Susan Jones
CNS News
March 25, 2014
Donald Rumsfeld, who served as U.S. Defense Secretary under President
George W. Bush, blames poor diplomacy by the Obama administration for
the current strained relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“Our relationship with Karzai and with Afghanistan was absolutely
first-rate in the Bush administration,” Rumsfeld told Fox News’s Greta
Van Susteren on Monday. “It has gone down hill like a toboggan ever
since the Obama administration came in.”
Rumsfeld pointed to the fact that the Obama administration has failed
to get Karzai to sign an agreement that would allow some U.S. troops to
remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when combat ends.
The U.S. has status of forces agreements with more than a hundred
countries, Rumsfeld noted. “A trained ape can get a status of forces
agreement,” he said. “It does not take a genius. And we have so
mismanaged that relationship.”
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