Bush praises progress in Afghanistan
(CNN) -- President Bush said he plans to meet next week with Afghanistan's leader "to discuss freedom's remarkable progress" in the country that once harbored the al Qaeda terror network.
Bush made the remark on Saturday in his weekly radio address, devoted in part to setting out the progress in the war against terror.
On September 11, 2001, the al Qaeda terror network attacked the United States, striking the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
The United States later invaded Afghanistan and ousted the extremist Islamic Taliban from power -- but continues to fight remnants of that terror group and hunt down al Qaeda in Afghanistan and along its border with Pakistan.
In the interim, Hamid Karzai has emerged as the president of the Central Asian nation, now an emerging democracy. Bush said he will meet Monday with Karzai at the White House.
"Afghanistan now has a constitution, an elected president, and its citizens will return to the polls this September to elect provincial councils in the lower house of the National Assembly.
"We're helping Afghanistan's elected government solidify these democratic gains and deliver real change. A nation that once knew only the terror of the Taliban is now seeing a rebirth of freedom, and we will help them succeed."
Bush pointed out progress in the fight against terrorists recently.
"We have dealt them a series of devastating blows. In Afghanistan, we have brought to justice dozens of terrorists and insurgents. In Pakistan, one of Osama bin Laden's senior terrorist leaders, a man named (Abu Faraj) al-Libbi, was brought to justice.
"In Iraq, we captured two deputies of the terrorist (Abu Musab al-)Zarqawi, and our forces have killed or captured hundreds of terrorists and insurgents near the Syrian border," said Bush, a reference to the Marine-led Operation Matador in western Iraq.
Later next week, Bush said, he plans to make remarks at the U.S. Naval Academy about the development of a U.S. military "that can deploy rapidly and deliver more firepower with few forward deployed forces" to confront the new dangers of this century.
"As we make progress against today's enemies, we are also transforming our military to defeat the enemies we might face in the decades ahead.
"On Friday, I will speak to future leaders of our military who are graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy about how we are making our armed forces faster, more agile, and more lethal."
