But many challenges remain.
Insurgents are still a "resilient and determined" threat, according to a Pentagon report released this week.
Afghan security forces must be fully trained to take over for U.S.
troops. And the two countries have to come to an agreement over what
kind of troop presence the U.S. will have in 2014.
"How this war winds down
is very important to Afghanistan, to the United States and so many other
countries," said CNN's Erin Burnett, who has been in Afghanistan this
week talking to U.S. officials, troops and Afghan civilians. "People
paid for this with their lives. People have died, people have spent a
decade of their lives fighting this war away from home. And of course,
the U.S. has spent about $650 billion on the war alone."
Burnett talked to CNN.com
on Thursday about her trip and what she's been hearing from various
people about the transition and their hopes for Afghanistan's future.
Here is an edited version of the conversation:
CNN.com: You
talked with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday. What's he
saying about the war effort? Has the U.S. accomplished its mission?
Erin Burnett: Panetta points out the success
in bringing down key members of core al Qaeda, and he believes he has
made real progress on fighting al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan.
But he acknowledges that insurgents are still a problem, and he
acknowledges that al Qaeda and terrorists have now spread and they're in
other places. He specifically mentioned to me Yemen, Somalia and Mali.
And he still thinks that al Qaeda is the single biggest threat to the
American homeland.
CNN.com: What does that mean for U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the 2014 drawdown?
Burnett:
Both Panetta and (Army Maj. Gen. Robert) Abrams, the regional commander
in Kandahar, are very wary of discussing troop count. ... Some of it's
going to come down to the treatment of U.S. troops' indemnity, which
Panetta told me he's sure won't be a problem but the deputy foreign
minister here in Afghanistan said was a serious issue that is on the
table.
We're a long way away
from having the details set in an agreement that the United States would
actually sign. I got the sense that the overall agreement is something
that's going to take a significant amount of time.
CNN.com: Are Afghan forces going to be prepared by 2014?
Burnett: In
Kabul, traffic is a really huge problem, and they now have Afghan
National Police doing the traffic control. Traffic control is something
we in America take for granted, but you can see there's still a long way
to go for them in terms of learning basic protocols.
And that kind of fits in
with the recent Pentagon report that said only one in 23 brigades of
the Afghan National Security Forces are actually ready to do their job
from A to Z -- from dealing with things like electricity to (medical
evacuations), whatever it is to operate a war.
The deputy foreign
minister I talked to said, "Look that's not really fair, we're trying to
train brigades on one thing at a time." But you had issues like that.
I talked to a U.S.
sergeant in Kandahar who works at a forward operating base and his job
has now become training Afghans. I asked him what his relationship was
with them. And he said he had to trust them completely and they were
like his brothers. This is a guy who's served four tours, missed three
Christmases, put a lot of time in. And he really was loyal to them.
When I asked him
explicitly, saying, "A lot of the coverage is pretty negative on how
this training's coming, what have you seen?" he was very positive and he
gave some examples on the communication they have with each other and
their units and what significant progress he feels they have made. He
really felt a sense of accomplishment and achievement, and you have to
hope that his version of things ends up being the real version.
CNN.com: What's the general feeling among the Afghan people? Are they glad the U.S. is making plans to leave?
Burnett: I'm hearing two totally different stories.
Some people we've spoken
to here sort of take it for granted that there's going to be a civil
war when the United States leaves. It happened before when the Soviet
Union left. One female member of parliament I talked to, she wasn't
totally in that camp, but she was extremely afraid of it, saying: "I
hope that it won't and I have to have confidence that we're going to be
able to overcome it. But yes, I have that fear."
And then there are
others who really try to be more optimistic. We were at a bazaar today,
and we asked a whole bunch of people whether they thought it was a good
thing that the United States was leaving. Many said they were glad, and
they basically said we're glad because it's time we take this on
ourselves. There was a real sense of pride that they could do it. These
weren't people in the military. These were regular people on the street.
CNN.com: What else has stood out to you during your trip?
Burnett: During the Taliban, basically there were thousands of girls going to school in Afghanistan. Now you have millions of girls
going to school. So there's been real progress on women's rights.
Obviously, there remain a lot of problems -- honor killings, forced
marriages, domestic violence -- but there has been real progress.
There are women's rights activists who are really afraid that when the U.S. leaves, a lot of the progress will be rolled back.
The female member of
parliament I talked to, she is worried but hopeful. She has two
daughters, 13 and 14. They really want to stay in their country, and
they say, in their own experience, that there's been such a change in
what girls can do. One of them wants to be president. One of them wants
to be a space engineer. It was a pretty cool and inspiring thing to see,
but it sort of brought home the risks and what's at stake here. ...
This was the most
meaningful to me: the hopes that they have and the fact that they want
to stay in their country and they want to fight for its future. If you
have that going for you, then I think that's probably the best sign of
hope that there is.
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