Provincial Reconstruction Team
PRTs, in Afghanistan, were tasked with a specific area of a province and coordinate, develop, and fund local projects with the aid of the government.
Civil affairs operations were responsible for reaching out to the population to determine what was deemed necessary to make society stable and secure from the insurgent ideology.
For example, these agencies worked together to improve farming techniques and introduce ways to bring goods to local markets to meet the increasing demand rather than taking them into Pakistan.
PRTs' interaction with the Afghan people enhanced U.S. public relations and allow the civilians of Afghanistan to trust the American presence in their domain.
It was speculated that the only way that the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan could achieve victory is through long-term patience and keeping the people's political will through the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the U.S.
[4] Information operations associated with PRTs were also a vital aspect to conducting public diplomacy in order to defeat insurgencies.
These operations, as a part of PRTs, enabled the civilians to see how the U.S. military-civilian efforts work secure their society and defeat the insurgents influence.
"[4] In order to support the counterinsurgency efforts PRTs built government legitimacy by reconstruction and development to separate the insurgents from the people and to instill trust in U.S.
If the contractors failed the performance work standard, the engineer could recommend that the PRT withhold funds until project deficiencies were corrected.
Mandated 'Terms of Use' contracts were signed by the end user of the projects to insure PRTs were providing a self-sufficient resource and would not be responsible for its upkeep.
PRT objectives were to improve security, to extend the authority of the Afghan central government, and finally to facilitate reconstruction.
At the end of March, he was joined by US Army Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Hampton, who worked under contract with the USAID providing overwatch to the rebuilding of schools and medical clinics throughout Paktia, Khost, and Ghazni Provinces.
The training for the majority of the American PRTs took place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was later moved to Camp Atterbury, Indiana.
[13] Meanwhile, five rocket-propelled grenades hit a newly built South Korean military base in Parwan Province, northern Afghanistan, which housed hundreds of members of Korea's provincial reconstruction team and civilian aid workers.
No one was injured in the attack, but it came hours after a visit by South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, raising suspicions of Taliban involvement.
That year, 10 PRTs were established in Nineveh, at-Ta'Mim, Saladin, Diyala, Basra (UK), Dhi Qar (Italy), Erbil (South Korea), Baghdad, Anbar, and Babil.
[18] The book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for Iraqi Hearts and Minds, by former PRT Team Leader Peter Van Buren, covers the Green Mada'in and other reconstruction projects in Iraq.
Many NGOs were critical of PRT activity, claiming that the mixture of humanitarian and military operations had "blurred the line" between combatant and civilian.
Organizations such as Save the Children,[20] CARE International,[21] and InterAction[22] have all complained that PRTs put aid workers at risk.
Empirical studies on aid worker insecurity in Afghanistan have failed to show a statistically significant relationship between attacks on NGOs and their proximity to the military in general and PRTs specifically.
