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Rice Lauds Karzai In Brief Afghan Visit
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"I and any other member of the government can and do travel to any part of the country," Karzai said, citing recent visits to Konar province in the east to celebrate a new road and Kandahar in the southeast to open a hospital. "The trouble is that we don't communicate what we do properly to the rest of the world."
Karzai acknowledged serious problems, such as a nascent bureaucracy, weak police forces, corruption and a booming drug trade, but said, "All countries have problems unique to themselves."
Rice added, "His optimism or my optimism about what Afghanistan has achieved is not a matter of trying to ignore the problems and the challenges." She said that "in a country that five years ago was still under the rule of the Taliban, the progress has been extraordinary."
In Washington on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, who commands coalition forces in Afghanistan, told the House Armed Services Committee that there had been significant progress in the country in recent months but that "enormous obstacles" remain. Eikenberry said the Taliban has been emboldened by a weak central government and has been growing in districts across southern Afghanistan. Its fighters have been operating in formations of 40 to 50, he said, similar to U.S. Army platoons.
"They are demonstrating better command and control," Eikenberry said. "And they are fighting hard." He urged foreign governments not to give up on Afghanistan. "Much work needs to be done, and the international community must remain patient and maintain an uncompromising long-term commitment" to Afghanistan.
The hearing was the panel's first in about a year to focus solely on Afghanistan. U.S officials and members of Congress raised concerns about record amounts of opium and heroin being trafficked from Afghanistan into Russia, Asia and western countries. Officials said the proceeds benefit the Taliban's fight against coalition forces.
Karen P. Tandy, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the committee that opium-related trade in Afghanistan has nearly quadrupled since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, to an estimated 4,475 metric tons a year, or 92 percent of the illicit global opium supply. Tandy said one sign of progress, however, is that DEA efforts have led to a 700 percent increase in drug seizures in Afghanistan.
White reported from Washington.
