MUNICH, Germany — Defense Secretary Robert Gates challenged European military leaders and lawmakers Sunday to bolster support for the war in Afghanistan, warning NATO members that an unwillingness to shoulder the burdens of war equally “would effectively destroy the alliance.”
Gates also sought to convince a skeptical European public that failure in Afghanistan would raise the likelihood of terrorist attacks at home. Citing recent attacks and plots by Islamic radicals in Europe, the Pentagon chief said the threat would grow worse if NATO allowed the Taliban and al-Qaeda to resurrect their organizations.
“I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security,” he said in a speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, an annual gathering of European politicians, diplomats and military officials. “Imagine if Islamic terrorists had managed to strike your capitals on the same scale as they struck in New York.”
Gates’ comments were his latest attempt in recent weeks to persuade NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, especially the southern part of the country, where fighting has been fierce and the Taliban controls wide swaths of territory. So far, he has been largely unsuccessful, and some NATO members said they were under increasing political pressure to withdraw their forces altogether.
Canada has threatened to pull out its contingent of 2,500 soldiers if other NATO members do not offer reinforcements soon. With no one else filling the gap, the Pentagon recently announced it would send 3,200 more Marines to Afghanistan but only for a seven-month tour. Gates said too many European countries have been content to participate only in less risky peacekeeping and training operations.
Later Sunday, Gates flew to Iraq, where a series of bombings targeting Iraqi security forces and U.S.-backed Sunni guards killed as many as 33 people, according to Iraqi officials.
Gates was in Baghdad for an assessment of the security situation and to meet with U.S. generals and Iraqi officials. He told reporters traveling with him that Iraqi politicians “seem to have become energized over the last few weeks” and that he was eager to “see what the prospects are for further success in the next couple of months.”
Sunday’s spate of attacks came as the American military released a captured diary and another document they say show al-Qaeda in Iraq cracking under a Sunni revolt against its brutal tactics.
Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, said the documents offered proof that al-Qaeda in Iraq had been severely disrupted by the so- called awakening movement and changing U.S. tactics, but he stressed that the terrorist network was not defeated.
One document was a 39-page memo written by an al-Qaeda official with knowledge of the group’s operations in Iraq’s western Anbar province. In it, he acknowledges a growing weariness among Sunni citizens of militants’ presence and the U.S.-led crackdowns against them. He also expresses frustration with foreign fighters too eager to participate in suicide missions rather than continuing to fight.
A 16-page diary, seized by U.S. troops south of Balad, was written in the fall by an al-Qaeda in Iraq sector leader, who wrote that he was once in charge of 600 fighters, but only 20 were left “after the tribes changed course” — a reference to how many Sunni tribesmen have switched sides to fight alongside the Americans, Smith said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
