[7月21日] Obama Says US Must Focus on Threats in Afghanistan
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Washington
20 July 2008
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has repeated a call for more US troops and greater funding for Afghanistan as part of his plan to overhaul America's war on terrorism. VOA's Michael Bowman reports from Washington, Senator Obama spoke after meeting with Afghanistan's president in Kabul. Later, Obama has met the leader of Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah on the latest leg of his overseas tour.
Barack Obama concluded a two-day visit to Afghanistan Sunday, the first major stop in a lengthy trip that will also take the senator to Iraq, Israel, Jordan and Europe. Before departing Kabul, he spoke on the CBS television network, which aired the interview on the US domestic program Face the Nation.
Obama said the government of President Hamid Karzai must do more to confront terrorist elements in Afghanistan, but said the United States also has a critical role to play.
"The situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan, and I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front in our battle against terrorism," said Barack Obama.
The Illinois senator has been a harsh critic of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, saying the true terrorist threat facing America is based, not in Baghdad, but in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan's northern regions.
"That global network is centered in this area, and I think one of the biggest mistakes we [the United States] have made, strategically, after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here," he said. "We got distracted by Iraq. And now we have a chance to correct some of those errors."
A spokesman for the Karzai government says, during a private meeting with the Afghan leader, Obama expressed his commitment to supporting Afghanistan and to continue the war on terrorism "with vigor."
In the CBS interview, Obama said, as president, he would boost US troop levels and US assistance to Afghanistan, and also increase aid to Pakistan.
