Afghan envoy: 5 years to defeat militants

Afghan envoy: 5 years to defeat militants
By Chuck Raasch - Gannett News Service
Posted : Friday Dec 4, 2009 15:55:34 EST

Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States said Friday that his country could take over its own security in five years, but he cautioned that the plan depends equally on the success of American-led military efforts and civilian aid.

Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad also said that he believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in a major city, probably in Pakistan, contrary to more prevalent speculation that the 9/11 mastermind was in a lawless region on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

“If he were in Afghanistan, he would have been found,” the ambassador told the Johns Hopkins University’s Center on Politics and Foreign Relations. “I don’t think that he is in a cave because of his health conditions, needing dialysis, and needing connectivity to the network of al-Qaida. He is most probably in a major metropolitan area.”

Asked if that city were in Pakistan, Jawad said, “That would be a very good guess.”

President Barack Obama announced this week that the U.S. would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan with the goal of training the Afghani military and police to handle security themselves. Obama said U.S. forces would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan within 18 months.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/gns_afghanistan_ambassador_security_120409/



unhappycamper comment: At $100 billion a year to keep the Afghanistan occupation going, five more years would be around 1/2 a trillion dollars.