Camp David, Md. — President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday began a search for answers to the deteriorating security and sporadic rule of law in Afghanistan.
Karzai’s two-day visit to Bush’s mountain retreat comes as he faces competing troubles at home — a hostage crisis, civilian killings, drug trafficking and a resurgent Taliban.
All of those matters were likely to be discussed with Bush. The U.S. president is looking to bolster Karzai but also to prod his government to exert and extend its authority.
Karzai arrived on a misty afternoon in the Catoctin Mountains.
He was greeted by Bush and first lady Laura Bush, who led him through a cordon of Marines and Navy sailors.
Karzai chatted briefly with a few of Bush’s top aides, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Then he climbed in the front in Bush’s local ride — Golf Cart One — while the first lady got in back. President Bush drove them away.
Ahead of his arrival, Karzai offered a reminder of the trouble that remains nearly six years after U.S. and coalition forces entered his country.
In the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the United States and its allies have essentially gotten nowhere lately, Karzai said.
“We are not closer; we are not further away from it,” Karzai said in an interview with CNN’s “Late Edition,” which aired Sunday. “We are where we were a few years ago.”
Karzai ruled out that bin Laden was in Afghanistan but otherwise said he didn’t know where the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network was likely to be hiding.
Afghanistan’s fragility remains of paramount concern to the United States. Despite its progress since U.S.-led forces toppled the militant Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan still is dominated by poverty and lawlessness.
“The security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated,” Karzai said in the interview.
Overshadowing the Bush-Karzai meeting is the fate of 21 South Korean volunteers who were abducted by the Taliban on July 19 and are believed to be in central Afghanistan.
The captors took 23 people hostage and have shot and killed two of them.
Bush and Karzai were also likely to discuss Afghanistan’s distrustful relationship with neighboring Pakistan. Karzai said the flow of foreign fighters from Pakistan into his country is a concern he will address soon with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
