CZECH GOVERNMENT APPROVES PRT IN AFGHANISTAN'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L PRAGUE 000968 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/23/2017 TAGS: MARR PREL NATO AF EZ SUBJECT: CZECH GOVERNMENT APPROVES PRT IN AFGHANISTAN'S LOGAR PROVINCE REF: PRAGUE 863 Classified By: Pol-Econ Counselor Michael Dodman for reasons 1.4 b+d ¶1. (SBU) Summary: The Czech government on August 22 formally approved plans for the Czechs to send a PRT to Logar Province, Afghanistan in 2008. The government plans to place up to 200 personnel in Logar, including a number of civilian experts. Current Czech support to the PRT in Fayzabad will end by December; other ISAF commitments will continue. The GOCR aims for the PRT to be fully operational by March 2008. Parliament will have to approve the PRT when it votes later this year on the 2008 deployments. No problems are anticipated in parliament. The Czech effort will require substantial support from both NATO and the USG. End summary. ¶2. (C) PM Topolanek and Defense Minister Parkanova announced the government's decision to approve the Logar PRT following a cabinet meeting on August 22. Parkanova termed it the largest military operation in Czech history. The Czech government has been discussing for well over a year the possibility of leading a PRT, and in recent months planners from the MFA and MOD have been working closely with the USG and ISAF to make this a reality. Logar Province, located south of Kabul, has not previously had a dedicated PRT. The Czech PRT will be assigned in the Regional Command-East (RC-E) area of operations and will be co-located with a U.S. maneuver battalion on a Forward Operating Base currently under construction in the provincial capital of Pol-e Alam. ¶3. (C) Czech CHOD Vlastimil Picek announced the government decision in a letter sent to NATO in which Picek outlined a deployment timeline that would have the PRT fully operational by mid-March 2008. Picek,s letter proposed a PRT organizational structure totaling 189 personnel including a ten-person civilian experts section, two infantry platoons, and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platoon. (According to MFA staff, the government will formally seek parliamentary approval for a maximum deployment of 200 persons in Afghanistan next year.) Picek also acknowledged that the Czech PRT would require substantial logistics support and indicated that a full listing of logistical and sustainment requirements would be provided to ISAF shortly. ¶4. (C) LTG Picek plans to visit RC-E and Logar on September 23-24 to meet with RC-E leadership and view the new FOB on which the Czech PRT will be based. Twice within the last sixty days, the Czechs have sent interagency teams to Afghanistan to meet with RC-E and ISAF to begin planning for the deployment. Based on RC-E cost estimates, the Czechs will likely ask for approximately $5 million in FY2008 to help fund FOB construction costs (estimated to be about $1.2 million),rotary wing deployment support (estimated to be about $1 million),and to help offset monthly operations and sustainment costs expected to total about $600k per month. This request will be routed through ISAF to CENTCOM. The Czechs are also requesting U.S. assistance to acquire U.S. armored vehicles under the Coalition Solidarity Fund (CSF). ¶5. (C) The Czechs currently have about 220 troops deployed in Afghanistan, including 91 serving with the German-led PRT in Fayzabad, 99 at Kabul airport, a military field hospital, and a 35-man special police team under UK control in Helmand Province. While Czech support to Fayzabad will be discontinued by the end of 2007, the field hospital and special police team are scheduled to remain deployed through ¶2008. ¶6. (C) The government's approval for the PRT permits more advanced planning and negotiation to begin. This decision does not itself require parliamentary approval. However, the government will need to specify in the 2008 deployment bill how and where forces will be deployed in Afghanistan. Parliament will therefore have the opportunity to vote on the PRT when it takes up that bill later this year. To date Czech deployments to Afghanistan have been non-controversial. A few press reports in advance of the cabinet meeting tended towards the sensational (for instance, calling Logar province a "Taliban stronghold"). Government officials have since spoken realistically about threat levels in the province, and tended to emphasize the developmental aspects of the work to be done by the PRT. GRABER