10 January 2011Biden in Afghanistan to Assess Operations, Training
Washington — Vice President Biden is in Afghanistan to assess current operations and Afghan army and police training programs and to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on political and economic progress, a senior U.S. administration official says.
Shortly after arriving in Kabul January 10, Biden met with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and U.S. Army General David Petraeus for an “update from them on the situation on the ground” before his planned meetings with senior Afghan officials, the administration official told reporters.
The meeting with Karzai will include a private luncheon as well as broader meetings with Karzai’s advisers and Eikenberry and Petraeus, he added. Some of the briefings will also focus on counterterrorism efforts and counterinsurgency training, he said.
“We’ve moved from the surge last year to the transition to Afghan lead that will be starting this year and concluding ultimately in 2014,” the administration official said during a background briefing for reporters. “So I think what [Biden] wants to do in the first instance is to assess the progress we’re making toward transition.”
The senior administration official said that everyone — NATO, the International Security Assistance Force, allies, the Afghan government and the United States — agrees that 2011 marks the beginning of the transition to Afghan lead.
“By 2014, the Afghans will be in the lead throughout the country, as President Karzai suggested,” he added.
President Obama boosted U.S. forces in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 personnel after adding a surge of about 30,000 forces in late 2009 and 2010 to further strengthen counterinsurgency operations to halt attempts by the former Taliban regime to regain control of sections of the nation. The surge was also part of a greater plan to eventually transition responsibility for the country’s security to Afghan army and police forces.
The senior administration official told reporters that the main objective and goal is to have Afghan forces in the lead by 2014 throughout the country.
“President Obama was very clear during the review,” the administration official said, referring to the December White House review of the administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policies. “We’re not here to govern Afghanistan. We’re not here to nation-build. Those are responsibilities that belong to the Afghans.”
The senior administration official said that by July 2011, the plan is still on track for the United States to begin drawing down some forces, but it is conditions-based at that time.
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