New (Afghan) Sheriff Trainer in TownDecember 23, 2009
Military.com|by Andrew Lubin
With the new strategy to turn the war in Afghanistan over to its national security forces, training that nation’s soldiers and police has become a mission of utmost importance.
To bolster the increased emphasis on ANA training, a new command was established in hopes of jump-starting the deployment of Afghan troops and overcoming the rampant corruption and infiltration by insurgents of the Afghan police force. The new NATO training unit’s leader, Lt. Gen. Bill Caldwell, told Military.com in an interview from his Kabul headquarters that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.
“We took people into the police that we shouldn’t have,” Caldwell said, “and now we’re re-qualifying every one of them.”
To that end, Caldwell’s command is performing a Personal Assets Inventory on every one of the 95,000 Afghan police. “Each one will be drug-tested, everyone will have his biometrics – including retinal scans and fingerprints -- put in our database, and they need to produce someone of authority who will vouch for them.”
Caldwell was assigned to the new training command after a stint as the head of the Army’s Command and General Staff College and Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
Rest of article at:
http://www.military.com/news/article/new-afghan-sheriff-trainer-in-town.html