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Any continued stalling of economic redevelopment efforts in Afghanistan could “put our mission at risk,” Walz said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “I’m concerned Afghanistan isn’t stabilizing as quickly as it should.”
Afghanistan doesn’t need more American ground troops, but it does need more State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development personnel, the first-term Minnesota Democrat said.
He also said NATO allies who have pledged development aid to Afghanistan need to do more.
“Promises made by NATO are not all being kept,” Walz said. “We need that and to get more development teams in there.”
He also said Islamic militants threaten to destabilize Pakistan, particularly along its frontier provinces, remote areas he said are difficult for Pakistan’s government to monitor. But he said U.S. pressure on the Pakistani government to act in the frontier regions “risks losing their public support.”
Walz, whose district stretches across southern Minnesota, said was reassured by officials responsible for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal that “they take the security of their nuclear weapons very seriously.”
Similarly, he said, Pakistan’s religious affairs officials said they would take steps to rein in the madrasas, schools where militant versions of Islam are often taught. He said there are 16,000 religious schools in Pakistan with little government oversight.
