US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conceded Thursday that security concerns limited movement for US civilians working in Afghanistan, but said US troops still escorted them to key places.
"We're quite encouraged by how much of our civilian team has been able to get out into parts of Afghanistan that are targets for our civilian assistance," Clinton told reporters.
"But it's clear that we can't go everywhere we'd like to go. The security situation doesn't permit that," she said in a briefing to journalists during a visit by Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic.
"So what we're doing is embedding a lot of our civilians with our military troops," the chief US diplomat said.
"And so in effect they get into the field at the same time or literally the next day after the Marines and the Army have sent the go signal that civilians can begin to work with… the Afghan people on a range of issues," she said.
US President Barack Obama has called for increasing the number of civilian experts from just over 300 to nearly 1,000 by the New Year in order to help the Kabul government serve its people and wean the economy off opium production.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
