WASHINGTON (AFP) - A retired army colonel commissioned by the Pentagon (news - web sites) to examine the war in Afghanistan (news - web sites) concluded the conflict created conditions that have given "warlordism, banditry and opium production a new lease on life."

Retired Army Colonel Hy Rothstein, who served in the Army Special Forces for more than 20 years, wrote in a military analysis he gave to the Pentagon in January that the US failed to adapt to new conditions created by the Taliban's collapse, The New Yorker magazine reported.

"The failure to adjust US operations in line with the post-Taliban change in theater conditions cost the United States some of the fruits of victory and imposed additional, avoidable humanitarian and stability costs on Afghanistan," Rothstein wrote in the report.

"Indeed, the war's inadvertent effects may be more significant than we think."

The military should have used Special Forces to adapt to new conditions, Rothstein wrote.

The war "effectively destroyed the Taliban but has been significantly less successful at being able to achieve the primary policy goal of ensuring that al Qaeda could no longer operate in Afghanistan," he wrote.

The Pentagon returned the report to Rothstein with a request he cut it drastically and soften his conclusions, the magazine reported.

"There may be a kernel of truth in there, but our experts found the study rambling and not terribly informative," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Collins told The New Yorker.

Fair Use Notice: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, economic, democratic, domestic and international issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.