:1:
Macleans:
Karzai to ask Bush for long-term security, possible permanent presence April 13, 2005
ROBERT BURNS
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/news/shownews.jsp?content=w041335A#
KABUL (AP) - Afghanistan's president said Wednesday his country wants a long-term security partnership with the United States, but neither he nor visiting U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated whether that could lead to a permanent U.S. military presence here.
President Hamid Karzai made the comment at a joint news conference with Rumsfeld after the two met in Kabul to discuss the American military's role in fighting Taliban remnants in the country.
"The Afghan people want a long-term relationship with the United States," Karzai said. "They want this relationship to be a sustained economic and political relationship and most importantly of all, a strategic security relationship to enable Afghanistan defend itself, to continue to prosper, to stop the possibility of interferences in Afghanistan."
Karzai said he would formalize the request to U.S. President George W. Bush, but did not say when. <...>
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Financial Express:
Envoy urges UN to lift arms embargo, economic restraints Rumsfeld warns Iraqi govt against purge of security forces
4/13/2005
http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/print.asp?newsid=18631
<...> Rumsfeld also said the United States had no exit strategy from Iraq and any pullout depended on the readiness of Iraqi forces to ensure security.
"We don't really have an exit strategy. We have a victory strategy. We are here for a mission to set the country on the path of democracy, freedom and representative government," he said.
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<...>
AP from United Nations Adds: Iraq's UN ambassador urged the UN Security Council Monday to lift "the shackles and burdens" it imposed on Saddam Hussein's government, saying the new Iraq is a fledgling democracy that should no longer be subject to a UN arms embargo and economic restraints.
Samir Sumaidaie said Iraq's new transitional leaders want the council to end the use of Iraqi oil revenue to pay UN weapons inspectors and to dismantle other legal and bureaucratic restrictions it imposed to contain Saddam "which have outlived their relevance." <...>