At Pentagon, Afghan president thanks US troops

WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan's president thanked U.S. troops and taxpayers for their sacrifices in nearly 14 years of war, kicking off his visit to Washington with a stop at the Pentagon. He pledged his impoverished country will not remain a burden to the West.

"We do not now ask what the United States can do for us," Ashraf Ghani said in remarks meant to bolster the Obama administration's conviction Ghani is a reliable partner worth supporting over the long term.

"We want to say what Afghanistan will do for itself and for the world," he added. "And that means we are going to put our house in order."

Ghani and his chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, were welcomed by Defense Secretary Ash Carter at a ceremony in the Pentagon's center courtyard.

It was a poignant setting for the start of Ghani's visit. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked an American Airlines jetliner and flew it into the Pentagon, killing all aboard and 125 people in the building. The U.S. responded to the attacks on Washington and New York's World Trade Center by invading Afghanistan a month later, beginning the longest war in American history.

After the ceremonial welcoming, Ghani and Abdullah headed to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for closed-door meetings with Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Later in the week, Ghani is to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House and address a joint meeting of Congress.

On their arrival at Camp David in the Catoctin mountains, Kerry said they were meeting in seclusion to discuss Afghanistan's future. Ghani emphasized what he called a new phase of the U.S.-Afghan relationship.

"It's time for Afghanistan to reciprocate the gift that the United States has so generously provided over the years," he said. "Reciprocating the gift means owning our problems, solving them and asking of ourselves what we must do for ourselves and for the region."

At the Pentagon ceremony, Carter praised Ghani as a committed leader who knows "Afghanistan's future is ultimately for the Afghans to grab hold of and for Afghans to decide."

Those themes -- that Kabul's new leaders are more reliable and appreciative of U.S. assistance, and the U.S. alone cannot solve Afghanistan's problems -- are central to the administration's approach to carrying out President Barack Obama's pledge to end the war.

Obama has promised to remove the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of his presidency. But deficiencies in the Afghan security forces, heavy casualties in the ranks of the Afghan army and police, a fragile new government and fears Islamic State fighters could gain a foothold in Afghanistan have combined to persuade Obama to slow the withdrawal.

Instead of trimming the U.S. force of 9,800 to 5,500 by the end of this year, U.S. officials say the administration might keep many of them there into 2016. Obama has said after that, the U.S. would maintain only an embassy-based security force in Kabul of perhaps 1,000 troops.