All Blog Posts from World Watch

ISAF Headquarters, Kabul -- The United States' second in command in Afghanistan, Gen. David Rodriguez, says it could be up to a year from now – November 2010 — before the U.S. is able to bring in all 30,000 new surge troops the president has ordered to Afghanistan. The White House's stated target is to get them all in by next summer, so they can have maximum impact before they begin a drawdown in July 2011.

But Gen. Rodriguez , who runs day-to-day operations in the war, said his best guess is that "it will happen between nine and 11 months," starting in January, to "get it all done."

He said his troops started trying to beef up the infrastructure faster the moment the president made the troop announcement — doing everything from expanding airport runways to laying communications lines — to be ready to both receive troops here in Bagram, and then to support them at new outposts in the field.

The original goal was to get 40,000 troops into Afghanistan by March 2011, Gen. Rodriguez explained. Backing that number off to 30,000 relieves some of the pressure, he said, but in a landlocked country where the troops and much of their equipment has to come in by air, there's only so fast you can build, he explained. "And so many things have to line up perfectly, like the weather."

He insists this pace is still faster than the one he and General Stanley McChrystal had envisoned. "I don't think we're far off from where everybody's trying to get," he said.

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CBS News correspondent Terry McCarthy recently accompanied the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on a trip to Afghanistan and Iraq.

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A Taliban detainee in Pakistan says he has information on where Osama bin Laden was this past January or February, according to a BBC report Friday.

While the detainee's claims have yet to be verified, he says he met bin Laden several times prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Basing his information on a contact, the detainee tells the BBC, "In 2009, in January or February I met this friend of mine. He said he had come from meeting Sheikh Osama, and he could arrange for me to meet him."

The detainee added of his contact, whom he said was a Mehsud tribesman, "He helps al Qaeda people coming from other countries to get to the sheikh (bin Laden), so he can advise them on whatever they are planning for Europe or other places.

"The sheikh doesn't stay in any one place. That guy came from Ghazni, so I think that's where the sheikh was."

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen told CBS News on Thursday that, while President Obama's plan to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2011 is clear, there has been no indication of how long that pullout may take after it's begun.

"It's very clear that the president has given us guidance that in July of 2011, we'll start to transition security responsibility to the Afghan national security forces," Mullen told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith. "There's no determination of how long that will take… There's no specific guidance with respect to how many. It could be very few, it could be a large number."

Mullen also stressed that Mr. Obama has vowed to conduct the withdrawal "responsibly and it will be based on conditions on the ground."

The Chairman acknowledged the huge challenge facing U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan as they race to train and equip the Afghan national forces to take over security duties.

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U.S. soldiers across Afghanistan woke up early to watch President Obama's war strategy speech, which broadcast live at 5:30 a.m. local time Wednesday morning. Most liked what they heard.

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Eight years after a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the country ranks as the worst place to be born, according to a United Nations report.

The United Nation's Children's Fund, better known as UNICEF, says Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world with 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, and 70 percent of Afghans have access to clean water.

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Finbarr O'Reilly,a Reuters photographer based in Africa, created an audio slideshow for GlobalPost that captures some of challenges facing coalition troops in the worsening Afghan conflict.

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Updated 2:28 p.m. EDT

The New York Times reported Wednesday that brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been on the CIA payroll for at least eight years, according to American officials.

Ahmed Wali Karzai (at left) is a powerful figure in the southern Kandahar province with reported ties to Afghanistan's opium trade, which is owned and operated largely by the Taliban.

According to the Times' sources, who were not named, Karzai has received "regular payments" from the American foreign spy agency in exchange for his organizing a paramilitary force in Kandahar which operates at the CIA's behest.

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Eight more troops were killed today in Afghanistan, bringing us to 53 dead this month –the highest toll so far in the eight-year-old war. It comes in advance of yet another meeting the president is holding to decide about his Afghan war strategy. He'll meet with the joint chiefs, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, on Friday.

But while many in the blogosphere and the 24-hour media universe – as well as former White House officials – denounce the meetings as dithering, a group of servicemen here in Florida indicated they believe otherwise.

Addressing servicemen and women at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, President Obama said, "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary." The remark prompted rancorous applause.

I sure didn't see it coming. But I should have. I've heard it enough from friends and contacts in the military and the diplomatic corps: "Let's not rush headlong into this like we did with Iraq. Not again."

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The White House has dismissed a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation that President Obama might announce an additional surge of troops — likely between 40,000 and 45,000 as early as next week.

The BBC's "Newsnight" program reported Wednesday night that Mr. Obama has already made his decision, informed the British government that a significant troop increase was coming, and that he may seek to make the announcement publically ahead of a NATO defense ministers' meeting in Slovakia next week.

Newsnight, a well-regarded hard-news magazine show, did not name sources for its report.

The White House was quick to tell the BBC that the claim was incorrect, and that the Mr. Obama was still in the highly publicized decision-making process about how to alter the American war strategy in Afghanistan.

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