KABUL, Afghanistan — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met here Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and later reiterated his call for additional U.S. forces to deal with conditions in Afghanistan that he described as “precarious and urgent,” capping a two-day tour.
Obama joined Karzai for a “working lunch,” marking the first meeting for the Afghan president and the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama’s colleagues in the congressional delegation visiting Afghanistan, Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., were also at the lunch, said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai’s chief spokesman.
Hamidzada said the heads of Afghanistan’s ministries of defense and foreign affairs and Karzai’s national security adviser also attended the nearly two-hour meeting.
Obama, interviewed in Afghanistan for CBS’s “Face the Nation,” called Afghanistan the “central front on our battle against terrorism.” He said the Iraq war had distracted attention from this critical battlefront and that it is time to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and shifting more military resources into Afghanistan.
“If we wait until the next administration, it could be a year before we get those additional troops on the ground here in Afghanistan, and I think that would be a mistake,” he said. “I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we’ve got to start doing something now.”
Obama also said the United States should press neighboring Pakistan harder to help eliminate the terrorist sanctuaries and training camps along the border that are fueling the strength of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
“I think that message has not been sent,” he said in implicit criticism of the Bush administration.
Obama’s visit to Afghanistan marked the first leg of a foreign tour that is scheduled to take him to Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain before the end of the week. From Afghanistan, Obama flew to Kuwait. The state news agency KUNA reported that he met with the Persian Gulf Arab state’s emir, Sabah Ahmad al-Sabah. Obama was expected to continue on to Iraq for meetings with U.S. and Iraqi officials and to speak with U.S. military personnel today.
