WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative to Afghanistan, said in an interview published Friday there is no guarantee of success there.
Holbrooke told the Financial Times the key element in the NATO effort is building and training Afghan security forces. He said the task is "an extraordinarily difficult part of the process."
"We need to work with the Afghans to produce a force structure which is trained, equipped, literate," he said. "You can't have a police 90 per cent illiterate. Police have to be able to read ID cards. ... They need to be off drugs. The attrition rate is very high."
Holbrooke said the United States is in "confidential talks" with the government of President Hamid Karzai to try to convince him to reverse his decision to take over the Electoral Complaints Commission. The commission found evidence last year of fraud in the election that gave Karzai a second term.
The Taliban received help from Pakistan in the 1990s when the group took control of most of Afghanistan. Holbrooke said he is "agnostic" on whether the Pakistani government has truly rejected the Taliban.
