Nato

KABUL, Afghanistan - Explosions echoed through vineyards and pomegranate groves yesterday as Afghan and NATO forces backed by helicopter gunships recaptured at least four villages in southern Afghanistan that had been seized by the Taliban, Afghan authorities said. At least three dozen insurgents, including a commander, and two Afghan soldiers were killed in the Arghandab district northwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said. By day's end, the insurgents were still in control of a half-dozen villages.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Thousands of frightened villagers fled a district in southern Afghanistan that was overrun by Taliban fighters, as NATO and Afghan forces flew in hundreds of reinforcements yesterday to confront the insurgents. About 700 Afghan troops were airlifted to the main coalition base outside Kandahar after Taliban fighters moved into nearly a dozen villages in the strategic Arghandab district, a fertile swath of land 10 miles northwest of Kandahar. Canadian troops, who have the primary responsibility for securing Kandahar and its environs, were also repositioning themselves in response to the developments, said NATO spokesman Mark Laity.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has begun planning to send as many as 7,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said. They said the step would push the number of U.S. forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq. The planning began in recent weeks, reflecting a growing resignation to the fact that NATO was unable or unwilling to contribute more troops in Afghanistan, where the government of President Hamid Karzai faces a resurgent threat from the Taliban and remnants of al-Qaida, despite pledges offered by the presidents and prime ministers who attended an alliance summit meeting in Bucharest last month.

BUCHAREST, Romania -- NATO countries unanimously endorsed Bush administration plans for installing a missile defense system in alliance countries in Europe yesterday even as they rebuffed President Bush's entreaties to extend membership of the alliance to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. The unusually rancorous meeting of NATO members in Bucharest exposed sharp differences between nations, but despite the rancor Bush won some agreement on bolstering the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan and presenting a united front against Russia's objections on the issue of missile defense.

BUCHAREST, Romania -- NATO is unlikely to immediately put Ukraine and Georgia on a course toward membership, the group's spokesman said last night, dealing a setback to President Bush, who has pushed hard to expand the 26-nation alliance to include the two countries on Russia's southern flank that had been part of the Soviet Union. However, NATO and Bush administration officials presented the question of taking the first steps that could lead to the two countries joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a matter not of whether, but when, as the alliance began a summit amid controversies that go to the heart of its changing makeup and mission as it nears its seventh decade.

BUCHAREST, Romania -- President Bush declared yesterday that he would not trade away his support for bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO in exchange for Russia dropping its opposition to a U.S. missile defense network in Central Europe. "There's no tradeoffs, period," Bush said, stating that it was a "misperception" that he was willing to make such a bargain. The president said after meeting with Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko in Kiev that he told Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in a recent telephone call that Moscow had "nothing to fear" if the alliance eventually extends a welcome to the two countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

"Make no mistake: NATO is not winning in Afghanistan." So says the Atlantic Council of the United States, the sponsor of one of three recent independent U.S. reports on Afghanistan. The other two - by the Afghanistan Study Group, on which I served, and the National Defense University - arrive at a similar conclusion: Without prompt action by the U.S. and its allies, the mission in Afghanistan may fail, with disastrous results for U.S. strategic interests worldwide, including the war on terrorism and the future of NATO.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is considering Gen. David Petraeus for the top NATO command later this year, a move that would give the top U.S. commander in Iraq a high-level post during the next administration but that has raised concerns about the practice of rotating war commanders. A senior official at the Pentagon said that it was weighing "a next assignment for Petraeus" and that the NATO post was a possibility. "He deserves one and that has also always been a highly prestigious position," the official said.

WASHINGTON -- Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to U.S. and alliance officials. The reviews are an acknowledgment of the need for greater coordination in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida, halting the rising opium production and trafficking that finance the insurgency, and helping the Kabul government extend its legitimacy and control.

A year after the Taliban fell to an American-led coalition, a group of NATO ambassadors landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, to survey what appeared to be a triumph - a fresh start for a country ripped apart by years of war with the Soviets and brutal repression by religious extremists. With a senior American diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, leading the way, they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters with little fear for their safety. They strolled quiet streets in Kandahar and sipped tea with tribal leaders.