60% of americans think the afghan war was a bad idea or mistake, which is the highest level ever, so the american public is certainly losing patience and it s costing billions to do this, and taxpayers certainly have a reason to think they have to have a return on their investment. if there isn t real progress by the summer, i think a lot of people, including myself, will say, well, a vanityian effort was made, but this didn t work out. right now it s an open question. peter, thank you. so what does this mean for u.s. troops in afghanistan? let s make it really personal here. let s bring in pentagon correspondent barbara starr. the report says the u.s. is on course to begin pulling troops out next year. do you hear that sentiment echoed in the has of the pentagon? you know, this is the stated policy. july 2011, troops will start coming home, but by all indications, it is going to be a
relationship dominated by military cooperation. pakistan and the united states have begun a long-term commitment to work together not just on security, but on energy, agriculture, education health and other areas that directly affect the daily lives of the pakistani people. there have been, there will continue to be obstacles and setbacks, but our conclusion is the partnership is slowly but steady improving. we have greater cooperation and understanding, and that is yielding tangible results on the ground. in afghanistan our surge is not simply military. we have expanded our presence from 320 civilians less than two years ago to 1,100 today. accomplishing our mission
peeking through the door, i was trying to isolate him and any time you do these things, you locate, isolate and neutralize the threat and rapid response and i just didn t have the shot to take the shot because all the board members were sitting straight up and i didn t have time to snap the door open and get a clean shot. so i was waiting. when i heard and thought he shot the superintendent, president obama now. to regularly assess or efforts and review our progress after one year. that s what we ve done consistently over the course of the past 12 months in weekly updates from the field and monthly meetings with my national security team and in my frequent consultations with our afghan, pakistani and coalition partners. that s what we ve done as part of our annual review. i want to thank secretary
regions are a threat to all our countries, especially pakistan. we ve welcomed imagine offensives in the tribal regions. we will continue to help strengthen pakistan s capacity to root out terrorists. nevertheless progress has not come fast enough, so we will continue to insist to pakistani leaders that terrorist safe havens within that are borders must be dealt with. at the same time we need to support the economic and political development that s critical to pan stack an future. as part of our strategic dialog dialogue, we will work to deepen trust and cooperation. we ll speed up our investment in civilian institutions and projects that improve the lives of pakistanis. we ll intensify our efforts to encourage closer cooperation between pakistan and afghanistan, and next year i look forward to an exchange of visits, including my visit to pakistan, because the united states is committed to an enduring partnership that helps
our military effort to break the taliban s momentum and train afghan forces, so they can take the lead. our civilian effort to promote effective governance and development, and regional cooperation, especially with pakistan, because our strategy has to succeed on both sides of the border. indeed, for the first time in years, we ve put in place the strategy and the resources that our efforts in afghanistan demand. and because we ve ended our combat mission in iraq and brought home nearly 100,000 of our troops from iraq, we re in a better position to give our forces in afghanistan the support and equipment they need to achieve their missions. and our drawdown in iraq also means there are tens of thousands fewer americans deployed in harm s way than when i took office. with those additional forces in afghanistan, we are making considerable gains. the additional military and