Karzai on Sunday accused the Taliban and the U.S.... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, center, talks with members of the U.S. Army and Marines during his visit to the Kabul Military Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 10, 2013. The remarks, in a televised speech hours before Mr. Karzai's meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, capped a series of confrontations between the Afghan president and the U.S. over his demands to assert Afghan sovereignty and curtail American military operations. During a nationally televised speech, Karzai said two suicide bombings that killed 19 people on Saturday _ the one outside the Afghan Defense Ministry and the other near a police checkpoint in eastern Khost province _ show the insurgent group is conducting attacks to help show that international forces will still be needed to keep the peace after their current combat mission ends in 2014. In his address, Mr. Karzai said the U.S. doesn't want to leave the country after the NATO coalition's mandate expires at the end of 2014 because it covets Afghan resources and is talking with Taliban leaders behind his back. "The bombs that went off in Kabul and Khost yesterday were not a show of power to America, but were in service to America…It was in the service of foreigners not withdrawing from Afghanistan." U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, who took command of coalition forces last month, called Mr. Karzai's charges "categorically false." "We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the last 12 years, we have done too much to help the Afghan security forces grow over the last 12 years to ever think that violence or instability would ever be to our advantage," he said. Though most of the 66,000 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan are slated to go home next year, the U.S. hopes to leave behind an advisory and counterterrorism force that would support the Afghan government after 2014. "I think he understands where we are and where we've been, and hopefully where we're going together," Hagel told reporters, but he declined to detail their talks. "I was once a politician, so I can understand the kind of pressures that especially leaders of countries are always under, so I would hope that, again, we can move forward—and I have confidence that we will," Mr. Hagel said. He said Karzai may be doing what he needs to do to communicate with the Afghan people and their political leaders outside the government. "We do not have a broken relationship, we do not have a lack of trust," said Dunford, adding that none of the political dust-ups have bled over into his dealings with his Afghan security force counterparts. U.S. officials said this was because of security concerns that rippled across Kabul in the wake of Saturday's bombings.
– Chuck Hagel finally did meet privately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday before returning to Washington today, and despite the security concerns that initially canceled the meeting, Hagel told the press he and Karzai discussed key issues, the AP reports. "I think he understands where we are and where we've been, and hopefully where we're going together," Hagel said, without giving any details. Both Hagel and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top US commander in Afghanistan, rejected comments Karzai made prior to the meeting in which he accused the US and the Taliban of working together to prove the situation in Afghanistan will deteriorate after most US troops withdraw next year. Dunford called the comments "categorically false" and said Karzai has never expressed such charges to him personally, but added that tensions are inevitable as withdrawal looms. He added that there is no "broken relationship" or "lack of trust" between the US and Afghanistan. The security threat, as well as the attacks that rocked Afghanistan during Hagel's visit, were just the latest in a series of recent flare-ups in tension between the US and Afghanistan. Both Hagel and Dunford said Karzai's incendiary comments were likely more political than anything else, citing the pressure Karzai is under. But, US officials tell the Wall Street Journal, Hagel "strongly push[ed] back on [the] wildly inaccurate claims" during his meeting with Karzai.