US piles pressure on Afghan leader
US: The United States told Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai
on Thursday to show more backbone in fighting corruption and
mismanagement as President Barack Obama weighed sending more troops and
for how long.
Obama left for a week-long trip to Asia amid revelations his
ambassador to Kabul, ex-military commander Karl Eikenberry, had
expressed deep concerns about sending in more troops until Karzai’s
government improved its performance.
Senior officials said Obama had discussed Eikenberry’s concerns, sent
via diplomatic memos, during a war cabinet meeting at the White House
where several options were laid out for the president as he deliberates
his strategy for the increasingly unpopular war. At the meeting on
Wednesday, Obama called for more information on timelines for troop
levels and when Afghan security forces would be competent to take over,
according to several U.S. officials.
“It’s important to examine not just how we’re going to get folks in
but how we’re going to get folks out,” White House spokesman Robert
Gibbs told reporters.
He said a successful U.S. strategy was “most dependent on the Afghan
government being a proven partner.”
The Obama administration, he said, was working on agreements with
Karzai’s government over what it needed to do.
“That’s part of his (Obama’s) desire to get a sense of where we are
rather than committing to an open-ended conflict,” Gibbs said. US
Defense Secretary Robert Gates also made this point during a visit to
Wisconsin, telling reporters the issue was how best to show resolve
while signaling to the Afghans and the American people that it was not
an “open-ended commitment.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she shared concerns
raised by a number of leaders about corruption in Afghanistan, a lack of
transparency, poor governance and absence of the rule of law.
“Corruption is corrosive in a society,” she told reporters on a trip
to the Philippines.
“The corruption issue really goes to the heart of whether the people
of Afghanistan feel that the government is on their side, is working for
them.”
In Kabul, German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said
Karzai must step up efforts to root out crime and corruption.
WASHINGTON, Friday, Reuters |
