Washington, October 24: The U.S. coordinator of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan offered an upbeat outlook Friday for avoiding extensive cheating in the Nov. 7 Afghan presidential runoff election.
In his remarks at the State Department, Richard Holbrooke also sought to dispel suggestions that his relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai are so bad that he is unable to work with the Afghan leader.
“In terms of my relationships with President Karzai, they’re fine. They’re correct. They’re appropriate,” he said. “I speak to him on behalf of my government, and he speaks as president of the country. I respect him. And if he is re-elected as president on Nov. 7, we all look forward to working closely with him in pursuit of mutual goals.”
He said he will see Karzai in a few days, “and I have absolutely no problems with him. And it’s as simple as that.”
Holbrooke said he is hopeful that the Nov. 7 election will not see a repeat of the widespread fraud that caused a U.N.-backed election investigation to throw out nearly one-third of the votes cast for Karzai in the Aug. 20 balloting. That pushed Karzai below the 50 percent mark he needed to avoid a runoff.
“It is reasonable to hope that there will be less irregularities this time for several reasons,” Holbrooke said.
He cited the fact that there will be two candidates this time, rather than the dozens who ran in August. Secondly, he said the experience of detecting fraud the first time around should help avoid it next time.
“Three, the international community, including the forces under Gen. (Stanley) McChrystal’s command, are going to go all-out to help make this a success,” he said, referring to American and NATO-led troops that will be available for security duties in greater number than in August.
The Obama administration is counting on the Nov. 7 vote being held in a way that Afghans and the international community see as legitimate. An outcome short of that is likely to raise further doubts about the wisdom of investing more U.S. troops and other resources in a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. A key pillar of that campaign is an Afghan government that is a credible partner of the U.S. and NATO.
Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, objected to criticism by former Vice President Dick Cheney that President Barack Obama’s decision on whether to expand the U.S. war footing in Afghanistan is taking too long.
“I think that is absolutely wrong. I think what the administration is doing is exactly what we said it would do,” Biden told reporters traveling with him as he flew back to Washington from central Europe.
Biden was dismissive at one point. When asked about Cheney’s criticism, he said: “Who cares what …” before stopping to find a more tactful way to express his true thoughts. Known for a tendency to make verbal gaffes, Biden then said: “Yeah, yeah, I can see the headline now. I’m getting better, guys. I’m getting a little better, you know what I mean?”
Holbrooke also announced that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to visit Pakistan to meet with government officials, leaders of the political opposition, civic leaders and business interests.
He declined to provide specifics, saying details are being kept under wraps to protect Clinton’s security in a country that has been rocked by terrorist attacks in recent weeks. He lamented what he called speculation in Pakistan about the precise timing of her visit and the locations she intends to visit.
“I can tell you honestly that if the speculation is too well-informed it will affect the content of the trip,” Holbrooke said.
It will be Clinton’s first trip to Pakistan as secretary of state. She has not visited Afghanistan since taking office.
Among the topics expected to be discussed on Clinton’s visit is the Pakistani military’s large-scale offensive in South Waziristan, heartland of the Pakistani Taliban militants seeking to destabilize the government.
Holbrooke, who will accompany Clinton on the visit, said “we’ll look closely” while in Pakistan at how that campaign near the Afghan border is going. He said his intelligence advisers told him Friday they have no “definitive information” on progress thus far by the Pakistani army, which began the offensive on Oct. 17.
“They’re in the early phase,” Holbrooke said. “But it’ll take a while before we know whether the enemy they’re fighting has been dispersed or destroyed or some mix of the two. But this is, obviously, a question of very great importance, and we’ll look at it closely during the trip.”
Separately, Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, told reporters Friday that the Pakistani offensive is more sophisticated and better planned than previous — largely unsuccessful — attempts by the government to take on the Pakistani Taliban movement.
Kagan said the operation could turn out to be an important turning point in the long struggle against Islamic extremists. One reason to be encouraged, he said, is that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has shown a greater willingness than his predecessors since 2001 to act boldly against the Taliban.
“It really is the first time that you’ve had a Pakistani president see a potential big political gain for him in fighting the Taliban, fighting to liberate Pakistani territory from the Taliban,” Kagan said, adding that it’s reasonable to hope that this effort could be turning the tide of Pakistani public opinion against the Taliban in a way not unlike the popular uprising of Sunni Arabs in western Iraq against al-Qaida fighters in 2007.
–Agencies