NATO forces should drop Afghan "caveats": commander

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - U.S. allies in NATO must provide better equipment and drop many restrictions on how their forces are used to help defeat Afghanistan's resilient Taliban insurgency, the alliance's supreme commander said on Wednesday.

General John Craddock said additions to the 50,000-strong NATO-led contingent would be welcome but improved hardware and more flexible fighting rules were key to turning the tide of chronic conflict plaguing the nation.

"Too often, forces there now are relatively fixed because we don't have adequate tactical mobility to move them around to be able to do the jobs we need them to do," he said.

Craddock said NATO was short of helicopters and other aircraft to whisk troops to wherever they needed to confront a fluid enemy exploiting chaos along porous borders with Pakistan.

More unmanned surveillance aircraft, intelligence and medical support units were also a priority, he told reporters on the fringes of a security debate by the 56-nation Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna.

"We need substantial numbers (of helicopters). Because we don't have them we have had to lease them from commercial (suppliers). That's not something we want to do when we know the capacity is resident in the nations that are participating."

Craddock said NATO's capabilities were also hamstrung by "78-80 caveats" imposed by contributor nations that restrict where their troops can be deployed or their range of tasks.

"The first thing we'd like to see is a reduction in these caveats, with the objective of elimination."