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Ghani Addresses Congress, Eager to Rebuild Afghan-U.S. Ties Ghani Addresses Congress, Eager to Rebuild Afghan-U.S. Ties
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Ashraf Ghani, the new president of Afghanistan, addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, pressing his case that he is a new kind of Afghan leader who is eager to work with the United States and rebuild a partnership that has frayed badly in recent years. WASHINGTON — When Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, stepped up to speak at a formal dinner in his honor this week at the State Department, he looked out at a room of familiar faces, a fact he quickly made clear.
Mr. Ghani’s refrain has become familiar in Washington this week. Since he arrived on Sunday, he has repeatedly thanked American troops for the sacrifices they made to aid his country since 2001, and American taxpayers for the hundreds of billions of dollars they spent to rebuild Afghanistan. He referred to Madeleine Albright, seated beside him, as his “mentor.” He called Secretary of State John Kerry, the host, “a remarkable friend of Afghanistan.” He joked that retired Gen. David Petraeus, who sat one table over, rarely slept while commanding American forces in Afghanistan.
“We owe a profound debt to the soldiers who have lost limbs to buried bombs, to the brave veterans, and to the families who tragically lost their loved ones to the enemy’s cowardly acts of terror,” Mr. Ghani said on Wednesday. “And we must acknowledge with appreciation that at the end of the day it is the ordinary Americans whose hard-earned taxes have over the years built the partnership that has led to our conversation today.” “I need glasses to see everybody,” he said. The ties that bound Mr. Ghani to many of the dinner guests on Tuesday reflected a little-noticed story in American’s longest war: After more than 13 years of nation-building in Afghanistan, much of the American national security establishment is intimately familiar with many of nation’s most senior officials, Mr. Ghani foremost among them, and loath to see a hasty withdrawal lead to a repeat of what has happened in Iraq.
Mr. Ghani’s willingness to work with the United States, in stark contrast to his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, has paid off: President Obama, after meeting with Mr. Ghani on Tuesday, announced that the United States would leave the 9,800 American troops currently in Afghanistan in place until the end of the year. So when Mr. Ghani landed in Washington on Sunday to start his first visit here as president, he came prepared for a number of appearances, speeches and meetings that were choreographed by Afghan and American officials to produce a renewed United States commitment to Afghanistan. And that is what Mr. Ghani achieved on Tuesday after meeting with President Obama, who announced that the United States was backing off plans this year to cut by nearly half its force of roughly 9,800 troops in Afghanistan.
The two men said the troops were needed to train and advise Afghan forces, who are doing the bulk of the fighting, through what is expected to be a bloody summertime push by the Taliban. Other American officials said that keeping the current force in place would allow American special operations troops and the Central Intelligence Agency to operate in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the insurgents are strongest and where Al Qaeda’s presence is concentrated. The two men said the troops were needed to train and advise Afghan forces, who are doing the bulk of the fighting, through what is expected to be a bloody summer push by the Taliban. Other American officials also said that keeping the current force in place would allow American special operations troops and the Central Intelligence Agency to operate in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the insurgents are strongest and where Al Qaeda’s presence is concentrated.
The administration was largely in sync with Mr. Ghani even before this week’s visit, having been impressed by his willingness to work with American officials since he took office in September. It is congressional critics of the war, who have been put off by wasteful spending and the harshly anti-American rhetoric of Mr. Karzai, that Mr. Ghani sought to win over on Wednesday. Yet the shift in American plans is as much a result of the dire situation in Afghanistan as it is a broad lobbying effort by a powerful cross-section of the American foreign policy and national security establishment, including many of the dinner guests on Tuesday. In recent months, even as Mr. Obama has sought to draw an end to American’s role in Afghanistan’s war, a number of influential figures in Washington have pressed hard in public and in private to keep the United States involved.
The talking points that Mr. Ghani offered in his speech were the same that he has repeated throughout his visit: He again cited the more than 2,300 Americans killed in Afghanistan, and he stressed the need for his country to become more self-reliant. To help make their case, they repeatedly cited the election of Mr. Ghani, a Columbia graduate who lived in Washington for 15 years, as a central reason to stay in Afghanistan, despite the relative weakness of his government. Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting at the White House, for instance, a group of 23 former American ambassadors and senior officials released an open letter urging the United States to keep troops in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, Mr. Ghani declared, must tackle corruption, which has become the dominant feature of the Afghan government, if the country hoped to shed its dependence on the billions of dollars in aid provided each year by the United States and other international powers, which pay the vast majority of Afghanistan’s bills. “Everybody was willing to help with the trip. Senators, congressmen, generals, secretaries of state,” said an American official involved in planning the visit. The official asked not to be identified because the Obama administration does not want Mr. Ghani portrayed as being too close to the United States, an image that plays badly in Afghanistan.
“Nearly 40 years of conflict have produced a country where corruption and criminality permeate our government,” Mr. Ghani said. “Look, the Afghans, they can be maddening,” the official said. But, he added, with Hamid Karzai, the former Afghan president whose anti-American rhetoric exhausted good will in Washington, now out of office, “it’s amazing how many people are willing to help out if the Afghans ask.”
“Until we root out this cancer, our government will never generate the trust to win the hearts and minds of our people,” he added. “We now openly and explicitly own these problems, and we have started this fight to overcome them.” To be sure, Mr. Ghani is not slavishly pro-American. For example, he once helped torpedo a new measure regulating mining in Afghanistan, which was pushed hard by American officials but which Mr. Ghani saw as too friendly to foreign businesses. And he advised Mr. Karzai to release prisoners from the former main American prison in Afghanistan last year, a move that infuriated American officials.
Mr. Ghani also highlighted his familiarity with the United States, where he lived for more than 20 years, earning a doctorate at Columbia University and then teaching at other American Universities before spending 15 years as an executive at the World Bank in Washington. Mr. Ghani and many of his advisers also know the United States well, and they decided to thank soldiers for their sacrifices, and taxpayers for the billions spent to aid Afghanistan in every speech Mr. Ghani gave in Washington, officials from both countries said.
The Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center was “horrific, and it was personal,” he said, noting that his wife also earned a degree from Columbia and that both of his children were born in New York, where his daughter still lives. But American officials helped the Afghans choreograph some of the more poignant touches, such as inviting the widow of an American general killed in Kabul last year by an Afghan soldier to a speech Mr. Ghani delivered on Monday at the Pentagon, allowing the Afghan leader to thank her publicly for her family’s sacrifice.
“I was another beneficiary of America’s wonderful generosity that has built so many longstanding friendships through its unparalleled universities,” he continued. “I ate corned beef at Katz’s, New York’s greatest, greasiest, pickle-lined melting pot.” There was also behind-the-scenes lobbying, and not all of it came for free. Shortly after taking office in September, Mr. Ghani’s government hired the Podesta Group for $50,000 a month to lobby on behalf of Afghanistan and help with public relations, according to filings with the Justice Department. One of the founders of the firm was John D. Podesta, who served as counselor to President Obama and represented the administration at Mr. Ghani’s inauguration. Mr. Podesta is no longer involved with the firm.
The line garnered laughter and applause, and softened a speech that was focused primarily on the immense challenges still faced by Afghanistan, despite years of Western aid. The country is desperately poor, and its economy is in dire condition. The Taliban remain a potent insurgent force, and their Qaeda allies have yet to be defeated. Mr. Podesta, in fact, was one of the 14 dinner guests on Tuesday to whom Mr. Ghani referred by name in his remarks. As a result of the groundwork laid by many of those guests, the Obama administration was largely in sync with Mr. Ghani even before this week’s visit.
But, seemingly well aware of his audience’s current fears, Mr. Ghani also cited the prospect of the Islamic State making inroads into Afghanistan, and said that he was committed to working with the United States and the rest of the international community to combat violent extremism. On Wednesday, Mr. Ghani’s final full day in Washington, it was congressional critics of the war, who have been put off by wasteful spending and Mr. Karzai’s tone, that the Afghan president sought to win over.
“We are the front line, but the terrorists neither recognize boundaries nor require passports to spread their messages of hate and discord,” he said. “From the west, Daesh” — a name often used for the Islamic State — “is already sending advance guards to southern and western Afghanistan to test for vulnerabilities.” In an address to a joint meeting of Congress, Mr. Ghani reprised much of what he had said over the previous days. He again cited the more than 2,300 Americans killed in Afghanistan, and he stressed the need for his country to become more self-reliant.
A smattering of Taliban factions have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in recent months. But American and even some Afghan security officials say that the declarations were largely branding efforts by insurgents who are disaffected with their leadership, with no substantive links to the Islamic State. Afghanistan, Mr. Ghani declared, must tackle corruption if the country hoped to shed its dependence on foreign aid. He spoke of the threat posed by Islamist militants, and, seemingly well aware of his audience’s current fears, he raised the prospect of the Islamic State making inroads into Afghanistan.
Still, Mr. Ghani added, the Islamic State, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant groups active in Afghanistan posed “a clear and present danger to our neighbors, to the Arab-Islamic world, and to the world at large. Afghanistan is carrying forward everyone’s fight by containing this threat.” And, as he has done throughout his trip, Mr. Ghani highlighted his familiarity with the United States. The Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center was “horrific, and it was personal,” he said, noting that his wife also earned a degree from Columbia and that both of his children were born in New York.
“I was another beneficiary of America’s wonderful generosity,” he said. And then, to the delight of the gathered senators and representatives, he added: “I ate corned beef at Katz’s, New York’s greatest, greasiest, pickle-lined melting pot.”