On the recordJune 21, 2011
I want to first of all thank my good friend from South Carolina for those comments. He has been very perceptive of the importance of turning this responsibility over to the Afghans as soon as possible, and we are clearly on track to do exactly that. It is that improvement in the situation on the ground that will allow, hopefully, for a significant reduction that will be announced tomorrow. That is our hope--my hope. But I think the Senator from South Carolina has seen this right from the beginning, that we wanted success and we could have success in Afghanistan. Indeed, we see some real evidence of that success in the military situation on the ground. If only that could be equivalent to the governance situation, we all would be a lot more comfortable.
