A Push for Iraq, Afghanistan Stability

U.S. troops will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan until stable, democratic governments have been established there, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday en route to the Persian Gulf and South Asia.

Though Rumsfeld said he was making the trip to thank forces “deeply involved in the successes we’ve achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he cautioned reporters aboard his plane that long, dangerous and difficult work remains in both nations.

“One ought not to think of this as a victory tour,” he said, noting that coalition forces in both countries still are coming under sporadic attack.

Nevertheless, Rumsfeld said he would meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss a formal declaration ending combat operations by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and shifting their role to promoting stability.

Although Rumsfeld said only that he planned to discuss the declaration with Karzai, a Bush administration statement issued late Friday said the declaration would be announced when the two leaders meet.

Karzai and Rumsfeld “will jointly announce that the United States, in coordination with the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan and our coalition partners, is ready to advance to a new phase and transition from combat operations to stability operations in Afghanistan,” the statement said. “A key component ... is the deployment of Provincial Reconstruction Teams throughout the country.”

As many as eight such teams, composed of U.S. and allied military and civilian authorities, are to be established in cities to improve living conditions and show that Karzai’s government is extending its authority and assistance to outlying provinces. Teams have begun operations in Kunduz, Bamian and Gardez.

In other stops, Rumsfeld plans to talk to allies in the Persian Gulf about how U.S. military “arrangements and partnerships” will change after the war in Iraq. He has said that significant changes to the Pentagon’s “footprint” could be in store now that the military threat posed by Saddam Hussein is gone.