Got my hands on an interesting document today. It’s the Afghan government’s Civilian Surge Plan that President Hamid Karzai plans to give to the Obama administration this week. And it calls for a whole lot of civilian advisers to build governmental capacity — probably more than what the U.S. can provide. Fresh out from the Washington Independent:

The document, finalized on April 21, presents a “total of 676 requests for technical advisors from 22 Government Ministries.” Positions would be based in the capital, Kabul, as well as out in the provinces, where the Afghan government has had a difficult time consistently providing services for its citizens. The technical assistance the Afghan government seeks are for a wide variety of government services, from agricultural assistance to civil engineering to medicine to social work. Those figures may be a requirement floor, not a ceiling, according to the document, which says its requests are “preliminary and can be expected to change in response to changing needs and additional information received from ministries.”

Some of the requests for advisers appeared to reflect Afghan priorities that the Obama administration has criticized. The Civilian Surge Plan calls for eight advisers across two ministries for anti-corruption efforts, as corruption has emerged as one of the most endemic weaknesses of the Afghan government. Yet for one agency, the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, the plan calls for 34 advisers for “public relations and donor coordination” and three more for “strategic communication and information management.” That figure is also greater than the 21 advisers sought for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, despite the central role drugs play in funding Afghan insurgent groups.