WASHINGTON–President Obama made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan; with him Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other top national security aides. Obama is delivering a message to President Karzai that in his second term, “to make him understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost
\nsince day one.”<\/p>\n
The Afghanistan government was informed of Obama’s visit on Thursday, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.<\/p>\n
POOL REPORT
\nSubject: WH pool – Afghan #2<\/p>\n
Pool was briefed on AF1 shortly before landing by NSA James Jones and LTG Doug
\nLute, top AfPak official at NSC.<\/p>\n
Jones said POTUS would “engage” with Karzai on benchmarks. Please check against
\ntranscript, but some quotes:<\/p>\n
POTUS will “engage President Karzai…to make him understand that in his second
\nterm, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost
\nsince day one. That is things like…a merit-based system for appointment of key
\ngovernment officials, battling corruption, taking the fight to the
\nnarco-traffickers, which fuels, provides a lot of the economic engine for the
\ninsurgents.”<\/p>\n
He also said they would dicuss the importance of the reintegration and
\nreconciliation process. More to come.<\/p>\n
POOL REPORT 4<\/p>\n
Subject: WH pool – Afghan 4<\/p>\n
Pool now holding as presidents meet in palace. Before arrival, staff said Karzai
\nand Potus would meet for a 1 on 1 first. Staff said Potus would be joined by NSA
\nJones, Amb. Eichenberry and deputy NSA McDonough.<\/p>\n
Following that meeting, session is broadened for 45min meeting with Karzai’s
\ncabinet. In that meeting, US side to include NSA Jones, CoS Rahm, deputy NSA
\nDonilon, LTG Lute, Amb. Eichenberry, Gen. McChrystal, Deputy Amb. Riccardoni,
\ndeputy NSA McDonough.<\/p>\n
4 2010
\nSubject: WH pool – afghan 5<\/p>\n
Pool is holding in room set up for press avail with both presidents. It is an
\nornate room with 6 dark gray columns running down the center. A long, shallow
\nreflecting pool also runs down the center with pink flower petals on the water’s
\nsurface.<\/p>\n
One one side of columns is press pool, joined by local press. On other side is
\nmost of official delegation, including McChrystal, Lute, Axelrod, Rahm, etc.
\nThey are mingling with Afghan delegation, including Afghan cabinet members, such
\nas Gen. Wardak, the defense minister.<\/p>\n
Table at front of room is set for the presidents. Covered by green cloth and
\ntopped by bouquets of pink and red flowers. Behind table is two chairs abd flags
\nof US and Afghanistan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON–President Obama made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan; with him Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other top national security aides. Obama is delivering a message to President Karzai that in his second term, “to make him understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}