Showing posts with label PROGRESS IN AFGHANISTAN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PROGRESS IN AFGHANISTAN. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

SECRETARY CARTER, SECRETARY KERRY ANNOUNCE MORE MONEY TO STRENGTHEN U.S. AFGHAN PARTNERSHIP

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Right:  Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks during a joint news conference at Camp David, Md., with Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, March 23, 2015. DoD photo by Air Force Master Sgt, Adrian Cadiz.  

Carter, Kerry Announce New Afghan Initiatives at Camp David
By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2015 – Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry announced new funding and initiatives to strengthen a renewed U.S.-Afghanistan partnership after meeting today with Afghan leaders at the Camp David presidential retreat.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah participated in a series of meetings with President Barack Obama’s national security team to discuss developments in NATO's train, advise and assist mission, counterterrorism, and Afghanistan's long-term security objectives.

Joining Carter and Kerry at the formally named Naval Support Facility Thurmont in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain Park were Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, CIA Director John E. Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper and others.

“As many of you know, I saw President Ghani and Dr. Abdullah in Kabul last month, where I was also able to thank the nearly 10,000 American troops still serving there and to assess the changed circumstances on the ground,” Carter said during a news conference after the Camp David meetings.
Progress and Challenges

Today the leaders continued the discussion on progress made and challenges facing Afghan forces as they prepare for the coming fighting season and beyond, Carter said.

“Being here with Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew puts Afghanistan's security challenges in the broader context of its political and economic development,” Carter noted, adding that Ghani himself says the U.S.-Afghan relationship is defined by the partnership’s comprehensive nature, not by numbers of troops.

Carter said that Obama has been clear that while U.S. and coalition troops have transitioned to a new mission in Afghanistan, “the United States maintains an unwavering commitment to a strong and enduring strategic partnership with Afghanistan.”

Ghani and Abdullah will meet with Obama tomorrow at the White House.
As what he called one part of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, Carter announced that the Defense Department will seek funding for Afghan forces to sustain an end strength of 352,000 through 2017.

Ensuring Lasting Security Gains

“Afghan and coalition military commanders have jointly recommended this force size, at least through 2017, to ensure that the security gains we've made together are lasting,” the secretary added.

After a three-year interruption, the U.S.-Afghanistan Security Consultative Forum will be reinstated, Carter said, led by DoD along with the Afghan ministries of defense and interior.

In Kerry’s remarks at the news conference, he said the U.S. and Afghan delegations held three separate sessions on security; issues of reconciliation and regional cooperation; and economic matters.

“The depth of our discussions today reflects the critical nature of this moment,” he said, “with Afghanistan's government of national unity now fully responsible for the security of its people, and moving ahead on a reform agenda of its own design.”

A New Development Partnership

Kerry also announced a new initiative -- a plan to create a new development partnership aligned with the unity government's reform agenda.

“This initiative reflects the strategic importance of the U.S.-Afghan relationship, and it recognizes a new era of cooperation between our governments,” he said.

The partnership, Kerry added, will promote Afghan self-reliance by using up to $800 million in U.S. aid to encourage and measure Afghan-led reform and development activities and strengthen Afghan institutions' sustainability and fiscal transparency.

Also in the discussion, Kerry said, the leaders committed to forming an energy working group that will focus on synergies of the regional energy market.

Ghani, in his remarks, welcomed the energy initiative, which he described as “the difference between the Afghanistan of today and the Afghanistan of the future.”

The Afghanistan of the Future

The initiative, he said, will turn Afghanistan into a hub where energy from Central Asia, and increasingly generated from Afghanistan, will flow into south Asia.

“It would make the dream of Asian integration a reality,” Ghani said, “and I look very much forward to working with you.”

The Afghan president also expressed appreciation for Carter’s announcement that DoD will seek funding to bolster Afghan forces through 2017.

“This is a major statement of support,” Ghani said. “Our armed forces and security forces are going to greet this with enormous welcome, because it gives them the assurance that the Resolute Support mission is continuing and that we are able to focus on our key priorities.”

Enduring Partners

Ghani said that he, Abdullah and their colleagues were privileged to engage in discussions at Camp David that characterized discussions among enduring partners.

He also told a story about a 1956 Afghanistan visit by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who named Camp David after his grandson.

“I was 10 years old when President Eisenhower visited Afghanistan,” he said.

All the schoolchildren lined up to greet the president of the United States, he recalled, and what impressed them most was that Eisenhower chose to ride in an open car. None of the other heads of state who visited Afghanistan would show their faces to the public or stand in open cars, the Afghan president noted.

“That openness is what has characterized the American attitude to life, to politics and to engagement,” Ghani said.

An Enduring Phenomenon

The Afghan government of national unity is an enduring phenomenon, he added, and a key characteristic is its honesty in dealing with its inherited balance sheet.

“We have had accomplishments but we also have inherited corruption, impunity regarding rule of law, gender disparities, disparities between rich and poor, and enduring poverty,” he said, adding that 36 percent of the Afghan population lives under the poverty line.

“Our determination is to make sure that our people live not just in peace but with dignity and prosperity,” Ghani said.

“So I welcome the new developmental framework,” he added, “because this is a framework that will incentivize the Afghan public and the Afghan government to put our house in order.”

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

U.S. CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS DISCUSSES FISCAL TIGHTENING, AND PROGRESS IN AFGHANISTAN


FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Dempsey Discusses Fiscal Tightening, Progress in Afghanistan
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2012 - U.S. Africa Command's ability to adapt to having fewer resources than its commander would like is an example of the thinking the entire military will need in an era of fiscal restraint, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told service members yesterday during a town hall meeting in Stuttgart, Germany.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey acknowledged that Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of the Stuttgart-based command, would prefer to have more maritime support, as well as more aviation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.

"But you are getting it done," Dempsey said. "Africom is forced to network differently -- conventional, special operations forces, other agencies of government -- because of the limited resources." This, he said, means the service members and civilians assigned to the combatant command have to be creative.

The chairman emphasized that all segments of the military are going to have to perform their missions with less resources. The U.S. fiscal condition is changing, he said, and DOD must adapt.

"We don't have to be the solution, but we have to be part of the solution," he said. "We're going to have to think about how we take this wonderful instrument of military power and its most decisive instrument, which is human capital ... to use that capital to influence security around the world."

Just back from a trip to Afghanistan as well as other stops in the Middle East and Europe, the chairman told troops in Stuttgart that progress in Afghanistan has not always been easy to recognize.

"Afghanistan just happens to be one of the most-complex places on the face of the Earth," Dempsey said, noting Afghanistan likely will experience security challenges in the years ahead.

However, he added, Afghanistan also demonstrates signs of progress.

For example, in 2002 "approximately 800,000 boys were going to school in Afghanistan and zero women," the chairman said.

"Today the number is 8 million [Afghan students] and 35 percent of them are women," Dempsey said. "That's got to make a difference over time."

Also in 2002, 15 percent of Afghans had access to medical care, and today that number is 60 percent, he said.

"Child mortality rates are [now] on par with most nations of the world, which is incredible compared with what they were," Dempsey said.

Monday, April 23, 2012

GENERAL DEMPSEY VISITS AFGHANISTAN


FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE



Chairman's Afghanistan Visit Focuses on Afghan Forces' Progress

By John D. Banusiewicz
American Forces Press Service
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 22, 2012 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff  will focus on progress in Afghanistan's national security forces during a visit here.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey arrived this evening, and after a private dinner with a small group of field grade officers, met for about an hour with Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force.

Discussions here also will center on Allen's plan to draw down the U.S. presence in Afghanistan to 68,000 troops by the end of September, the chairman told American Forces Press Service during the flight here from Amman, Jordan.

Dempsey's visit to Afghanistan comes between last week's meetings in Belgium among NATO foreign and defense ministers and the alliance's summit in Chicago next month.
"The ministers get together and provide [the defense chiefs] with political guidance, and we discuss how we turn that into military advice and planning," the chairman explained. But the summit will focus on the way ahead after 2014, when Afghan forces will have security responsibility for all of Afghanistan, he added.
In the meantime, Dempsey said, the key for military leaders is to work along with their Afghan partners to ensure Afghanistan's national security forces continue their progress toward full security responsibility and to work together in addressing the challenges that lie ahead in that effort.

Earlier today, Dempsey met in Amman with Lt. Gen. Mashal al-Zaben, Jordan's defense chief. They discussed the long-standing U.S. Jordanian partnership and regional security issues, including Jordan's perspective on the situation in neighboring Syria.

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