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INFO RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
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RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL PRIORITY 0621
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 0703
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO PRIORITY 0824
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY
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RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHMFISS/CDRUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE PRIORITY
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 000382 
 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR SCA/A-TOM REOTT, EUR/RPM-AARON COPE, 
EUR/ERA-DANIEL WEISFELD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/31/2019 
TAGS: PREL NATO EU AF PK UN GM
SUBJECT: GERMANY: SUPPORTIVE OF PROPOSED AF/PAK 
DELIVERA...

199909
2009-03-31
09BERLIN382
Embassy Berlin
CONFIDENTIAL
09BERLIN369|09STATE28929|09STATE29482
C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 000382
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/A-TOM REOTT, EUR/RPM-AARON COPE,
EUR/ERA-DANIEL WEISFELD
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/31/2019
TAGS: PREL NATO EU AF PK UN GM
SUBJECT: GERMANY: SUPPORTIVE OF PROPOSED AF/PAK
DELIVERABLES FOR NATO AND U.S.-EU SUMMITS
REF: A. BERLIN 369
¶B. STATE 29482
¶C. STATE 28929
Classified By: POL-MIL/EXTERNAL AFFAIRS UNIT CHIEF BILL MOELLER. REASON
S: 1.4 (B) AND (D).

¶1. (C) SUMMARY. German officials have been uniformly
positive about the new U.S. Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy and
largely supportive of our proposed deliverables for the NATO
and U.S.-EU summits. The Germans are committed to covering
almost all of the outstanding requirements in the north of
Afghanistan, including election support forces, OMLTs, ANA
infrastructure, and police trainer/mentors. Germany's
contribution to the ANA Trust Fund remains under internal
discussion, but Chancellor Merkel is expected to make an
announcement on this at the NATO Summit. Germany stands by a
previous commitment to double its contribution of police
trainers/mentors to EUPOL, but it is becoming increasingly
convinced that the Focused District Development (FDD) police
training program has greater potential for success. END
SUMMARY.

FOLLOW-UP

¶2. (C) As reported ref A, Post delivered points from refs B
and C to officials in the MFA, MOD and Chancellery on March
26, outlining the results of the U.S. Afghanistan-Pakistan
Strategic Review and our desired deliverables for the NATO
and U.S.-EU summits. Post followed up with officials on
March 30-31 to get a further read-out of German views.

ELECTION SUPPORT FORCES AND OMLTs

¶3. (C) MFA ISAF Action Officer Lukas Wasielewski said Germany
agreed that at the NATO Summit, Allies should demonstrate
that they are committed to fully staffing the election
support forces and deploying the necessary additional
Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLTs). He noted
that Germany would deploy some 620 additional soldiers in the
north by June -- 220 for temporary election support and 400
for permanent augmentation of the German presence (to
increase the RC-North QRF to battalion size and beef up force
protection at the PRTs in Kunduz and Feyzabad). He claimed
that with the German contribution, the entire Combined Joint
Statement of Requirements (CJSOR) for election support in the
north would be fulfilled. He also noted that Germany would
help partners suffering budgetary problems because of the
economic crisis make their election support contributions.
For example, Germany is providing airlift to move a company
of Hungarian infantry from Budapest to the Hungarian PRT in
Baghlan Province.

¶4. (C) Wasielewski claimed that by the end of the year,
Germany and other northern partners would also fulfill all of
the OMLT requirements for the two Afghan National Army (ANA)
brigades currently based in the north. He noted that the
U.S. is proposing to move forward the establishment of the
3rd Brigade in the north from 2013 to 2011. Wasielewski
volunteered that Germany was not against this idea and
would be ready, in cooperation with northern partners, to
provide the OMLTs for that brigade as well. He noted that
Germany had just recently built a garrison in Feyzabad for a
company of ANA troops of the 2nd Brigade, and was prepared to
consider building the infrastructure needed for the 3rd
Brigade as well.

¶5. (C) Wasielewski emphasized that Germany was committed to
helping Combined Security Transition Command (CSTC-A) carry
out its initiative to establish a series of branch schools
for the ANA, including expanding the logistics school in
Kabul into a combat support school and building the proposed
engineer school in Mazar-e Sharif. He acknowledged that
there was wrangling within the German government about how to
fund these projects, especially the engineer school, but gave
assurances that we will do it.

ANA TRUST FUND

¶6. (C) Wasielewski said that Germany welcomed the decision
to expand the ANA Trust Fund to cover sustainment costs and
agreed it was important that it be adequately financed.
However, confirming what we were told last week by the MOD
(ref A), he said it was still not clear how much Germany
would contribute. He acknowledged that no single ministry
had sufficient resources to cover the entire $100 million
annual contribution requested by the U.S. Therefore, the
decision would have to be taken at the highest levels of
the government, i.e., the Chancellor herself. He thought the
Chancellery was well aware that the Chancellor had to be
ready to say something about this at the NATO Summit.

¶7. (C) We followed up with Ina Schuett, an action officer in
the Security Affairs Office at the Chancellery, who confirmed
that the issue was still under discussion. While she could
not name a figure at this point for how much Germany would
contribute, she too thought that the Chancellor would make an
announcement on this at the Summit.

NTM-A

¶8. (C) Wasielewski reiterated that Germany supported the
establishment of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A)
and hoped that the French and the other European Gendarmerie
Force (EGF) members would, in the end, decide to deploy their
paramilitaries through NTM-A. He noted that French FM
Kouchner's proposal at the informal EU Gymnich meeting this
past weekend to deploy the EGF as an independent European
contribution, and to seek ad hoc logistical and force
protection from NATO, had fallen flat. He said even High Rep
Solana, who presumably would tend to favor this approach,
saw problems with the French proposal. Wasielewski noted
that the Italians favor deploying the EGF via NTM-A, but he
conceded it was unclear whether France would accept having
the EGF subordinated to the dual-hatted U.S. CSTC-A commander.

¶9. (C) MFA Deputy European Correspondent Thomas Schieb
confirmed that Solana voiced caution when Kouchner made his
EGF proposal at the Gymnich meeting. He noted that the
French were also looking to share the costs of the EGF
deployment, presumably through EU common funding. Schieb
said Germany's position was that costs should lie where they
fall, with each EGF country paying its own way.

POLICE MENTORS: FDD VS. EUPOL

¶10. (C) Wasielewski revealed that while Germany would stand
by its commitment to double its contribution of police
mentors/trainers to EUPOL to 120 as part of the doubling of
the entire EUPOL mission to 400, it saw greater potential for
success with the Focused District Development (FDD) police
training program. He noted that the initial reports from
Germany's experience since beginning FDD in January in
districts around Mazar-e Sharif were very positive. As a
result, there were already internal discussions about
possibly doubling the German FDD commitment from 10 districts
to 20. He explained that there are now some 50 German
civilian police trainer/mentors dedicated to the mission --
20 who work at the training center in Mazar-e Sharif, where
district police forces get their initial training, and 32
more who are (or will soon be) deployed on police mentoring
teams (4 per team) that accompany and mentor district police
forces when they return to their districts after basic
training. Wasielewski pointed out that each police mentoring
team (PMT) also includes 4 German military policemen, and
that a total of 45 military policemen are dedicated to the
mission.

¶11. (C) Wasielewski noted that FDD had a much better
reputation among members of parliament than EUPOL and was
therefore easier to sell in seeking additional resources
and support. He also noted that FDD was proving more
attractive than EUPOL in recruiting German policemen to go to
Afghanistan, since it offered the opportunity, unlike EUPOL,
to get off the compound and do something. The rate of
satisfaction was significantly higher among German policemen
working on FDD compared to those assigned to EUPOL.
Wasielewski conceded that there was already an internal
debate brewing about how Germany should allocate its scarce
police resources in Afghanistan in the future. Still, he
emphasized, there was no question that Germany would stand by
its existing commitment of providing 120 police
mentors/trainers to EUPOL.

¶12. (C) Wasielewski noted that the current criteria for
German participation in FDD required that the district in
question be within an hour's drive of a German PRT or other
installation. He acknowledged that this restriction would
have to be re-examined once the close-in districts around the
provincial capitals in the north were taken care of. One
idea, he said, was setting up safe houses in the outer
districts that are going through FDD, where the PMTs could
overnight. These safe houses would be manned by a force of
50 or so soldiers, as the Provincial Advisory Team (PAT) in
Takhar Province is.

CIVILIAN-MILITARY PLANNING CELLS

¶13. (C) Wasielewski admitted that while Germany saw little
need for a civilian-military planning cell in RC-North, the
U.S. should not take German rejection of the idea at last
week's NATO PermReps coffee as the final word. That reaction
was spurred by a sense that this had been suggested as a
one-size-fits-all solution, without taking into
consideration the different situation in the north. Germany
looked forward to receiving more information about the idea
and was open to being convinced.

ELECTION FINANCING

¶14. (C) Wasielewski reported that Germany would donate $12
million this year on a bilateral basis in support of the
upcoming Afghan elections, up from the $10 million it
contributed last year.

EU-PAKISTAN SUMMIT

¶15. (C) Deputy European Correspondent Schieb agreed that the
EU has an important role to play in assisting Pakistan and
promoting its stability, and that a EU-Pakistan Summit would
be useful in forging a closer relationship. However, he did
not think it would be realistic to hold such a summit before
some time next year. He stressed it was important that such
a summit have a clear agenda and be properly prepared.
Koenig