INTERVIEW OF BELGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER PIETER DE CREM

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 001012

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/WE, EUR/RPM, SCA/A AND SPECIAL ENVOY HOLBROOKE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL MOPS AF BE
SUBJECT: INTERVIEW OF BELGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER PIETER DE CREM
DEFENDING BELGIUM'S INVOLVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN


1. Embassy wishes to provide Department with the text of the
following interview of Belgian Defense Minister Pieter De Crem,
which appeared in the Dutch-language Belgian magazine, Humo, on July
14, 2009.


2. Begin text of interview:

Q: As Defense Minister, you let our country fight along in the
American 'war on terror' in Afghanistan. Off the record, military
experts and diplomats say that that war is a lost cause: "Not one
inch of progress has been booked."

Minister De Crem: I absolutely do not agree. Each time I go there, I
see a lot of progress. By the way, there is no war there. War is
when one country or a couple of countries take up arms against
another country or regime. In Afghanistan, over forty countries
cooperate to help the regime of President Karzai; build up a state
structure, build roads, build schools, develop an economy. Is that
making war?"

The safety of the planet is for a large part dependent upon what
happens in that part of the world. We have the great luck that
London, Paris and Madrid are not in Belgium. Go ask there how it
feels to be a victim of international terrorism that is sponsored
from Afghanistan. Our commitment is not the choice of Pieter De
Crem either, but of the whole government. And what we are doing now
is the absolute minimum. At the end of this year, we will maybe
have six hundred people in the field there.

Q: Do you want to send more troops to Afghanistan?

Minister De Crem: The core mission of the Belgian army is: execute
military operations abroad. Full stop. And that is not a decision
by De Crem either: that has been written in the government
agreement. The Danes and the Dutch have over one thousand men in
the field there.

Public opinion had been rocked to sleep about our army by the purple
government coalition (Note: that coalition is so-called because
Liberals, whose signature color is blue, and Socialists (red) formed
the purple government coalition between 1999 and 2007 with Guy
Verhofstadt as Prime Minister.) The army is not some kind of civic
protection who comes to distribute little bags with drinking water
when a water pipe has burst somewhere. That can at the most be an
additional task from time to time. The army is not an ennobled
humanitarian agency. If that becomes the principal mission, we
would better wrap up our army altogether, and transfer the 10
percent of the budget that the army is devouring now to development
aid.

Some people apparently forget that Belgium has signed a couple of
international treaties that do entail some obligations: the NATO
treaty, the UN charter, EU treaties, etc. Playing the smartest boy
at school about how world problems should be taken on: that is
something for party conventions and op-eds. The time to play is
over.

Q: The independent American think tank Rand Corporation has studied
the way in which hundreds of terror actions have been countered over
the last forty years. In only 7% (of the cases) has military action
been successful. Still you are - literally - throwing yourself at
it with Belgian troops?"

Minister De Crem: I can hit you with some other figures. Now 80
percent of Afghans have access to healthcare; under the Taliban that
number was 8 percent. Child mortality has decreased by 25 percent.
The GDP has doubled. Four million refuge
e are noQy long shot in other words.
Jus4 like my foreign colleagues, I have told Presidet Karzai often
times that he needs to intervee in a resolute way if he wants that
the inteQnational community stays in his country. Weare not there
for our pleasure, hey. All Defense Ministers will receive more
applause at hoe when they withdraw troops instead of sending more
of them. Do you really think that I am waking up in the morning
with the idea: we are going to throw ourselves at it?

Q: Still, according to Rand Corporation, involving terrorist groups
in the political process is the best strategy. Are you prepared to
negotiate with the Taliban?"

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Minister De Crem: "During our last visit to President Karzai, I
touched upon that. In 2004, the Taliban were not invited to the
loya jirga. Why not abandon that strategy? Why do we not involve
moderate Taliban in the process? They are not all bomb throwers,
rapists or narco-traffickers, are they? Do you know what the answer
was? "Moderate Taliban do not exist."

Q: The specialized magazine Jane's Defence Weekly estimates that it
will take another five years before the Afghan army can take over
control from the international troop force. Will the Belgian troops
stay for another five years too?

Minister De Crem: We are handing over quite some tasks to the Afghan
army already as we speak, and we have a mandate from the government
to stay until the end of 2010 in Kandahar, Kunduz and Kabul. What
happens after depends upon what the international community asks us.
The government decides. I don't command and I don't forbid either.
Some countries are already announcing now that they will withdraw
troops, but creating stability in the region is a mission for the
long haul. Just imagine that the regime in the neighboring country,
Pakistan, falls and that the Taliban seize power there. Then we have
a nuclear power governed by Islamists! I am curious which scenario
think tanks will develop if that situation becomes real."

Q: Maybe our boys will come home earlier as soon as the first body
bags come in at (the military airport of) Melsbroek?"

Minister De Crem: That is easy talk. Afghanistan is one giant risk
area: in that case, you know that serious incidents are not
unthinkable. That reflection has also been made by the government,
and that is why we have sent well-equipped and solidly trained
military. But you can never exclude that people will get killed.

By the way, I think that the discussion on that topic is held in an
improper way. This morning I read in the newspaper about the
enormous increase of the number of deadly victims amongst
motorcyclists on our roads, and recently I also saw frightening
stats on the number of drugs victims in Belgium. For the rest I am
not making any comparisons at all.

Q: "What affects you most: a fallen Belgian paratrooper or a dead
Afghan civilian?

Minister De Crem: When I said aloud, during the 2007 electoral
campaign (Note: at the time, De Crem was still in the opposition,
and the francophone socialist Andr Flahaut was Belgian Defense
Minister),that our army needed to take on more international and
risky missions, newspapers filled up with incensed reactions,
including from then Prime Minister Verhofstadt. But last year, eight
hundred Afghan civilian victims fell in Afghanistan: 75 percent of
them was killed by the Taliban. They just kill their own people!
Our F-16s sometimes need to intervene to protect the life of NATO
military: during that kind of action, you cannot always avoid
civilian casualties. It is a moral dilemma, because each victim is
one victim too many.

Q: How do you solve that dilemma?

Minister De Crem: "I have the fullest confidence in our military.
If they execute their mission correctly, I will always defend them,
no matter how bad the consequences are. Always!"

End Text of Interview

BUSH