Speeches

Ambassador William Wood in an Interview with the Voice of America (VOA)

Date: July 01, 2007

AMBASSADOR WOOD:  -- The Taliban has been a security threat to Afghanistan for some time.  It is getting weaker every day.  I think a lot of it depends on what you mean by long term.  As long as the Taliban can continue to sustain itself from outside the country and as long as it meets with some level of cooperation among the drug trafficking, criminal and corrupt community inside of Afghanistan, it will continue to be a threat.  But I will say that if the Taliban were the only threat facing Afghanistan I believe we could put Afghanistan in the win column right now.

VOA:  What measures are being taken to avoid further civilian casualties [inaudible] insurgents?

AMBASSADOR WOOD:  Of course the coalition has been concerned about civilian casualties from the beginning.  I know of operations that have been canceled because of the possibility of civilian casualties.  Of course when coalition forces are attacked we don’t have the option of canceling the operation.

President Karzai is President of all Afghans and of course he would be anguished about civilian casualties.  So are we.  We are also anguished, as he is, about casualties among the young people who are here in Afghanistan suffering danger and hardship to protect Afghanistan so far from home.

As a statement of the Minister of Defense indicated, we have been working and continue to work closely with the government of Afghanistan to avoid civilian casualties.  But it’s important that we put the blame where it should go -- on the Taliban.  The Taliban actively seeks to involve civilians in their operations. They target civilians.  They commit acts of untargeted terrorism that kill civilians.  If necessary to their purposes, they fabricate claims of civilian casualties.

The Taliban is seeking to divide the coalition and seeking to divide the government from the coalition through the use of this tactic.  It’s important that we all hold together to defeat not only the Taliban but particularly inhuman tactic.

VOA:  Last week 35 police officers were killed in a bombing at police headquarters in Kabul. This past weekend the son of the Sanghi District Police Chief in Helmand Province was killed by insurgents.  What is the international community doing to help build the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces?

AMBASSADOR WOOD:  We have possibly the most ambitious program in the history of the world to help the Afghan Army and the Afghan National Police to develop their own capacity to fight their own battles.

Right now we and the Afghan Army are fighting side by side.  We are cooperating closely with the Afghan National Police.  We will be increasing that cooperation in the coming months.

The international community has responded with determination by increasing resources, by increasing training levels, by increasing the number of trainers and mentors that they have sent here. 

We are optimistic that the Afghan Army and the Afghan National Police will continue to improve at the extraordinarily accelerated rate that they have been improving over the last two years.

VOA:  Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

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