made tangible progress, arresting the insurgents' momentum in much of the country and reversing it in a number of important areas. Read this recent report from the US Defense Department. [PDF 4.7MB]

The State of the World's Human Rights: Afghanistan | Amnesty International Report | 2011 - A detailed examinatiof the conditions in Afghanistan by Amnesty International.

High Stakes: Girls' Education in Afghanistan | Oxfam International | 24 Feb 2011 - This report is based on field research carried out in the summer of 2010 in 17 provinces out of a total of 34 in Afghanistan. It was conducted by Oxfam and 15 partner organizations, including 13 Afghan non-governmental organizations (NGOs) plus CARE and Swedish Committee of Afghanistan (SCA). Download here.

Australia's strategic approach to aid in Afghanistan 2010-2012 | AusAID | Dec 2010 - This document lays out Australia's strategic approach to the delivery of aid to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012. Australia's overall development objective in Afghanistan is to build the Afghan Government's capacity to deliver basic services and provide economic opportunities to its people. [PDF 367 Kb]

RELATED NEWS AND MEDIA

Attacks rock Kabul, Taliban claims 'spring offensive' | ABC News | 16 Apr 2012 - Gunfire was still raging as dawn broke in the Afghan capital Kabul, more than 12 hours after Taliban militants staged coordinated high-profile attacks on government and diplomatic buildings.

Violence questions possible peace in Afghanistan | ABC 7.30 | 10 Apr 2012 - A bombing in front of a government building has raised more questions about the chances of peace in Afghanistan and the role of the Taliban in the country's future.

Media Release: United States Marine Corps personnel welcomed to Darwin | Dept. of Defence | 4 Apr 2012 - The first company-sized rotation of approximately 200 United States Marines Corps personnel have been officially welcomed to Darwin, with a ceremony at Robertson Barracks.

The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read | Rolling Stone | 10 Feb 2012 - Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a 17-year Army veteran recently returned from a second tour in Afghanistan has produced an unclassified report - titled "Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leader's Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort". Rolling Stone has obtained the 84-page unclassified version. Download the report here.

Nato success against Taliban in Afghanistan 'may be exaggerated' | The Guardian | 13 Oct 2011 - Report says kill-or-capture raids are not a surgical tactic as claimed and use of the word 'leader' is suspect

Joint Communique: Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations | Minister for Defence | 15 Sep 2011 - Australia-US talks on ANZUS obligations.

SAS veteran's very private war after front-line career | The West Australian | 16 Jul 2011 - David Cirulis, a member of the Special Air Service Regiment, Australia's elite fighting force, tells a very personal story in the hopes of bringing to light the hidden cost of war.

Media Release: Australian Defence Force Posture Review | Minister for Defence | 22 Jun 2011 - Minister for Defence Stephen Smith announced today that the Government will undertake a Force Posture Review to assess whether the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is correctly geographically positioned to meet Australia's modern and future strategic and security challenges.

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

ABC News Online Special Coverage on the conflict in Afghanistan - www.abc.net.au/news/specials/afghanistan/

Australian Operation in Afghanistan | Department of Defence - www.defence.gov.au/op/afghanistan/

Australia's involvement in Afghanistan: revised facts and figures | Parliamentary Library | 22 Nov 2011 - A timeline produced by the Parliamentary Library detailing Australia's involvement in Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network - A a non-profit, independent policy research organisation. It aims to bring together the knowledge, experience and drive of a large number of experts to better inform policy and to increase the understanding of Afghan realities. aan-afghanistan.com/

Costs of War - The Costs of War report was compiled by more than 20 economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists as the first comprehensive analysis of a decade of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. costsofwar.org/

Department of Veterans' Affairs - This is the official homepage of the Department of Veterans' Affairs Australia. www.dva.gov.au/

ISAF: International Security Assistance Force - In support of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, ISAF conducts operations in Afghanistan to reduce the capability and will of the insurgency, support the growth in capacity and capability of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and facilitate improvements in governance and socio-economic development in order to provide a secure environment for sustainable stability that is observable to the population. www.isaf.nato.int/

The Liaison Office | Research, Dialogue and Development Throughout Afghanistan - The Liaison Office is an Afghan non-governmental organization that seeks to improve local governance, stability and security through systematic and institutionalized engagement with customary structures, local communities, and civil society groups. www.tlo-afghanistan.org/

WATCH RELATED FOUR CORNERS

In Their Sights | 1 Sep 2011 - The story behind the controversial strategy Coalition forces are using in Afghanistan to kill or capture the Taliban leadership.

A Careful War - Part 1 & 2 | July 2010 - Chris Masters delivers two ground level report giving a soldier's-eye view of the bloody war being waged against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Flash Presentation