Speaking to a US Congressional Delegation today, Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned President Obama’s July 2011 drawdown date, claiming that the date was boosting the morale of the Taliban.
Condemnation of the date comes quite regularly from the Karzai government, though of course President Obama himself disavowed the date months ago. After using the date to sell the escalation to the American public in December, Obama insisted in June that the date would only be the “beginning of a transition phase.”
Karzai is also said to have praised the “outstanding progress” in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, but insisted that there had been no progress in the war itself. He pushed for the US to “force Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban.”
Afghan National Security Adviser Spanta reiterated this point, insisting that the calls to fight corruption were “a bad joke” and that the “central issue is international jihadis” and not the fact that Afghanistan is the most corrupt nation on the planet.
