Vice President Biden said Wednesday morning the White House's top goal for the war in Afghanistan is to defeat Al Qaeda and contain the threat from an unstable Pakistan, spelling out the administration's goals point by point.
"Number one priority: Al Qaeda. Number two: Pakistan. Number three: Keeping - giving the Karzai government a fighting chance to be able to sustain itself," Biden said on the CBS "Early Show." "The existential threat to the United States remains in the mountains in Pakistan. That's where we have to keep our focus."
Biden told anchor Harry Smith that the White House's target date for withdrawal from Afghanistan would put pressure on a government in Kabul that has been "unwilling to step up to the ball."
"The purpose is to make it clear to Karzai and his government, who up to now has been unwilling to step up to the ball, look to us for everything, that fellas, you gotta step up to the ball. And by the way, our overarching goal is Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda. We just cannot, in the meantime, afford to have the Taliban topple a government that has just been put in place," he said. "It is Al Qaeda and a stable nuclear state called Pakistan, which is under siege. They are the two existential threats to the United States."
Asked by Smith whether the administration's timeline for the war would make the surge more politically palatable at home, Biden replied: "To be completely blunt with you, it probably makes it more palatable, but that’s not the purpose.".
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