The United States should resist any urge to pull troops out of Afghanistan ahead of schedule in response to the violence against Americans sparked by a burning of the Qur'an at a US military base, US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker said. “Tensions are running very high here. I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business,” Crocker said in an interview from Kabul on CNN's “State of the Union.” He added that a full investigation of the incident was underway at the Bagram airbase near Kabul. A US Defense Department spokesman said the Afghan defense and interior ministers were postponing scheduled trips to the United States this week while consulting with other Afghan leaders on protecting allied forces and quelling the violence. Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi had been set to meet US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Thursday, March 1. Panetta looks forward to hosting them at the Pentagon in the “near future,” and understands why their efforts at home take priority now, Pentagon press secretary George Little said in an email. Crocker, in the CNN interview, said: “This is not the time to decide that we are done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation that al Qaeda is not coming back,” Crocker said.
