Ghani Says Afghanistan Will Face Crisis Without U.S. Pact --- Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, one of two candidates in Afghanistan’s June 14 presidential election runoff, is confident he’ll win and said he’d sign a security pact with the U.S. “within a week” of taking power. -- Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank economist, said in a May 24 interview that he wouldn’t make any changes to the bilateral security agreement with the U.S. that outgoing President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign. He said he’ll send the pact to parliament for approval within a week as well. -- “I was one of the chief negotiators and I know every word and I will not change anything,” Ghani, 64, said at his house in Kabul, referring to the agreement. “Without the BSA, our security sector will face a national crisis.” -- Ghani is challenging Abdullah Abdullah, who won the most votes in the first round on April 5. Both have pledged to sign the pact, which would allow U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond this year and secure billions of dollars in aid money for Asia’s poorest country, which spends nearly half of its budget on security after 13 years of war against the Taliban. -- U.S. President Barack Obama visited Afghanistan last night for the first time in two years, making an unannounced visit with troops during the weekend the U.S. honors members of the armed forces who died in the service of their country. --- Phone Call, Karzai declined to meet with Obama at Bagram Airfield, and said Afghanistan would welcome the U.S. president at the presidential palace, according to a statement from Karzai’s press office. Obama called Karzai from Air Force One on his departure from Afghanistan, according to a senior administration official. -- The $2 billion in revenue Afghanistan generates on its own falls short of the $4.1 billion it will need annually for security from 2015, Ghani said. Before running for president, he led a commission in charge of transferring security operations from the U.S.-led coalition to Afghan forces. -- “There is no alternative source of financing,” Ghani said, referring to the U.S. pact. “Our security forces must be confident that they are being paid, that they are being equipped, that they are being trained.” --- Obama in February asked the Pentagon to prepare plans for withdrawal of all forces by December, while waiting to see if the next Afghan leader will sign the BSA. The U.S. Congress cut Afghanistan’s aid budget by about half to $1.12 billion for 2014. Foreign grants pay for about 50 percent of the government’s expenditures, according to the World Bank. - More, Blooomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-25/ghani-says-he-ll-be-afghan-president-sign-u-s-pact-within-days.html