KABUL — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that the United States will help Afghanistan prepare its military and police to take over the security of the war-ravaged country.
Responding to a pledge by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the country will take over responsiblity for security in five years, she said the United States would assist it to do so as quickly as possible.
"I was personally pleased to see the president set an ambitious goal for the training of the Afghan national security forces -- it is a goal that he believes can be met," she said.
"We want to assist him and the military and police leadership in Afghanistan to move as quickly as they can to stand up and deploy a professional, motivated, effective force on behalf of the people of this country," she said.
Clinton was speaking to reporters at the US embassy in Kabul hours after attending Karzai's inauguration ceremony at the presidential palace.
Karzai was sworn in for a second five-year term, and in a wide-ranging speech pledged that Afghanistan would soon stand on its own feet in dealing with a Taliban insurgency that has gathered strength in recent months.
"We are determined that within the next five years the Afghan forces are capable of taking the lead in ensuring security and stability across the country," he said.
The United States and NATO have more than 100,000 troops deployed to fight the Taliban, and foreign deaths are nearing 500 for the year compared to 295 for all of 2008.
US President Barack Obama is considering requests from the senior commander in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal, for up to 40,000 more troops and has said his decision will be made public in the coming weeks.
Clinton said she agreed with McChrystal's analysis that Washington could do more to assist Afghanistan's security forces move towards taking control.
"We can provide greater support to assist them in doing that and we intend to follow through," she said.
"It is clearly one of the highest priorities both for the government, people of Afghanistan as well as for our NATO leadership here because the goal is to create conditions of security that will be able to be transferred and maintained by the Afghan security forces.".....LINK
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