KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The top diplomats from Britain and the U.S. made an unannounced visit to one of Afghanistan's most dangerous corners Thursday in a show of support for NATO allies that have been willing to suffer casualties in the fight.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband flew to this southern city, the cradle and former headquarters of the militant Taliban movement, to salute 200 NATO troops at sprawling Kandahar Air Base.
"On behalf of the people of the United States, thank you, thank you, thank you," Rice told the troops, who were primarily Canadian, Dutch, British and Australian.
Though she denied any intention to slight other countries, her words carried a bite because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is locked in an intensifying internal struggle between member nations that have been willing to send combat troops to the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan and those that have limited assignments to safer zones.
Rice spoke to the forces in the southern city just weeks after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates criticized NATO troops here as lacking adequate training in counterinsurgency techniques, touching off a political firestorm.
U.S. officials also have been pushing hard for other countries to increase their presence in the hot spots, and have suggested that their refusal could undermine the alliance.
Gates, speaking ahead of Thursday's meeting of NATO defense ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, said Wednesday in Washington that the division "puts a cloud over the future of the alliance" that could "get even worse."
After talks in Vilnius, Gates declared the alliance was not in crisis, but stressed that better participation would lead to improvements in Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported.
Rice made it clear, as has Gates, that she intended to continue pressing the Western allies to step up their contributions.
"It's not an overwhelming number of forces that is being sought here," Rice said. "This is a troop contribution level that NATO can meet and should meet."
Miliband signaled that he expected the debate over deployments to remain intense.
"As the debate hots up about what you are doing here, we will be defending you heart and soul," he told the group, which had gathered amid low-slung beige buildings and barbed wire-festooned walls.
