Official: NATO will fail against Taliban

PARIS, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- A leaked French diplomatic cable quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail.

The New York Times reported Friday that the coded cable was sent to Elysee Palace and the French Foreign Ministry Sept. 2. It was obtained by the weekly, Le Canard Enchaine.

"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust," British envoy Sherard Cowper-Coles was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, Francois Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.

The two-page cable also said the NATO-led military presence was making it more difficult to stabilize the war-torn country.

"The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution," Sherard was quoted as saying. "Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis."

The Times reported that the cable also said that within 10 years, the only "realistic" way to unite Afghanistan would be for it to be governed by "an acceptable dictator."