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R 231554Z JUL 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9245
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
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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?" 
 
BRUSSELS 00001012  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
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