Afghans Appeal to Panetta for Security to Top Cost of Support
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Afghanistan’s defense and interior ministers said they urged Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to ensure that maintaining security takes precedence over cutting costs in determining U.S. support for their nation’s army and police.
The U.S. has projected that the Afghanistan forces it is helping to train and fund will reach a peak of 352,000 before October, a goal estimated to cost more than $4 billion a year. The military and police would then be reduced as security improves, to about 230,000 by 2017.