Karzais pro-Pakistan comments rile US lawmakers

This has been said by lawmakers furious with Afghan President Hamid Karzais recent statement that his country would back Pakistan if the US wanted a war with it.That anger over Karzais remarks is likely to surface when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies Thursday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, her first congressional appearance since her trip last week to Afghanistan and Pakistan.Lawmakers also are expected to press Clinton on the administrations recent decision to temporarily pull its ambassador out of Syria, the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by years end and the Palestinians push for statehood at the United Nations over objections from the U.S. and Israel.In an interview that aired this past weekend, Karzai told a private Pakistani television station: If fighting starts between Pakistan and the U.S., we are beside Pakistan. If Pakistan is attacked and the people of Pakistan need Afghanistans help, Afghanistan will be there with you.He said his government would not allow any nation, including the United States, to dictate its policies.Those comments drew a sharp rebuke from members of Congress, including some who have been strong supporters of the decade-plus war in Afghanistan.Without the assistance of the United States, $468 billion from the United States Treasury and the supreme sacrifice of 1,820 American soldiers who have died during Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan would still be ruled by a gang of Taliban thugs with few individual liberties and no popularly elected leaders, Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington state, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a statement.Dicks said Karzais comments underscore the need for the United States to reconsider its mission and schedule for withdrawing forces from Afghanistan.The United States has about 98,000 troops in Afghanistan and plans to bring most forces home by 2015. It intends to withdraw the 33,000 additional troops that Barack Obama sent to Afghanistan in 2009 by the end of the fighting season in 2012, 10,000 of them by the end of this year. About 3,000 of those have already left.Now more than ever, President Karzais insult to America tells me that its time for our country to stop pouring our limited taxpayer dollars and losing precious American lives in a country where we arent even welcome and even worse, where they have the gall to threaten to side against us, Sen. Joe Manchin, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said this week.Rep. Connie Mack, a Republican member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday that the U.S. needs to have a foreign policy as President (George W.) Bush said youre either with us or against us.