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Text Title: TEST 4
Your Text: KABUL, Afghanistan — Tainted by a flawed election and allegations of high-level corruption in his regime, President Hamid Karzai was inaugurated Thursday for a second term, saying the Afghan Army should assume full control of the country's security within five years.

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"We will decrease the role of international forces," Mr. Karzai said at a midday ceremony held at the presidential palace in Kabul. "We want our security within five years to be entirely within the hands of the Afghan government and led by Afghans."

In a grim counterpoint to the inauguration ceremony, NATO said two American soldiers — were killed in Zabul Province Thursday morning. News reports said the soldiers were killed by a suicide car bomber. Since the beginning of the Afghan war in 2001, more than 920 American soldiers have died out of a total of 1,520 allied troops killed fighting the Taliban, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks casualties.

The swearing-in of Mr. Karzai was the culmination of a fraught and chaotic electoral process that began on Aug. 20 when Afghans went to the polls. Mr. Karzai was proclaimed the winner earlier this month when his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, withdrew from a run-off after a United Nations-sponsored inquiry found evidence of widespread electoral fraud.

His inauguration at this pivotal moment — eight years into the Afghan war as the United States is weighing a new battle strategy — raises the question of what Afghans and American officials can expect of him over the next five years amid doubts about whether he can complete his term.

Mr. Karzai faces calls from ordinary Afghans, Western donors, and the United States to root out corruption by overhauling his government. In his inaugural address Thursday, Mr. Karzai said corruption was "very dangerous issue," news reports said, and he promised that a broad national conference, known as a loya jirga, would be held soon in Kabul to address the issue.

He also promised to prosecute people involved in the country's huge, illicit narcotics industry which helps fuel both corruption and the Taliban insurgency claiming an increasingly high death toll among foreign troops. .

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attended the ceremony with around 800 Afghan and foreign dignitaries including President Asif Ali Zardari of neighboring Pakistan and the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, whose country has 9,000 soldiers deployed in the 43-nation NATO coalition here. Mr. Karzai said his administration would "negotiate with our friends like the United States who doubt us, security-wise."

The Obama administration is weighing a decision on the deployment of further American troops in Afghanistan in addition to the 68,000 already there as doubts spread in many parts of the NATO alliance about the value and risks of supporting a regime seen as lacking political credibility.

Mr. Karzai hailed the presence of the Pakistani leader as a sign of "good relationship, good brotherhood," despite a history of tensions between the two countries across a porous and mountainous border stretching over 1,500 miles.

The Pakistan Army is currently conducting a drive against militants in its lawless border region of South Waziristan. Kabul has accused its neighbor of giving sanctuary to the leadership of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. At the same time, Pakistan and its long-time rival India are jockeying for influence in Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai stressed the desire to eliminate civilian casualties and vowed to end the use of civilian security contractors — two particularly sensitive topics among many Afghan civilians.

Mr. Karzai thanked the international election commission that oversaw the vote, which he called "a historic moment, and great steps toward democracy and people's power," pledging that future elections would be "entirely Afghanized."

"We fight over our problems and we argue with each other," he said, "but when it comes to our Afghan pride, we all pull together."

"Eight years ago Afghanistan did not have any laws or regulations," he said. "We had no government, no state.

"Putting an end to the fighting is the main need of our people now."

But some Afghans question his ability to deliver on such promises.

Basher Dost, a candidate who came in third in the first round of the presidential election, has said Mr. Karzai's lifelong orientation is toward his tribe and family, and those loyalties render him unable to make the deep changes needed in his government.

"He believes his power is his warlords, it's the chiefs of tribes," he said recently. "It's not important what is true; what is important is the interest of your family. It's why he cannot fight the warlords and cannot fight the corruption," Mr. Dost said.

Immediately after the inauguration, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary-general of NATO, sent a message of congratulation coupled with a demand for accountable government and measures to halt corruption.

"President Hamid Karzai has our best wishes for his second five-year term," the message said, according to the NATO Web site. "We strongly support his intention to form a capable and inclusive administration, and to make it accountable, one in which corruption has no place.

" It is critically important that the Afghan people, and the citizens of the countries sending troops to the international mission, see concrete progress in this regard," the message said.

In his speech, Mr. Karzai sought to depict himself as an inclusive leader and invited the losing candidates to "come and help in serving this nation," The Associated Press reported.

" I am the servant of all the people of Afghanistan, from every ethnicity, every tribe, from every place, from every province — from every age, whether they are small children, whether they are old people, women — I invite all the presidential candidates to come and help in serving this nation," he said.

But his address drew a dismissive response from the Taliban insurgents fighting to overthrow his government and expel its foreign backers.

"Today is not a historic day. This is a government based on nothing because of the continuing presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan," a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, told The A.P.

"Karzai's call to the Taliban to come to the government has no meaning. He became president through fraud and lies," the spokesman said.
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