Washington, January 27: The leak yesterday of confidential cables written by America’s ambassador in Afghanistan voicing doubts about the wisdom of troop increases and sharply criticising President Hamid Karzai has reignited tensions between Washington and Kabul at a politically sensitive time.
In private missives sent to the White House last November as US President Barack Obama was closing in on his decision to deploy an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry said Mr Karzai was an “inadequate partner” who continued to “shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defence, governance or development”.
While Mr Eikenberry’s reservations about an additional American troop surge were well known at the time of the internal debate, the full strength of his feelings were revealed only yesterday by the verbatim publication of sections of the cables in The New York Times. The newspaper received them after lodging a formal request for their release.
–Agencies