Afghans Seek Close US Military Tie

Karzai Tells Rumsfeld His Country Wants Long-Term Security Deal

(CBS/AP)  Countries including the United States, Britain and France are training new police units to destroy crops, smash heroin laboratories and arrest smugglers, while providing hundreds of millions of dollars to help farmers switch to legal crops.

But it is expected to take years to replace the lucrative crop that has powered Afghanistan's post-Taliban revival and provided a lifeline to war-impoverished rural communities.

U.S. commanders told Rumsfeld that Taliban fighters still have some sanctuaries and support among the local population in Zabul Province along the Pakistan border, but that U.S. forces operating with newly trained Afghan troops are making steady progress in eroding that support.

The defense chief flew to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan following a one-day visit to Iraq and then traveled by helicopter to Qalat where U.S. troops are running what they call a provincial reconstruction team that provides civic aid as well as security for reconstruction projects.

Rumsfeld has not publicly discussed in detail the future U.S. role in Afghanistan, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai is known to favor arranging a long-term security relationship that could include some degree of U.S. access to air bases in this landlocked country.

Rumsfeld's visit to Qalat underscored the importance the Pentagon places on the approach of using troops to facilitate reconstruction and civil affairs work.

He shook hands and posed for photographs with a group of soldiers in Qalat and thanked them for their work before flying back to Kandahar where he spoke to several hundred soldiers and answered questions from several of them.

One soldier asked when the Army would shorten tours from 12 to six months for those serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. As he also had said a day earlier in Iraq, Rumsfeld said the Army was thinking about that, but had not made a decision.

Rumsfeld, whose itinerary was not being disclosed in advance by U.S. officials for security reasons, told the soldiers that both Afghans and Americans one day will look back on this period as a turning point in the spread of freedom. "You're earning your place in history," he said.