Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
(2) In my judgement, in the immediate situation there should be no, repeat no, change in either political or MAAG leadership. Political leadership is using accumulated capital to get whatever slight administrative and political improvement may result from this initiative. MAAG change would, in my judgement, set back whatever slight chance there is for military reforms and sensible counter-insurgency action.
(3) While situation is indubitably bad, military aspects seem to me out of perspective. A comparatively well-equipped army with para-military formations numbering a quarter million men is facing a maximum of fifteen to eighteen thousand lightly armed men. If this were equality, the United States would hardly be safe against the Sioux. I know the theories about this kind of warfare.
(4) The foregoing, among other things, leads me to believe that your decision against troop commitment was wholly sound and with full discount for my high threshold on this matter. Decisive military factor is not manpower or even confidence but bad organization, incompetent use and deployment of forces, inability to protect territory once cleared, and probably poor political base. American forces would not correct this. Their inability to do so would create a worse crisis of confidence as this became evident.
