I recommended 4,000, but with 1,000 more there would be more secure areas in which you could maintain security. Our problem up until now is that we move into an area, we secure it, and then we have to stay there and stop securing more areas. They were turning it over to maybe 10 Afghan policemen who were hanged by their heels and had their throats cut. It would allow you to have more soldiers to stay and secure. People don't trust you in the first couple of months or year. You have to show them they can count on you to be there.
One thing I've never understood—and I'll inject this very quickly into the conversation—is why the Taliban just doesn't stop fighting and just disappear from the battlefield. Could you imagine what would happen in NATO? Within six months all of us would be screaming for our troops to be brought home. We'd bring them home, and then they'd come back and occupy.
Academics have told me it's because of the macho attitude. It's why when they pick on a convoy they don't pick on the fuel bowser, the most valuable target, but they'll take on the most heavily armoured vehicle in the column because it's macho. At night you can't get them to sneak around and be quiet and cut a few throats. No, they'll scream and holler and fire their guns because that's the macho thing to do. They're great fighters, they're warriors, but if they just stopped fighting, NATO would collapse within a year.