KABUL, Oct 16: Washington will not abandon Iraq and Afghanistan, US Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans stressed on Thursday as he arrived in Kabul from Baghdad amid mounting US opposition to the cost of the Iraqi conflict.

“We won’t leave until the job is done,” Mr Evans told reporters on his arrival for a brief visit to meet with Afghan officials.

“We want to make sure we will fight this war against terrorism until we win, as we are winning,” he said.

The commerce secretary’s remarks echoed his comments Wednesday in Baghdad, where he told the Iraqis: “The president cares about you and he means it when he says: ‘we won’t leave until the job is done.’”

Mr Evans’ three-day visit to Baghdad was mainly to launch the new Iraqi dinar currency and promote investment in Iraq, before heading to Afghanistan.

For the United States, the human and financial sacrifices amount to 332 soldiers killed since the start of the war in Iraq and a record budget deficit of around $500 billion this and the next year.

“Americans ... will make the ultimate sacrifices to defend and expand freedom all around the world.”

Evans stressed the progress already taking place in Iraq and said he was “delighted” with what he had seen, adding he had not found the country in the state of total disarray he had expected.

“You have to look beyond the incidents ... When you look at the big picture, the progress of reconstruction ... And the hope that it’s putting in people’s lives, that far outweighs ... isolated terrorist attacks.”

Mr Evans visited a girls’ school in Kabul supported by a US organisation and met with US troops. He also met with US and Afghan business people ahead of his meeting with Commerce Minister Sayed Mustafa Kazemi on ways to improve the economy of the war-ravaged country.

“ ... It’s very difficult for a country to be secure if you don’t have a strong economy,” he said.—AFP