WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and SportsRep. Ron Kind shares thoughts after visit to Pakistan

Rep. Ron Kind shares thoughts after visit to Pakistan

Eau Claire (WQOW) - The cost of health care reform has dominated political conversation in recent months, but the cost of the war on terror is also a major issue. 

It's something a western Wisconsin lawmaker is examining. Congressman Ron Kind just returned from Pakistan where he discussed counter terrorism efforts with government leaders days before President Obama plans to announce a new strategy in the war on terror. 

News 18 caught up with Ron Kind Monday.

An explosion that targeted a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday is nothing new. More than 50 people have been killed in this area in about a week. The wave of violence has increased as the military went on the offensive against groups like the Taliban and Al Qaida that have declared war on the government.

"Pakistan is doing more to confront and capture and kill terrorists than any other nation in the world. They're also the nation that's suffering from more terrorist attacks today than any other nation, by far," says Congressman Ron Kind.

Kind recently went to Pakistan with other lawmakers to look at what needs to be done to make the region, which includes Afghanistan, more stable and how the U.S. factors into that effort.

"After 8 years now, people are getting tired, certainly our troops are. They're at the point of breaking and one troop equals about $1 million a year being placed over there so this could easily turn into a prolonged $800 billion yearly effort at a time of high budget deficits and the economy that's under performing," adds Kind.

Kind says training and equipping needs to be stepped up in Afghanistan along with assistance to Pakistan so those two countries which border each other can take responsibility for their own security. Kind calls that the quickest exit strategy.

"If we do throw a large number of additional U.S. troops that clearly won't be matched by any other nation, we face the danger of Americanizing the whole effort and that would be against our long-term interests to do it in that fashion," says Kind.

And what about the long-term effort to capture Osama bin Laden? Support for the war has long been waning so wouldn't capturing him reinvigorate the effort? Congressman Kind says few people are asking questions about him in Pakistan anymore.

"Surprisingly, I was the one raising it all the time. With all the Pakistani officials I met, Pakistani military, I kept asking, 'Where is he? Do you guys know?' They all claim they don't. He's fallen off the grid. No one's heard or seen anything of him but out of curiosity, I kept raising that issue wherever I went including with our own intelligence personnel operating in the region.  It's a mystery," says Kind.

President Obama is expected to announce some troop increase along with more defined goals for the war after he returns from Asia late this week. On Sunday, the New York Times reported the White House is leaning on Pakistan to do more to fight the extremists threatening Pakistan and Afghanistan.