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Gates Visits Afghanistan to Assess War Effort

   VOA News 07 December 2010
   Defense   Secretary   Robert  Gates  watches  flight  operations  from
   "Vulture's Row", 6 Dec 2010

Photo: AP

   Defense   Secretary   Robert  Gates  watches  flight  operations  from
   "Vulture's Row", 6 Dec 2010

   U.S.  Defense  Secretary Robert Gates has made an unannounced visit to
   Afghanistan  to  meet  with U.S. commanders and Afghan President Hamid
   Karzai.
   Gates  arrived  Tuesday  as  the  White  House  prepares  to release a
   progress report on the war, which is expected in the coming days.
   A  Pentagon  spokesman  traveling  with  Gates  said  the secretary is
   "feeling pretty good" about the progress in Afghanistan.
   The trip comes a day after the commander of U.S. and NATO forces there
   said  he  cannot say for sure whether the Afghan army will be ready to
   take over security from NATO forces by a 2014 deadline.
   General  David  Petraeus on Monday said in a U.S. interview (ABC News)
   that  he is encouraged by the progress in Afghanistan since the United
   States deployed an additional 30,000 troops there last year.  But, he
   added, "No commander ever is going to come out and say, 'I'm confident
   that we can do this.'"
   Meanwhile,  a  new  poll shows Afghans' confidence in the U.S. troops'
   ability  to provide security has dropped or matched previous lows from
   earlier in the nine-year war.
   More  than  half  of Afghans said in the survey they believe coalition
   forces should leave the country by mid-2011 or earlier.
   Almost  30  percent  of  Afghans  said  insurgents' attacks on foreign
   forces  are  justified,  compared  to  eight percent in 2009.  And 73
   percent  of  those  polled  favor  a  negotiated  settlement  with the
   Taliban.
   The  opinion  poll was based on interviews with nearly 1,700 adults in
   Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
   The  Washington  Post,  ABC News, the BBC and Germany's ARD television
   collaborated   on   the  opinion  poll  with  the  Afghan  Center  for
   Socio-Economic  and  Opinion  Research.   The margin for error in the
   survey is said to be 3.5 percentage points.
   Afghans  in  two of the country's most violent provinces expressed the
   most   confidence   in   the   coalition  forces'  ability  to  defeat
   insurgents.   Approval  of  the  NATO  operation  in Helmand province
   jumped  from  14  percent  in  2009  to  67  percent,  and  people  in
   neighboring Kandahar shared similar opinions.
   Despite  U.S.  criticisms  of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, six in 10
   Afghans expressed favorable views of their president.
   Other  results  indicated  that  Afghans  see  deterioration  in their
   economic situation and the rights of women in the country.

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