Nato’s Commander in Kabul

Heidi Kingstone

23 May 2007

Dan McNeill, Nato’s commander in Kabul, tells Heidi Kingstone that even a ‘hard-bitten dude’ faces a struggle to make the liberated country function as an orderly society

Dan McNeill used to give his briefings from a rocking-chair. Today, as he opens the door to his Kabul office, there is no rocking-chair in sight. As the Commander of the coalition International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, he is arguably, next to President Karzai, the most powerful man in the country.

With his grey crew-cut, blue eyes and sangfroid, he epitomises a US military man. Reserved, considered, he is not instantly friendly, rather more professional than personable. His four embroidered stars line up vertically in the centre of his camouflage uniform; he is only one of a handful of such high-ranking generals in the American army, a war fighter, not given to easy laughter or easy banter.

This is his second tour to Afghanistan, the first one having been three and a half years ago. He replaced the media-friendly British General David Richards. McNeill is a different type of animal, far less gregarious, perhaps more enigmatic, with a very different style.

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