Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who recently has been highly critical of U.S. and NATO forces, said he welcomed and supported the announcement as an opportunity for Afghans to take charge of their own security. “This soil can only be protected by the sons of Afghanistan,” he told a news conference. “I congratulate the Afghan people for taking responsibility for their country into their own hands . . . Today is a very happy day.”
The Defense Ministry issued a similar statement, saying there should be “no concern” that Afghan forces are not ready to take over. A new national army and police force have been formed, trained and equipped with NATO and U.S. assistance over the past nine years.
U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, on a day-long tour of eastern Nangarhar Province, sought to reassure local officials, tribal elders and shopkeepers that the announcement of a major U.S. troop withdrawal “does not mean the United States is abandoning Afghanistan.”
“For nine years, the international community has been in front. Beginning now and over the next three years, the Afghan people will be in front,” he told a group of elders in the Mohmand Dara district. Although Afghan police and soldiers are expected to take full control of security by 2014, he said, “if you still want our support, we will still be here to help.”
Later, at a news conference in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, Eikenberry said some Afghans had asked what would change as a result of Obama’s announcement. “I tell them nothing has changed. We have a continuing commitment to Afghanistan and the Afghan people,” he said. “We seek a long-term partnership and an enduring friendship.”
At several stops, local leaders thanked Eikenberry for American assistance in building roads and improving agriculture, but they expressed worries that the problems of poverty, unemployment and lack of electricity would become worse once the United States begins to reduce its aid programs as well as its military role.
“We stopped growing poppies, and now we are growing vegetables, but it is hot here and we have no way to keep them cold,” one community leader in Mohmand Dara told Eikenberry, asking whether the United States would help finance a refrigeration plant for onions. The envoy demurred but said most U.S. aid would now be shifted to Afghan government programs rather than ended.
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