we ought to be working towards achieving the smallest footprint possible in afghanistan that is deemed necessary, a presence that in effect puts afghans in charg pressing them to step up to the task. it is fundamentally unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight. according to the latest usa today gallup poll taken after u.s. forces killed bin laden, 59% of americans think that the mission in afghanistan is fulfilled and it s time to bring the troops home. 36% believe that there is still more work to do. it comes as pervez musharraf denies his administration struck a deal to let the u.s. conduct a unilateral operation against bin laden. the garthian reported pakistani and u.s. officials
the politics loses some of its punch. i really don t think afghanistan is top of mind for voters and we get hotter and heavier into the election year. that s reality. from a policy point of view, the president you have to give him his due, when it comes to campaigning and filling campaign promises, going to focus on al qaeda and take out bin laden if he had the chance, ramp up the cia effort in pakistan, which he s done but wanted to try to reverse the momentum of taliban and shore up the central government in afghanistan. still much more work to be done. as general petreus says this is a fragile and reversible set of gains they have. i think he ll remain committed enough but put u.s. on a glide path as he wanted to for a year now to get the troops out. i want to talk to you about your guest sunday. we have a quick window to get the latest on devastating floods from al roker, if you can hang on one second. stay there. let s go live to vicksburg,
we re seeing now the re creation of, we met some very extreme people coming up, replacing the more moderate side of the taliban, and these people are less willing, apparently, it seems, to make a deal and come out. that might make it more difficult to pull out. don t we have an inherent conflict here, in what we re doing in afghanistan. on the other hand, the military has been turned into a peace corps part of it, living with the afghan people, government in a box, all that sort of thing. on the other hand, you have the s.e.a.l. team 6s and 3, 4, 5, and they re killing out at night, don t care about what the impact is in the village and care about their assignment and completing it. they try to integrate it. you are seeing an incredible division of labor never happened before, elite teams doing killing and conventional forces told to go soft. they say it s integrated. you can imagine if your forces are locked up in a base
it doesn t really fix the situation but gives you the image. a band-aid problem to a larger problem. a much larger problem. senator john kerry says he will travel to pakistan next week to get ties to the country back on the right track after the raid that killed osama bin laden. on capitol hill yesterday, the foreign relations committee chair said it was time to rethink the u.s. strategy in afghanistan in light of bin laden s death. we ought to be working towards achieving the smallest footprint possible in afghanistan that is deemed necessary, a presence that in fact puts afghans in charge, pressing them to step up to the task. it is fundamentally unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight. the senior republican on the committee, senator dick luger
surrounded by ieds, take out the ied makers with one team and when the regular forces get out, they feel the effects what people think about these operations. dr. sachs, whey are you thinking? i m thinking we have heard this where you kill young men in victim languages. do you think this is somehow scaring afghanistan into being a successful state or winning hearts and minds of the population? 12,000 people doesn t seem like a lot to me in a country of many millions of people, where young people are hungry, without jobs, without education i don t see it. i wonder what you feel about the social impact? i feel there is something incredible here which hasn t been done before, in previous