In a war in which NATO leaders have said there is no military solution, Waddoups believes that "imbalance" must be rectified.
The Utah native, who is finishing up a diplomatic tour of duty for the U.S. State Department in Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, was one of a handful of provincial reconstruction team officers who Friday briefed U.S. President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the status of military and diplomatic operations in the nation's eastern provinces.
At a time of increased violence in that area of the country - U.S. casualties so far this year have already surpassed the total from all of last year and U.S. commanders have all but begged for reinforcements - Waddoups delivered to the presidents a story of relative success from Nangarhar. Once the second-largest opium producing province in Afghanistan, the province was declared poppy-free this year as the result of extensive coalition eradication efforts.
That change has not come easily for many farmers in the million-person province. And although the favored alternative crop has replaced many farmers' lost income - wheat is being purchased at a premium on the global market this year - the years ahead bring no guarantees.
The military, Waddoups said, is simply not prepared to deal with such issues.
"The military commanders here in Afghanistan constantly have been saying we need more troops, and we've constantly been saying we need more civilians," said Waddoups, a Roy native and Brigham Young University alum who joined the Foreign Service on Sept. 10, 2001.
"We know now that it absolutely matters what happens in countries like Afghanistan," he said. "As I go around, I've been in situations where I'm the first American these people have ever spoken with. I'm not wearing a uniform and I'm not carrying a gun. When they see that, the whole atmosphere changes."
In addition to explaining the dynamics of success bought by the presence of peacemakers among war fighters, Waddoups said he told Bush and Karzai that there was a need to ensure that resources available in Kabul "don't get stuck in the capital city," but instead "get out to the provinces where they can be used."
Bush earlier this month announced a plan to send about 4,500 additional military members to Afghanistan as part of a shift-in-forces strategy that will bring nearly twice that number home from Iraq. However, there has been no surge of the nation's diplomatic corps, which has been stretched thin in recent years by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after being trimmed in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War.
mlaplante@sltrib.com
KABUL, Afghanistan - A top U.S. general said he expects militant violence in Afghanistan to rise about 30 percent this winter compared with last year, but that he does not think insurgents have the ability to mount a massive campaign during the country's harsh weather.
Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. SchloessÂer said the U.S. will attack militant cells in areas of Afghanistan where U.S. forces in some cases haven't operated before, but where officials now realize ''the enemy is seeking to remain as a rest and facilitation area in the winter.''
Winter has traditionally been seen as a down time for fighting in Afghanistan, but Schloesser said offensive operations by U.S. troops this year could dispel that notion.
U.S. troops will ''take advantage of our mobility and capacity to operate in the snow and to be able to find the enemy,'' he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday.
Militants will have the option to be ''captured, killed, to reconcile or flee,'' the general said. ''And I think fleeing will be very hard in the winter, especially if they're in flip-flops or sandals.''
In January 2007, U.S. airstrikes killed about 120 militants crossing the border on foot from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and a video of the attack taken by a drone showed that many of the insurgents - who were walking in a single-file line through mountainous terrain - were barefoot.
