To answer quickly, by “dominating the mission”, I am referring exclusively to it serving as 50% of the international assistance funding in the country. I don't mean it is in terms of a leadership role but actually in terms of money spent.
Yes, I think the Karzai government has lost a lot of headway in this past year. In our first report, Karzai and his government were looked at as honest brokers. There was a lot of confidence in the Afghan people for him. But this year has been a negative year for Karzai. Bringing back officials or people who are known to be connected to the drug trade or to have private militia who are corrupt, bringing them back into the folds of government and allowing them to have positions of power has had an impact on Afghan perceptions about this government's ability and willingness to be that fair and honest broker on behalf of the Afghan people. That's not to say that there isn't good leadership there and there aren't good things happening. There are a number of leaders who are quite effective. We need to continue to push Karzai to look for good administrators and to not play as much power politicking as has been happening more recently.
I believe the UN can play this role, but I think it's going to be more important for NATO and the U.S. to push the Karzai government to develop short-term strategic planning in line with them. It has to be a joint process. This is a sovereign government now that we are dealing with. I'm not suggesting that we take over the mission or take over the recovery process from the government, but there needs to be a push on his administration to look at the short-time horizon as well as the long-term development plan. We cannot continue to accept that in time things will get better. I don't think the Afghan people can continue to accept that from their government. So I would like to see the most involved countries take that position.
Regarding a U.S. influx of troops, I will very quickly say that if they're the right troops, I think it would be helpful. NATO has put out requests for more troops, for special operation-type forces. If U.S. troops meet those demands of the NATO commanders, then I think it would be a positive step in the right direction. Obviously it has to be negotiated amongst them whether those troops are the kind needed on the ground.