Statement by Senator John McCain Regarding the "Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review"
Statement
U.S. Senator John McCain made the following statement regarding the "Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review":
"The general assessment of the Administration's "Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review' is broadly consistent with my own conclusions, which have been shaped by three trips to the region this year. Our troops are performing exceptionally well, and they are succeeding in their mission. We, and our NATO and Afghan allies, are making impressive military gains, especially in the areas of main effort in southern Afghanistan. The training of Afghan security forces is ahead of schedule, and the progress we are making is night and day from where we were one year ago. Together with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are putting an unprecedented amount of pressure on Al-Qaeda in the region. I am also pleased that the eventual transition to Afghan leadership on security issues is increasingly understood as a process that is focused on 2014, and is based on conditions on the ground.
"I see two major areas of concern as we move forward: First, governance in Afghanistan too often remains ineffective, overly-centralized, predatory, and plagued by corruption at all levels. And second, while the Pakistani government has made important strides at great cost to combat terrorists who threaten Pakistan, Taliban fighters who attack U.S. and NATO personnel, as well as our Afghan and Indian partners, still have safe havens in Pakistan. We need to make greater progress in both of these areas during the coming year in order to turn our hard-won military gains into durable and sustainable success.
"Ultimately, we are on the right track. We are achieving our goals. Our counterinsurgency strategy is working. We need to stay committed to it, and we in Congress need to ensure that it is properly resourced in the year ahead. This is America's war, and we have maintained a broad bipartisan consensus this year to support this critical national security interest. We need to keep it that way."
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