Kerry: Afghanistan won't be terror safe haven

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday that he was confident President Obama's plan to withdraw all U.S. servicemen and women from Afghanistan by 2014 won't leave the country vulnerable to becoming a safe haven for terrorists again.

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Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke with "Early Show" co-anchor Erica Hill the day after Mr. Obama announced his plan in a prime-time televised address from the White House. The president said the so-called "surge" of 33,000 troops in the country for the past 18 months would be withdrawn by September 2012 and that the remaining 70,000 troops there would be pulled out by the end of 2014.

The chairman told Hill that the 70,000 troops stationed in the country for 15 months after the departure of the "surge" forces were more than enough to prevent the Taliban from returning to the power it held before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"I believe that considerably fewer troops than the 60, 70, 80,000 that will be left there even after we draw from the surge, considerably fewer than that, can prevent the Taliban from taking over the country," Kerry told Hill.

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Kerry even referred to the strategy used by President George W. Bush, who defeated the senator in the 2004 presidential contest, for announcing how U.S. forces would exit Iraq.

"Remember, President Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, ultimately Secretary Gates, all were willing to set a date in Iraq and the reason they could set the date in Iraq is because there had been a level of success," Kerry told Hill, referring to outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "The same thing is true today in Afghanistan. The surge worked. The surge has put the Taliban on their heels."

Kerry also highlighted how the plan was in line with the wants of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had recently been critical of U.S. war policy but called Mr. Obama's plan "a good measure."

"We need more diplomacy, less military effort, and that's what President Karzai is telling us," Kerry told Hill. "It seems to me if the president of the country we're trying to help keeps telling us, you know, 'You're sort of being viewed as an occupying force, and it's counterproductive, and it's making life difficult for Afghans,' we ought to listen to him."