how many war fighting forces are still required to be he. i interviewed the former u.n. special envoy to afghanistan last week. and he had some strong words. listen to what t he said to me d then we ll discuss two points he makes. listen to this.ll it s really immoral to be sending troops to fight in a mission that they can t succeed at. because, again, you don t have that credible partner. what i would say is to reduce to change the mission to something that is achievable, namely protecting the nonpashtun parts of the country where the taliban is not present and kabul. and that you could do with 10,000 troops instead of 1 hirks,000. do you believe, general caldwell, thnat the u.s. troops the nato troops in afghanistan ha a credible partner in afghanistan. well, i do. and each and every day, i deal with the ministers of defense and the ministers of interior. they re my partners. and i am in constant dialogue
administration do? well, it made a huge mistake there is no prospect for success. by tripling the number of troops there. and if you are and it is really immoral to be sending troops to fight in a mission that they can t succeed at because, again, you don t have that credible partner. so i would say change the mission to something that is achievable, namely protecting the nonpashtun parts of the country where the taliban is not present and go to kabul and therefore you could do it with 10,000 troops instead of 100,000. i have had officials say to me, peter, in the last few days that they are worried about karzai, that he seems to be act ing in a bizarre way, firing one bureau chief, getting rid of one security chief and now firing his one u.s. ambassador. do you see karzai becoming more erratic? he has a long history of being erratic, of temper
secretary gates, included, say that the central feature for success a credible afghan partner. and the partner that we have runs the second most corrupt country in the world, and he is clearly personally corrupt. he is ineffective and known by diplomats as the mayor of kabul. he is illegitimate, and he stole the last election, and under those circumstances, there is no prospect for success. and what should the obama administration do? well, it made a huge mistake by tripling the number of troops there. and if you are and it is really immoral to be sending troops to fight in a mission that they cannot succeed in because you don t have a credible partner. so i would say is to change the mission to something that is achievable, and namely protecting the nonpashtun parts of the country where the taliban is not present and go to kabul,
partner, we shouldn t be wasting these military resources on a strategy that is not working. if that s the case, is there an option between backing karzai and the other extreme one that you suggest which is pulling out the entire mission altogether? is there an alternative to karzai? is there some somebody and some path to another credible local partner? well, i want to be clear, i m not advocating a complete withdrawal. i m saying we should stop the surge, reduce the number of troops to the numbers that we had at the start of the obama administration. there are still missions that can be accomplished, counterterroism, defending kabul, defending the nonpashtun parts of the country. i also think we it s important that we take a different approach. the white house spokesman was