Close call for Panetta in Afghanistan

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in a series of meetings with troops and Afghan leaders yesterday, said the United States must never lose sight of its mission in the war, despite recent violence including what appeared to be an attempted attack near the runway of a military base where he was about to land.

It wasn't clear whether it was an attempt to attack the defense chief, whose travel to southern Afghanistan was not made public before he arrived. Panetta was informed of the incident after landing.

"We will not allow individual incidents to undermine our resolve to that mission," he told Marines at Camp Leatherneck, near Kandahar. "We will be tested, we will be challenged, we'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war itself. But none of that, none of that, must ever deter us from the mission that we must achieve."

According to Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. John Kirby, an Afghan stole a vehicle at a British airfield and drove it onto a runway, crashing into a ditch about the same time that Panetta's aircraft was landing.

He said the pickup truck drove at high speed onto the ramp where Panetta's plane was intended to stop. No one in Panetta's party was injured.

Panetta's trip to the war front, which included three stops in the south, was planned months ago, long before the weekend shooting spree allegedly by a U.S. soldier that claimed the lives of 16 villagers, including women and children.

Everywhere he went, including a meeting with provincial leaders, Panetta referred obliquely to the massacre but didn't go into it in detail.

Instead, he talked about the need for the Afghan and coalition forces to keep working together to help transition security of the country to the Afghan forces.

The trip, however, has propelled Panetta into the center of escalating anti-American anger in Afghanistan, with the shooting spree coming on the heels of the burning of Qurans and other religious materials at a U.S. base.