Col. Johnson’s Exit Interview

In September, I embedded with units from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, which ran Task Force Curahee in eastern Afghanistan. Its commander is Col. Pete Johnson, who spoke to the Pentagon press today by teleconference for the final time before the brigade comes home later this month.

A couple of points worth noting: the Afghan border force “does not have [the] capacity” to police the border, though the task force has been getting them better training and heavier weapons. Although they’ve established some border checkpoints, “quite frankly we’ve got to get the border police capable of conducting area security, offensive operations, to defeat an enemy in a largely porous border region that has very restrictive terrain,” Johnson said.

Also, this past winter did in fact see an increase in insurgent operations:

With respect to what the situation is in terms of the enemy effort, as I said, I think over this past year there’s been about a — you know, roughly a 20 percent increase in overall enemy activity, and over the last two months I would say compared to 2008, roughly about 30 percent.

So it has risen somewhat, partly, I believe, due to the really good weather that the enemy has had to be able to operate in the border regions. Normally the winters are much more severe. And quite frankly, this year has been relatively temperate. We have had snow in the upper elevations, but many of the passes that would normally be blocked just were not.