Word: kabul
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Obama arrived at Bagram Air Base after dusk and was greeted by commanding General Stanley McChrystal and the State Department official for Afghanistan Lt Gen Karl Eikenberry. The president immediately boarded a convoy of armed helicopters for the ride 50 miles south to the Presidential Palace in Kabul...
Obama expects to spend less than 6 hours on the ground, meeting first with the recently reelected Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, followed by a larger meeting with Karzai's cabinet. Later he will attend a rally with about 2,000 troops at Bagram Air Base, and he plans to visit with wounded soldiers at the base hospital. "We plan to engage president Karzai," said National Security Advisor James Jones, in a briefing during the flight, "to make him understand that in this second term there are things he has to do." Among the issues on the table: government...
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs informed certain news organizations that were scheduled for presidential travel on Thursday, warning that if the news leaked out before the president arrived in Kabul, the trip would be cancelled. Following the regular pool rotation, Gibbs invited 14 journalists to travel on Air Force One, including a television crew from ABC News and reporters from the Wall Street Journal, TIME, National Public Radio and the three major wire services, Bloomberg, Reuters and the Associated Press...
...American officials say Karzai knows he must deliver good government to Marjah - something he has failed to do in Kabul - and quickly, or the drug syndicates will be back. Much of the burden will fall to dozens of Afghan officials who arrived on the back of the military offensive to set up a new local administration - McChrystal's so-called government in a box. It has not gotten off to a promising start, though. Abdul Zahir Aryan, the man picked to be the district chief of the new Marjah administration, has a far-from-stellar record. He left for Germany...
...drug trade. Khan, the farmer, has seen it happen before. "When there is no Taliban, the government men take money from the smugglers to help them move drugs across the border," he says. NATO commanders say they will be on the lookout for bribe taking and will ensure that Kabul makes examples of corrupt officials. But given the prevalence of graft in the capital, it's hard to imagine Marjah will remain clean...