Enlarge By Aamer Madhani. USA TODAY U.S. Army Sgt. Matthew Gibson pauses during a recent joint patrol with Afghan army soldiers in Baraki Barak, Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, Taliban fighters had set fire to an electrical generator donated by the U.S. military to a nearby village. So U.S. Army Capt. Paul Shepard suggested that Afghan police send over a patrol. "It's a chance to show the people you are still concerned, while the Taliban aren't going to do anything for them," he said.

The Afghan commander, Col. Anamullah, who like many other Afghans goes by just one name, apologetically replied that he didn't have any officers to spare. Shepard pressed again, arguing that even sending just a few men was worth the trouble.

After an awkward moment, one of the local politicians in the room, Yasin Lodin, spoke up: "You should just tell him," he advised Anamullah. "It is not safe to send the police there by themselves."

No patrol was sent, illustrating the difficulties the U.S. military is having as it tries to produce a competent and fully independent Afghan army and police force. After nearly eight years of war, Afghanistan's security forces are still plagued by corruption, high levels of absenteeism, a lack of proper training and an excessive dependence on their American counterparts, U.S. commanders and troops in the field say.

The security forces' persistent flaws are one of the biggest considerations facing President Obama as he evaluates potentially major changes to the U.S. war strategy here.

Other recent complications include the resurgence of the Taliban insurgency and this summer's disputed presidential elections, but the performance of the Afghan army has a direct impact on how long the U.S. military must remain here. In describing his long-term exit strategy for Afghanistan, Obama has spoken of the need to produce a large, professional Afghan force that will take control so that U.S. troops can then depart — much as is happening in Iraq.

U.S. troops in Baraki Barak, a farming district 45 miles south of Kabul, say they are making some progress in training the Afghans. But they also describe challenges that are, in some ways, greater than those faced in Iraq. They tell of being abandoned by Afghan units while out on patrol, and of Afghan police and soldiers who steal cellphones and other items. Shepard, the Army captain, says that at any given time, 25% of the Afghan police unit in his district is either on leave or AWOL.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has proposed nearly doubling the size of the Afghan army to 240,000 troops as part of a broad set of recommendations he has recently made to Obama, including the deployment of an unspecified number of additional U.S. troops.

Yet Afghan forces have been limited by a lack of quality recruits in a country of 28 million people where less than one-third of the adult population is literate, malnutrition is high, and the Taliban often pays its foot soldiers better wages.

"In Iraq, when we stood up the Army, we were starting with a strong base. It's a country that had officers and soldiers with years of experience fighting Iran," says Sgt. 1st Class Donald Coleman, who helped train soldiers in Iraq and is now based in Baraki Barak.

"Here, every once in a while you might come across an old goat that was a mujahedeen (holy warrior) and fought the Soviets, but those are few and far between. Training the Afghans is not going to be as easy."

In his war appraisal, McChrystal acknowledged problems with corruption and insufficient training in the Afghan police. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said training Afghan security forces will "take time and patience."

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, an Afghan defense ministry spokesman, tells USA TODAY the Army still lacks the money, training and weapons it needs to operate independently.

"The training we get from U.S. forces is very good. However, we still don't have the ability to train the additional soldiers we need in Afghanistan," he says.

U.S. troops in Baraki Barak say the problems are especially glaring at a time when the Taliban is on the offensive and gaining territory.

U.S. casualties have been at record high levels since early summer, when the Army and Marines moved into areas that Afghanistan's army and government were unable to control on their own. The Pentagon says 40 U.S. troops have died in September, about the same level as recent months.

"Some of these (Afghan) guys I've worked with are pretty good," says Sgt. Matthew Gibson, who is on his second tour in Afghanistan.

"But then there are a lot of these guys who are completely useless," he says. "If we weren't here, I don't think they could do much to keep the Taliban from waltzing back in."

Lacking basic skills

When a USA TODAY reporter visited Baraki Barak this month, Afghan troops and police often could be seen wearing mismatched uniforms or carrying aging, Soviet-era Kalashnikov rifles. The troops rarely wore the body armor they had been issued by the government, and many lacked basic soldiering skills, such as how to hold a weapon properly or stay in formation.

On patrols and other joint missions, the Afghans are paired with U.S. or NATO coalition members who try to bring them up to speed.

But U.S. troops continue to do much of the heavy lifting.

The U.S. Army's 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment is engaged in a mission that troops jokingly have dubbed "Extreme Makeover," after the popular reality TV show. The mission consists of dozens of small improvement projects in nearby villages aimed at winning the confidence of locals — a core tenet of McChrystal's strategy.

The U.S. troops have distributed generators to villages without electricity, provided dilapidated mosques with paint and loudspeakers and poured thousands of pounds of gravel for roads. The effort has yielded results — attacks in the area have declined by 80% since the operation was launched, says unit commander Lt. Col. Thomas Gukeisen.

As the Americans and Afghans fanned out to speak with citizens about the projects on a recent afternoon, U.S. soldiers were in the lead role talking to villagers. The Afghan soldiers did little beyond standing guard.

Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers are finding limits to how much confidence they can build as long as the mission has a mostly American face.

First Lt. Sean Mahard, a platoon leader, visited with a village elder to tell him that Mahard wanted to give him some supplies to spruce up his mosque.

The elder, Naik Mohammed, was ecstatic at the offer and told Mahard he was grateful for his assistance.

But when Mahard asked Mohammed to submit to an eye scan and fingerprints — a unit requirement so they can track who they were distributing materials to — the old man balked.

"I don't want the people around here to think I'm too close to the Americans," Mohammed says.

'Years of neglect'

The challenges of training an Afghan force started almost as soon as President Hamid Karzai issued a decree in 2002 to begin forming a new Afghan army.

In the first years of the war, regional warlords thwarted recruiting efforts, and desertion was a significant problem. U.S. commanders also set projections for the Afghan army based on the assumption that the Taliban would be defeated.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military never dedicated enough personnel to train Afghan security forces, says John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert and president of the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

That's now changing. Roughly 4,000 additional troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, tasked to serve as advisers, are scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in coming weeks. Nagl estimated an additional 10,000 U.S. advisers will be needed if the Obama administration decides to double the size of the Afghan army.

He added that building an army and police at the strength targeted by McChrystal would likely take three to five more years.

"We are paying the price for years of neglect," Nagl said. "The question now is, 'Are we willing to invest in building an Afghan army that can provide security for this country?' "

"The alternative," Nagl added, "is that we do it ourselves."

Even when enough resources are available, other barriers emerge. Mahard, the platoon leader, said he was recently on a joint patrol with the Afghan army unit here when the Afghan officer in charge told him he wanted to cut a scheduled patrol by several hours.

The reason: His soldiers wanted to go back to their base and eat. The incident occurred in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during daylight hours.

Mahard said he told the Afghan officer that he sympathized with him, but that they had a responsibility to complete their mission. The Afghan scoffed at Mahard and ordered his soldiers to return to base, leaving the Americans to complete the mission alone.

"It's been difficult at times, but I do think we're slowly making progress," said Mahard, of Rocky Hill, Conn. He added that the local Afghan commander later admonished his officer for abandoning the mission. "Ultimately, training the Afghans is our way out, but it's going to take time and dedication."

Corruption runs rampant

Corruption is another major issue. Gibson said that his unit had problems with Afghan soldiers and police stealing cellphones from motorists they stopped at checkpoints.

A police officer at a checkpoint outside Kabul recently demanded that a USA TODAY reporter give him body armor the reporter was carrying. (The officer later backed down.)

Zahir Azimi, the Afghan defense spokesman, said that with proper training, Afghan forces could operate independently "in two to three years."

Asked why eight years haven't been enough time to produce more progress, he responded that training "takes time" and blamed insufficient numbers of Afghan police in areas outside Kabul.

Even now, there are some hopeful moments.

On a recent afternoon, Coleman and his unit showed up unannounced to an Afghan army checkpoint on the outskirts of Baraki Barak to see whether they could talk the soldiers into going on a foot patrol. They succeeded.

For two hours, the Americans and a half-dozen Afghan soldiers marched through the village and nearby farms.

Afghan Army Sgt. Sadqudatala, who uses just one name, said that days earlier, insurgents had set up a checkpoint a few miles from his outpost and were demanding money from villagers.

"We wanted to go and take care of this problem, but we did not have enough soldiers to do it," he said.

"We are good soldiers. We just need more help."

Contributing: Carmen Gentile in Kabul