U.S., NATO warn Afghan troop plan is in peril --- BRUSSELS — Time and patience are running out for countries planning to help support Afghanistan’s military after NATO-led troops depart, NATO and U.S. officials warned Tuesday. -- Meeting in Brussels with Afghanistan’s interior minister and its senior diplomat, NATO officials made clear that they cannot leave even a small contingent of forces behind without guarantees that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is refusing to give. -- “This is not fooling around. This is serious business. There are over 50 nations who are engaged here through NATO in trying to help Afghanistan,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry told reporters. “Those nations have budget cycles; those nations have planning requirements. Those nations have equipment requirements; they have deployment requirements. All of those things are best managed through planning.” --- “It is clear that if there is no signature on the legal agreement, there can be no deployment, and the planned assistance will be put at risk,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. -- Rasmussen declined to specify a deadline for a NATO decision but said planning for troop commitments takes time, money and, in some cases, parliamentary approval. --- Also Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. military has temporarily halted ground shipments of cargo leaving the war zone along a primary supply route into Pakistan. Spokesman Mark Wright said military logisticians decided to stop the shipments through the Torkham Gate border crossing because local drivers working for the U.S. military were being targeted by Pakistani protesters angry about American drone strikes. - More, Anne Gearan - washingtonpost