US General McChrystal visits Afghanistan

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(25 Jun 2009) SHOTLIST • PLEASE NOTE: VIDEO QUALITY AS INCOMING • 1. Wide of convoy arriving at camp Leatherneck • 2. General Stanley McChrystal meeting with the Governor of Helmand Province, Gulab Mangal • 3. McChrystal walking with Mangal to meeting room • 4. Various of roundtable meeting with NATO members and local governor and his delegation • 5. Various of NATO troops meeting with McChrystal and Mangal • 6. McChrystal walking with NATO forces and Mangal • STORYLINE: • US General Stanley McChrystal said that US and other NATO troops must make what he called a cultural shift away from being a force designed for high intensity combat and instead make protecting Afghan civilians their first priority. • The newly arrived four-star commander said on Wednesday he hopes to install a new military mindset by drilling into troops the need to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed in combat. • McChrystal is expected to formally announce new combat rules within days that will order troops to break away from fights, if they can do so safely, if militants are firing from civilian homes. • One effect of the new order will be that troops may have to wait out insurgents instead of using force to oust them, he said. • President Hamid Karzai has pleaded with US and NATO forces for years to reduce the number of Afghan villagers killed in combat. • Karzai has long said that such deaths turn civilians away from the government and international forces and toward the Taliban, a point McChrystal underscored. • Thousands of Marines this spring have poured into Helmand, the country's most violent province and the world's largest producer of opium poppies. • Southern Afghanistan is the centre of the Taliban-led insurgency, which has made a violent comeback in the last three years. • McChrystal, who took command of all US and NATO troops in Afghanistan last week, is making his first visits to regional commanders to outline the new combat rules. • He said later that US troops may have been overconfident in the early years of the Afghan conflict after the Taliban regime fell so easily. • He said the US may have oversimplified the Afghan challenge as a result. • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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