By Richard Sisk
The War Report

In his pep talks on the Afghan war, ISAF commander Gen. John Allen calls the Afghan security forces the “defeat mechanism” that will bring down the Taliban.

But this “mechanism” will have to survive a huge cut in funding next year in line with the White House strategy to withdraw all U.S. and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014, if not sooner.

As the troops come out, the money will stop going in under the plan. Funding to train and supply the Afghan security forces for fiscal 2013 would be cut nearly in half under the proposed Defense Department budget, from $11.2 billion to $5.7 billion.

Overall funding for the Afghan war would drop from the $115.1 billion that Congress appropriated last year to $88.4 billion, a cut of more than $26 billion.

The cut for the Afghan army and police suggested that the U.S. had given up on the goal of building the Afghan forces to 352,000, from the current force of about 300,000, but defense officials insisted that the initial goal will still be met.

“So don’t take that reduction (in funding) as any sign of a reduction in our commitment,” said undersecretary of Defense Robert Hale, the comptroller of the Pentgagon. “We are fully committed to them,” he said of the Afghan troops, police and neighborhood watches.

“In the past several years, we’ve invested heavily in equipment and we are beginning to meet their equipment needs,” Hale said at a Pentagon briefing last week. “I think, in fact, we’re well along there. We’ve still got more to do in training, but we think that the $5.7 billion, based on the best judgment of our commanders over there, is adequate funding to fully support roughly 352,000 in the Afghan National Security Forces. “

Hale said the idea for the slash in money for Afghan security came from Allen’s staff at the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul:  “It was their recommendation.  They’re quite comfortable with it.  I mean, we had some interaction with them. They’re very comfortable with it.”

The mission for the U.S.and allied troops in training and working with the Afghan forces has been marked by increasing mistrust brought on by incuidents in which Afghans in uniform have turned their weapons on the allies. More than 55 coalition troops have been killed in abut 70 incidents of Afghans going rogue since 2007.

Earlier this month, after four French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier, President Nicholas Sarkozy announced that he was tired of the Friench serving as “targets” for the Afghans, and announced that the 3,500 French troops in Afgbhanistan would be withdrawn next year.

Fearing Taliban infiltrators in the ranks, Afghan officials last week began ordering soldiers with families in Pakistan to move their relatives back across the border to Afghanistan or face dismissal.

The U.S. has been pressing the allies to pick up the slack in funding for the Afghan security forces, and the Pentagon announcement of the cut in the proposed budget could be a move by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to put more pressure on the allies ahead of a summit called by President Obama in Chicago in May on the way forward in the war.

The U.S. has spent more than $450 billion on Afgbanistan since 9/11 and the proposed Pentagon budget for fiscal 2013 was meant to set the stage for $497 billion in cuts to defense spending over the next 10 years.

The spending plan included $524. 4 billion for the defense base budget, a cut of about $6 billion from 2012, and the $88.4 billion for “other contingency operations,” defense jargon for wars.

Under the plan, the Army and Marine Crps would be reduced by more than 100,000 troops, and two new rounds of base closings in the U.S. would begin.

New orders for the tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey troop carrier for the Marines would be cut from 23 planes to 17, a savings of about $800 million, and orders for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter would be reduced to 29, two fewer than are budgeted for 2012 and 13 fewer than planned just a year ago.

Overall, the plan called for a cut in F53 orders by 179 planes over the next five years, an estimated savings of about $15 billion.

(Photo: Army Sgt. Nicholas Mendez brings new winter boots to Afghan police in Kabul. Army photo by Sgt. Catherine Threat.}