US Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Kabul Thursday on a surprise visit following a trip to Iraq, where he attended ceremonies to mark the formal end of the American combat mission there.
During his visit to America's other war, Gates is expected to meet President Hamid Karzai, as well as the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, US General David Petraeus, and other officials, his staff said.
Gates said Wednesday that America's war in Iraq is over but that the outcome would remain "clouded" by the reason it was waged in the first place.
The end of US combat operations in Iraq has shifted attention to America's war in Afghanistan, where troop deaths are at record highs and rampant corruption underscores the challenges facing the West. As Obama drew a veil over the seven-year conflict in Iraq, the annual death toll of American soldiers in Afghanistan reached its highest point since the war began almost nine years ago.
With momentum increasingly seen to have turned in the Taliban's favor, Obama appeared to step back from an earlier pledge that US forces would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011. "Next August we will begin a transition to Afghan responsibility," Obama said in an address to the nation Tuesday.
"The pace of our troop reductions will be determined by conditions on the ground, and our support for Afghanistan will endure," he said. "But make no mistake, this transition will begin because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people's."
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Source: Al ManarAdvertisment
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