U.S. President Barack Obama meets with troops at Bagram Air Base in Kabul, March 28, 2010. Obama arrived unannounced in Afghanistan on Sunday, his first visit to the war zone that could define his presidency since his election as U.S. commander-in-chief. Air Force One landed in darkness at Bagram airfield north of the Afghan capital, and Obama was whisked by helicopter to Hamid Karzai's palace in Kabul, where he was greeted by the Afghan president and a band playing the U.S. national anthem.JIM YOUNG
Capping the most momentous week of his presidency, U.S. President Barack Obama flew secretly to Kabul where he demanded a crackdown on endemic corruption but vowed not to abandon Afghanistan until the war is won because America's security is at stake.
"The United States of America does not quit once we start on something," he told 2,500 cheering American troops Sunday. He made no reference to those allies - including Canada and the Netherlands - that will withdraw thousands of troops next year, whether or not the raging Taliban insurgency has been defeated.
Only days after Mr. Obama signed a historic health-care reform law, the jewel in his ambitious domestic agenda, and barely a day after sealing a new nuclear arms pact with Russia that will slash nuclear arsenals by one-third, the President - who was supposed to be spending a quiet family weekend at the Camp David retreat - secretly boarded the blue-and-white Boeing 747 known as Air Force One and flew half-way around the world, landing at the sprawling Bagram air base, north of Kabul, before dawn Sunday.
Mr. Obama has made the Afghan conflict his "war,'' staking his presidency's foreign policy on it by sending tens of thousands of additional combat troops into the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand where Canadian, Dutch and British troops had failed in four years of fighting to defeat the Taliban.
When Mr. Obama was elected, there were roughly 35,000 American troops in Afghanistan; by summer's end, there will be nearly 100,000. Casualties have soared to record levels in recent months as the intensity of the war has sharply increased, and a majority of Americans tell pollsters they oppose the war.
"If I thought for a minute that America's vital interests were not served, were not at stake right here in Afghanistan, I would order all you home right away," Mr. Obama told throngs of American soldiers shortly before boarding his plane for the long flight home after spending only a few hours in Kabul. He was to arrive in Washington early Monday.
It was Mr. Obama's first visit to the Afghan war zone since becoming President. He made a similar, secrecy-shrouded visit to Iraq last spring. But plans to visit Afghanistan were repeatedly postponed, first by the delayed, disputed and vote-rigged election that delivered a second term to President Hamid Karzai, then by months of bickering and deal-making as the Afghan leader put together a government that includes two former warlords as vice-presidents.
Mr. Karzai has hammered away at the U.S.-led foreign troops that prop up his deeply distrusted government, especially for air strikes that have caused civilian casualties. Relations with Washington have also soured over barely concealed U.S. views that endemic corruption make it increasingly difficult to rebuild Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama, apparently seeking to praise some positive sign of change since his last visit to Afghanistan as a senator in 2008, told Mr. Karzai it was nice to see so many lights blazing in Kabul in the pre-dawn darkness. Electrical production is up, but most of the country still suffers chronic blackouts.
In a brief appearance with Mr. Karzai at his heavily fortified palace, Mr. Obama said: "In coming into Kabul, you could see the change, in terms of increased electricity production," adding he was "encouraged by the progress that's been made."
But the private - and tougher - message delivered to Mr. Karzai, according to U.S. officials, was that the Afghan leader needs to step up.
Mr. Karzai, needs to "understand that, in his second term, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost since day one," said retired U.S. Marine Gen. Jim Jones, now the national security adviser to Mr. Obama. On the to-do list are "a merit-based system for appointment of key government officials, battling corruption, taking the fight to the narco traffickers, which ... provides a lot of the economic engine for the insurgents," Gen. Jones said.