On Middle East trip, Thune says Afghans 'concerned'

Sen. John Thune said a Wednesday visit with Afghani President Hamid Karzai and other officials has left him more confident about the country’s future and security.

However, the Republican senator from South Dakota said apprehension still remains among Afghani government and military officials about President Obama’s plan to begin withdrawing troops from the region in 18 months.

“I think the Afghans were concerned,” Thune said in a Wednesday telephone interview from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. “They don’t really want to give the Taliban and some of the insurgents … a target to shoot at and allow them to believe that all (the Taliban) has to do is ride it out until that time.”

Thune was in Afghanistan with Sen. John McCain, RAriz., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., after touring Iraq Monday and Tuesday. He said he’s encouraged by progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan, hoping progress seen in the former will be replicated in the latter.

Thune also is pleased that security checkpoints in Iraq formerly manned by U.S. soldiers are now manned by Iraqis. He believes an upcoming election on March 7 will be another step in the right direction for the “very young democracy” in Iraq.

“It’s not always pretty, but they’re showing real progress,” Thune said.

Thune said plans remain for a “significant draw down” in American troops in Iraq by August 2010, but that could depend on the stability of Iraq’s government after the March election.

Both Afghanistan and Iraq are in need of developing agricultural crops — crops that don’t include opium poppies used to produce heroin, Thune said.

“There are many areas of the country that are very conducive and suitable for the type of crop production we have in South Dakota,” Thune said. “(The USDA) has a plan in place trying to transfer or replace some of the poppy production with legitimate crops that they can use to grow a legitimate economy but, right now, security is the first and foremost priority.”

Thune believes the recent rejection of 17 of 24 of Karzai’s ministerial nominees by Afghanistan’s lower house of the parliament was both an “indication of a robust democracy” and a reminder to the Afghan president of public concern about government corruption.

“The corruption seems almost endemic in some of these governments,” Thune said. “I think he’s aware that the world is watching.”

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