USA TODAY

August 12, 2002, FIRST EDITION
Innovative methods can thwart Afghan warlords

James O'Brien, a principal in The Albright Group LLC,
was special presidential envoy for the Balkans in the
Clinton administration. 

In Afghanistan, the warlords are fighting each other
again, as they have for decades. Their rivalries
threaten the peace our soldiers won. Their violence
could cost the lives of Americans now guarding
President Hamid Karzai.

We have seen this before. In the Balkans, we also ran
up against warlords. Eventually, we found tools that
worked, some of them not quite what might be expected.
Bosnian warlords, for example, were stealing from
their own people's pensions and companies, building
empires that undercut legitimate democratic
authorities. After years of frustration, we hired
auditors -- yes, auditors -- to combat the warlords.
Eventually, international troops staged an early
morning raid while an auditor, a young Texan,
hurriedly gathered crucial information. When the dust
cleared, the warlords were barred from leadership, and
people who support democracy took their place in
government.

In Afghanistan, the Bush administration isn't using
the tools those of us who worked for Bill Clinton
developed during years of experience in Bosnia, Timor,
Sierra Leone, Kosovo and elsewhere. That may reflect
this administration's public distaste for those
earlier operations. If so, it is a triumph of ideology
over realism. Like Afghanistan, all of those places
had warlords who would drag their societies back into
failure if allowed to dig in, as Somalia taught us.
After years of trying to get by with less, we found
four tools that work:

* Control the ground.

A large, assertive international military force can
keep paramilitary bands from cutting up Afghanistan.
The Bush administration has refused to authorize a
large-enough multinational force or to let it go where
it needs to go to confront warlords.

* Get a robust international police force.

Fifty cops at the right door can be the best answer to
warlords. Soldiers have other responsibilities. The
international community should have its own police,
but this would take a strong international mandate.
The Bush administration's preferred answer -- domestic
police and courts -- won't work anytime soon, as we
know from Haiti and Bosnia. The best international
police around -- Spain's Guardia Civil, Italy's
Carabinieri, or France's gendarmerie -- might go, but
first Washington likely would have to stop angering
their governments on tangential issues such as
international treaties.

* Follow the money.

Warlords thrive on organized crime, theft, informal
"taxes" and shady privatizations. The best remedy is
an invasive international program of fact gathering,
reporting requirements and strict scrutiny of
moneymaking approaches. This worked in Bosnia and
Kosovo, but it took international authority over
elections, economic decisions and law enforcement.

* Punish those responsible for past abuses.

The people causing the most trouble now could well be
the same ones who committed atrocities during war.
Holding them accountable for their old crimes can
deprive them of money, positions and international
support. When that happens, they will weaken, and
other Afghans will rise up to take their place.

In the Balkans, we made clear that war criminals could
not be part of the future. Far from hurting stability,
this removed from politics some of the people most
likely to drag their societies into violence. The Bush
administration, suspicious of international justice,
offers a long-term plan to build Afghanistan's
domestic courts and possibly a truth commission.
Afghanistan will need both -- but only if its
transition gets that far.

No matter what happens, Afghanistan faces a hard, long
journey. This administration deserves credit for
reversing its campaign rhetoric and deciding to stay
with Afghans while they rebuild their country. But by
failing to use tools developed during the 1990s, Bush
officials are doing less than they must to win. As a
result, we may see warlords dig in, the country slide
toward chaos, and Washington lose the peace after
American troops won the war.