Obama: Karzai Still a "Critical Partner" to U.S.
President Barack Obama says Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai remains "a critical partner" with the United States in the global war against terrorism despite Karzai's harsh recent criticism of the West.
Mr. Obama tells ABC television in an interview from Prague that U.S. troops must be in Afghanistan because "3,000 Americans were killed" by an attack that was launched from there. The president says "those people are still out there, plotting to kill Americans."
Mr. Obama said that if the United States succeeds only on the military side, but not on the civilian side, "then you're going to continue to have instability in the region." He said Karzai "has his own domestic politics that he has to deal with."
Three different Afghan lawmakers told the AP that Karzai twice threatened to join the Taliban insurgency if the U.S. continued pressuring him publicly to do more to end graft, cronyism and electoral fraud.
CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reported Wednesday that tension has been building since the President Obama's quick visit to Afghanistan 10 days ago, when U.S. officials made it clear they are unhappy with Karzai's failure to clean up corruption.