KARZAI DOUBTS U.S. AND NATO TROOPS CAN DEFEAT TALIBAN

Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban
Saturday, June 12, 2010


By DEXTER FILKINS, The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/world/asia/12karzai.html?src=mv&ref=world


KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible.


"The president did not show any interest in the evidence -- none -- he treated it like a piece of dirt," said Amrullah Saleh, then the director of the Afghan intelligence service.


Mr. Saleh declined to discuss Mr. Karzai's reasoning in more detail. But a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Karzai suggested in the meeting that it might have been the Americans who carried it out.


Minutes after the exchange, Mr. Saleh and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, resigned -- the most dramatic defection from Mr. Karzai's government since he came to power nine years ago. Mr. Saleh and Mr. Atmar said they quit because Mr. Karzai made clear that he no longer considered them loyal