President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan today, meeting with President Hamid Karzai to pressure him about better government and improved security in the war-torn nation.
Obama will "engage President Karzai...to make him understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost since day one," national security adviser James Jones told reporters aboard Air Force One, bound for Kabul.
Jones cited such items as "a merit-based system for appointment of key government officials, battling corruption, (and) taking the fight to the narco-traffickers, which fuels, provides a lot of the economic engine for the insurgents," Jones said.
This is a "strategic moment" in the eight-and-a-half-year-old war Jones added, given the president's order late last year to increase the U.S. troop level by about 30,000. By late summer, some 100,000 U.S. troops are expected to be fighting in Afghanistan; Obama also hopes to start withdrawing U.S. forces by the middle of 2011.
Obama. who had been at Camp David, flew Air Force One overnight to Bagram Air Base near Kabul. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and ambassador Karl Eikenberry met the president after his 13-hour flight.
The president is also expected to address U.S. troops before returning to Washington early Monday.
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