After a spate of attacks in central Kabul a few months ago, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan supposedly stepped up security in the capital.

The also seemed to hire a PR firm to come up with a catchy phrase for the stepped up security--Ring of Steel.

So at the usual checkpoints staffed by police officers, there are these big metal signs.

 I am sure they will deter the Taliban.

An M-ATV, rolls into a parking lot outside of Camp Dubs.  The remains of the Royal Queen's palace are in the background.

The M-ATV is two analogies and a seriously bad idea.  Using the M-ATV for true combat operations makes about as much sense as its name.

The "M" stands for MRAP which is Mine Resistant Ambush Protected.  The "ATV" stands for All Terrain Vehicle.  The All Terrain part should be in air quotes because there is a lot of terrain in Afghanistan the M-ATV is not rated for.

(Read Part I here)

The Musahe District, southwest of Kabul on the border of Logar province, is dotted with small villages in the valleys low, rocky mountains.  The Directorate of National Security says that the Taliban uses it is as a staging ground for attacks on Kabul.  District police officers report Taliban activity ranging from criminal extortion to planting bombs on the roads to target Afghan security forces and ISAF coalition forces.

As part of the Validation Transition Team's assessment of the 1st Battalion, 111st Afghan National Army Divsion, they wanted to ride along on a mission in Musahe District.

The VTT is NATO/ISAF's internal reviewer of the readiness and operational abilities of Afghan Army units.  When Congress and think-tanks release reports on the state of the Afghan National Army, they are largely based on the work of the VTT.

The upcoming reviews of President Obama's strategic plan for Afghanistan, which relies on increasing the size of the Afghan security forces, will use the work of the VTT.

To properly assess a unit the VTT follows them on a mission from beginning to end--from the planning phase to the after action review.

On the afternoon when the Battalion Commander, Colonel Zalmat Nbard was supposed to review the mission with the VTT it became very obvious that the planning phase had never even been considered.

Col. Nbard, MAJ Gries, MAJ Johnson and Wally

The Musahe District is within Nbard's area of operations.  He is tasked by his higher headquarters with patrolling the area no less than once a week.  Heading out to Musahe is a routine operation and hardly worthy of a full blown process.  Many American units have regular operations and just update the plan with the latest intelligence.  Majors Gries and Johnson understood how this was a regularly scheduled patrol and tried to get the Colonel to walk them through the basics--which should have been pretty easy since he did it every week--it wasn't.

Just back inside  some more civilized wire.  I haven't seen much war out there, but that doesn't surprise me.  The wars always seem worse on CNN than they are in real life because CNN and the rest of the media don't report on things that do not go boom.

For the past few days I've been with the Afghan Army and a couple teams of Americans that have a unique role in the fielding of the Afghan National Army.  There is a lot to report and even more for me to study and research, for now I'll hit some of the high-lights.

Ultimate victory over the Taliban will be won by Afghans, not US Soldiers and Marines.  US/NATO/ISAF military forces can contain the Taliban, but ultimate destruction of the Taliban will be done by Afghans, which is why I've been so interested into digging into the Afghan National Army.

My tour guides were the Validation Transition Team Kabul and VTT 201.  The latter going by the nickname 'Zombie Killers' for their firm belief that the ultimate test of readiness is being ready for the Zombie Apocalypse.

The Afghan National Army as whole is not ready for the Zombie Apocalypse, but Colonel Zalmat Nbard, a former Mujahadeen Commander in the Northern Alliance and now Commanding Officer of an Afghan Army Battalion is as close to being ready to take on the Taliban as any ANA unit gets. 

Colonel Zalmat Nbard and JD

 Colonel Nbard, an ethnic Tajik, fought against the Soviets in the 1980s.  He became an officer in the short-lived post-communist government before going back to the Panjushir valley to rejoin Masood's Northern Alliance in the civil war.  In the late 1990's up to 2001, Col. Nbard fought the Taliban to a stand-still.  After 9/11 Nbard and others swept south with US Special Forces routing the Taliban.  Nbard is a leader of Afghans and the personification of the Afghan way of war which looks nothing like the US way of war.

I just returned from Iraq and people have started asking me what I think of the Afghan Surge.  (I spent some time in Afghanistan this Summer.)

The Afghan Surge can work if Battalion Commanders on the ground fight the war correctly and if it lasts longer than one troop rotation.

As of this morning I am lacking in confidence on both counts.

Via Jules Crittenden I read about operation "Cobra's Anger."

As the headline to Jules' blog makes clear, it is a classic Hammer & Anvil operation and destined to be a waste of time and resources.

I participated in a dozen such operations in Iraq--sometimes clearing the same areas twice!

But don't take my word for it.  In late 2005 I was introduced to the book that became the game plan for the Marines 'The Long Long War:  The Emergency in Malaya 1948-1960' by British Brigadier General Richard L. Clutterbuck.  Reading Clutterbuck is like reading the history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but written in 1966.

Here is a telling quote:

"Initially, because of their previous training and experience, senior army officers were inclined to launch their units into the jungle in battalion strength--either in giant encirclement operations when a[n] [insurgent] camp was known to be in the area, or in wide sweeps based on no informatin at all.  Neither of these types of operations had any success.

"The predilection of some army officers for major operations seems incurable.  Even in the late 1950's, [near the end of the war], new brigade commanders would arrive from England, nostalgic for World War II, or fresh from large-scale maneuvers in Germany.  On arrival in Malaya, they would address themselves with chinagraphs to a map almost wholly green except for one red pin.  'Easy,' they would say.  'Battalion on the left, battalion on the right, battalion blocking the end, and thena fourth battalion to drive through.  Can't miss, old boy.'  So a thousand long-suffering lieutenants, sergeants and privates would be launched on an operation described by some name as 'hammer and anvil' or 'splitting the disc' or 'rabbit hunt.'"

The Hammer & Anvil came up in today's New York Times as well.

"Ever since Osama bin Laden escaped American forces in December 2001, crossing the mountains of Tora Bora from Afghanistan into Pakistan, American strategists have spoken of a “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush the militants. Until now, the border has proven so porous, and Pakistani governments so squeamish about a fight, that the American hammer in Afghanistan was pounding Taliban fighters there against a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil....

"“We finally have an opportunity to do a real hammer-and-anvil strategy on the border,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who follows the Afghan war. “We’ve never done it before because we’ve had insufficient strength on both sides of the border or insufficient political will on the Pakistani side.”"

The Hammer & Anvil operation at the street level requires the Taliban to be stupid enough to actually get into a stand-up gun-fight with US Marines.  The enemy, with the exception of a few morons with an extreme desire for martyrdom, usually gets smart, drops the AK-47 and fails to cooperate rendering the whole operation a waste of time and diesel fuel. 

At the Strategic, country-wide level Hammer & Anvil analogies are absurd.

Any Company, Battalion or Brigade commader in Afghanistan would be well served by reading Lt. Colonel Jim Crider's paper published by the Center for a New American Security.

(I embedded with Crider's unit in 2007 and recently bumped into him in Iraq.  He is now the G3 (operations officer) of the 3rd Infantry Division.  Although he is doing important work in Iraq, I feel his experience and talents could be put to greater use in Afghanistan.)

There is no way to Hammer an isurgency to death.  The best way to beat the Taliban is to strangle it to death by conducting a detailed census, building a huge database so you know who lives in each mud hut then going out and confirming the census data daily.  The census data prevents the Taliban from hiding in plain sight forcing them to move on to another area or be slowly suffocated, cornered and then, finally engaged and killed or captured.

In Iraq, most of them just gave up or switched sides.

Squandering time and resources with Hammer & Anvil operation is bad enough--but the real flaw in the Afghan Surge is the lack of time.

For this lesson we go back in time 130 years and learn a lesson from another Brit, Sir Robert Warburton whose book "Eighteen Years in the Khyber" is essential reading to understand the tribal areas of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Warburton writes about discussions he had with the leaders of the tribe around Jalalabad and their skepticism.

"Sahib, when Major Cavagnari first came here we joined him and threw in our lot with the British government, thinking you were goin to remain here for good.  But you cleared out on the first opportunity and left us to our fate.  For six months we lived with rifles in our hands, dreading every moment that our last day had come--not that Amir Yakub Khan oppressed us, but that our real enemies, our cousins, heirs to our landed property, were hounding on the Mullahs to attack and kill us because we had been friends to the Feringhi, [outsiders, non-muslims] so that our cousins might get hold of our houses, lands and possessions.  You have come again, and we have once more joined our fortunes to yours.  Tell us now what your government intends to do in the future.  Are you going to forsake us once more, and leave us in the hands of our enemies?"

The Afghans are asking us the same questions they asked Warburton and when we say that the Surge is temporary what motivation is there to help NATO and US forces?

The Afghan Surge can work with the application of proper tactics and time--a lot of time.

UPDATE:  Afghanistan's Electoral Complaint Commission has ordered an audit/recount in response to "Clear and convincing evidence of fraud."

 In the lore of American elections, Cook county, Illinois looms large.  Cook county, according the legends, if not in fact, always reported the returns of elections last--despite being in the City of Chicago.  Rural backwaters and the suburbs would report the returns and then after every other vote was counted, Cook county would report returns giving the winning margin to whatever candidate the machine favored.

I have a concern that Afghanistan's version of Cook county is in the provinces of Farah, Nimroz, Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, Khost and Paktika.

What causes this concern of mine is not just that those areas are the last places to report returns or that they going to Karzai in a range of 70% to 83% but that Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission still has not released the total turn out number nationally or by province.

Take a look at this interactive map .  (Update: most of this post uses Sunday/Monday's numbers.  An update is added at the end)

If the number of total ballots cast is announced, it makes it much, much harder for counting fraud to be carried out.  But as it stands now, ballots can be added after the fact to create the winning margin.

In Afghanistan the ballots are in printed in the form of a bound tablet similar to a legal pad.  Individual ballots are tore off and handed to the voter.

After the polls close and the counting begins, the first step is to count the total number of ballots.  This is done by counting those in the clear plastic tub and comparing that to the number of tablets used and ballot pages remaining.

The ballots are extremely large owing to the 40 Presidential candidates.  Counting is done by hand.  These two factors make the counting process slow and difficult.  But, the total number of ballots cast should have been known within 48 hours.  It should have been the first solid number reported by the polling stations and the IEC.

But more than two weeks later, it is not published.

If the number of ballots cast is published immediately, the fraud is limited to percentages and more easily detected.  In other words, the candidate benefiting from the fraud would have to get increasingly higher percentages from the Cook county style provinces and even then, he still might not get enough.

Corrupt election officials could over report voting, but would be limited still to plausibility--no one would believe 100% turn out in Kandahar.

In the 2004 Presidential election there were 308,896 total valid votes in Kandahar province.  Karzai got 91% of the vote in the province.

Without the hard tally of total votes, corrupt officials can keep adding the total number of votes in-line with plausible percentages, and deliver the winning margin.

The hard turn out numbers are ideal, but with the data the IEC has already published and little math, we can improve our chances of detecting brazen fraud.

The province with the most Cook county potential is Kandahar.

Currently Karzai is leading with 82.3% of the vote with 30.9% of the polling stations tallied in Kandahar.

There are 87 polling centers in Kandahar province that have reported in.  By this listing 245 total polling centers and 1,545 polling stations were open on election day .  The actual count is by polling stations.  Some polling centers have up to 8 polling stations.

This listing shows 1,283 polling stations.

So far there are 78,833 valid votes cast, Karzai has 64,901 of them. (Sunday's numbers)

The average turnout so far is 906 votes per polling center or 213 votes per polling station.  If this number goes up dramatically, it is evidence something unusual is happening.

That would lead to an estimated 221,970 valid votes in Kandahar province.  Considering that turnout was reported to be almost non-existent in Kandahar province, even the 30% reduction from the turnout in the 2004 elections should raise eyebrows.  If the final number greatly exceeds the prediced number of votes, it is evidence of the Cook county effect.

If Karzai holds steady at 82.3%, he will pick up another 104,000 votes in Kandahar.

Now, here is where the fraud detection math comes in.  (This is also where I go out on a limb into a broad generalization instead of sitting around for a few days crunching all the numbers.)

Nationwide 4,295,326 valid votes have been cast.

74.2% of all polling stations have been tallied.

26,275 polling stations were open.  19,496 have been tallied.

So far, the average is 220 votes per polling station for a wild ass guess prediction of 5,780,500 total votes.

Karzai is on track to pick up 2,809,323.  He needs 2,896,030 to win outright and avoid the runoff. 

The best places for him to close the gap are Kandahar, Paktika and Khost provinces.  If the number of votes cast starts greatly exceeding the current predictions in those provinces, then you have a good notion that the Cook county effect is in play.

There is also an indicator of some type of effect in play.

On August 25th, with 10% of the polling stations reporting, Karzai had 41.8% of the vote.

On August 27th, 17.2% of the polling stations had been tallied.  Karzai was winning with 44.8%.

On August 28th , with 35% of stations reporting, Karzai had 46.3% and on September 3rd he was up to 47.3% with 60% of the polling stations tallied.

Karzai now has 48.6% with 74.2% of polling stations reporting. (Sunday's numbers)

The only public poll prior to the election showed Karzai getting 44% of the vote.

The statistical jumps are slowing, but by the time 35% of polling stations are reported, even if it is not truly random, it is large enough to make an accurate projection from.

A jump from 46.3% to 47.3 to 48.6% is highly unlikely.

If the total gets to 50.1% the explanation is most likely found in this New York Times report .

The Times cites western officials who say "only about 25,000 people actually voted there."

By the calculations above, the turnout will be reported at 221,970.  The Times reports it could be more than 350,000, exceeding the turnout in the 2004 election, which would be some brazen fraud.

Kandahar is looking like it could be Afghanistan's Cook county.

UPDATE: 

Right before I went to post this blog, the IEC updated their statistics.  Karzai now leads with 54.1%.

Where did all those votes come from?  Lets look at the recent numbers from Kandahar.

With 61% of the polling stations tallied, there are supposedly 208,045 valid votes cast.

By the reporting yesterday, there were 213 votes per polling station.  Today that average is up to 263 votes per polling station.  Or, more accurately for our puposes, the most recent 386 stations , accounting for 129,212 votes, reported and an average of 334 total votes.

The uptick is just as I predicted would be seen if there was brazen fraud of the Cook county style.

Kandahar is now on track to have a supposed turnout of between 337,429 and 375,091.

Yesterday my prediction was for 221,970.

The same trends are showing up in Paktika and Khost provinces.

(The companion photo essay and videoclips to this story can be found here .)

 I could hear Kabul, the cacophony of car horns, traffic cops yelling through bull horns, screeches, engines.

But I could not see Kabul.  I could not feel Kabul.

I was sitting in the courtyard of the Serena Hotel under a pine tree.  The padded outdoor chair was comfortable.  The view of the rose bushes and manicured lawn was delightful.

Inside, the hotel was truly five-star quality.  Quite possibly one of the finest hotels I have ever been in and the best I have ever stayed the night in.

The food was safe for even the most delicate westerners.  The linens were clean.  The thick terry cloth robe and slippers were perfect.

I was in a bubble.  A bubble many westerners find themselves in.  They live in compounds or FOBs or fine hotels.  They move about the city behind tinted bullet proof glass.

They are floating above Kabul, not in Kabul.  I was at the Serena to bring a little Kabul and Afghanistan into the bubble and film some of the goings on inside the bubble.

The preferred vehicle to float above Kabul in is the armored Land Cruiser .

The parking lots of the major hotels--Serena, Safi, Intercontinental--are filled with them and former British Paratroopers, SAS, US Rangers and Special Forces who ride shotgun in them.

US Soldiers can spend a lot of time in the bubble--in MRAPS.  In Iraq, it took a deliberate effort from some officers to get their troops out of the bubble and out on their feet where they could gather intel, interact with the people and actually provide security to the population.

Lt. Colonel Scott Cunningham of the 1-221 Cav. made an astute point to me a few weeks ago about the bubble.