McCaskill visits Afghanistan and Pakistan
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., discussed her recent trip to the Middle East, which began in Kuwait. McCaskill said one of her main concerns during the trip dealt with the oversight of contracts with independent military contractors.
She said progress has been made to account for all equipment and oversight structures were in place for these groups. She said we should try to get the best value from these contractors.
“I don’t think they have a handle on it yet, but they’re working on getting a handle on it,” McCaskill said.
After leaving Kuwait, McCaskill stayed in Afghanistan for two days. She said there were some differences between the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We have much more cooperation with allied nations there than we ever had in Iraq,” she said.
During her trip she was around troops from many nations, including Germany and Sweden.
Despite this international effort, she said success in Afghanistan wouldn’t be easy.
“This is a difficult task and in some ways we are trying to thread our troops through a needle, but I do think we have a solid plan,” she said.
McCaskill said her definition of success was, among other things, clearing areas of the Taliban, creating a strong police force, establishing government at the local level, creating a national army and removing U.S. presence in the country.
She said government corruption, which has dogged Afghanistan’s government, is a hard truth in the country.
“Its hard for me as an American to accept the notion that any corruption is O.K., but in this case we have to be realistic,” she said. “We can’t wave a magic wand and pretend we’ll get a healthy non-corrupt country overnight in a place like Afghanistan.”
During the news conference, which McCaskill held from India, she also touched on the retirement of Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. McCaskill said the political environment was “toxic” and partisan. She said his retirement wasn’t surprising.
“This has been a really challenging political environment for someone who likes to solve problems,” she said.