American Morning
Haass: U.S. should draw down in Afghanistan
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on July 19, 2010 in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Getty Images)
(CNN) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Pakistan right now. She's just unveiled $7.5 billion in development aid aimed at winning some hearts and minds. That's part of the White House's strategy for turning things around across the border in Afghanistan where Clinton's headed next.
One of the most respected voices among US foreign policy experts says the Obama Administration’s Afghan policy is not working.
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of several US administrations, writes in the latest edition of Newsweek: “Continued or increased U.S. involvement in Afghanistan isn’t likely to yield lasting improvements that would be commensurate in any way with the investment of American blood and treasure. It is time to scale down our ambitions there and both reduce and redirect what we do.”
Speaking on CNN’s American Morning Monday, Haass said Afghanistan was now “a sponge for American resources and it is a distraction. We out to be thinking militarily about what we might have to do in North Korea or Iran where we really do have vital national interests.” Watch 
Petraeus heads to Afghanistan as U.S. battles Taliban
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/07/02/kunduz.afghan.gi.art.jpg caption="Afghan children walk along a street as smoke rises from a building in Kunduz, Afghanistan on July 2, 2010."]
(CNN) – Gen. David Petraeus is on his way to Afghanistan today. It's been two days since he was confirmed for the job and now he's got to study the battle plan, get his staff in place and turn things around after the deadliest month of the nine year war.
Paying for progress isn't cheap. President Obama asked for billions more to win this war. And late last night, despite the growing discord between Democrats and the president's policy, the House approved $37 billion to fund the fight in Afghanistan.
And the war is raging on during the change in command. Overnight, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on a U.S. aid agency in northern Afghanistan, which killed at least four people. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has the report. Watch
Read more: Taliban attack U.S. agency compound
Leadership, goals and obstacles in Afghanistan
(CNN) – The situation in Afghanistan is intensifying. Gen. David Patraeus is sailing towards a full confirmation as the top commander, but there's still plenty of debate. The biggest being the July 2011 deadline for troop withdrawal. An attack this morning on the Jalalabad airport by Taliban insurgents only underscores this reality. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has the report.
Reporter shares horrifying tale as Taliban prisoner
(CNN) – Jere Van Dyk has been inside the mind of the Taliban fighter. Why he wasn't killed and why he was set free are both still a mystery. Van Dyk is an American reporter who went deep into the lawless and dangerous tribal region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and ended up a prisoner. He was forced to convert to Islam and learn the language since he couldn't trust his translator. His book about the experience, "Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban," is out today. He joined us on Tuesday's American Morning to discuss his 45 days of captivity. Watch
Report: Trillion dollars of untapped minerals in Afghanistan
(CNN) – A trillion dollars worth of useful minerals is sitting under Afghanistan waiting to be tapped. But there are a lot of questions about how hard it would be to get it out of there and even some questions about the timing of the announcement. The military didn't recently discover it, the report was apparently done years ago. To help us break it all down, we were joined on Tuesday's American Morning by Joe Klein, columnist at Time magazine, and Jack Medlin, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
American arrested while searching for Osama bin Laden
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) - A 52-year-old American citizen who said he was searching for Osama bin Laden was detained in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan this week, Pakistani police said Tuesday.
The Californian named Gary Faulkner was carrying a pistol, a sword, night-vision equipment and Christian religious books, said Mumtaz Ahmed, a police chief in the area.
Faulkner was detained as he was walking from Pakistan toward the border into Nuristan province in Afghanistan, Ahmed said. He told police that he had been looking for bin Laden since 9/11 and had traveled to the area several times before, Ahmed said.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire did not confirm that Faulkner had been detained but said that the consulate in Peshawar did receive notification of the detention of an American citizen. Snelsire said they were trying to get more details.
"We're hoping to get consular access to the individual," Snelsire said.
Faulkner told police that he had no intention of killing bin Laden, Ahmed said. But police believed he was trying to kill bin Laden because of the weapons he was carrying, according to Ahmed.
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