KABUL, Afghanistan - In what amounted to a stern pep talk by a nervous partner, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here on Wednesday to exhort President Hamid Karzai and his government to do a better job of cracking down on corruption in Afghanistan.

Mrs. Clinton's unannounced visit, on the eve of Mr. Karzai's inauguration to another term, was meant to send a message of American support for his government, after a chaotic election in which he emerged as the winner after charges of rampant ballot stuffing and other fraud.

Mr. Karzai welcomed Mrs. Clinton to the presidential palace on Wednesday evening, and the secretary of state congratulated him on his reelection. "I'm very energized by being back here and seeing you and a lot of your ministers," she said in a polite, if somewhat formal, tone.

"Thank you," he replied with a smile.

But over dinner, and in a subsequent one-on-one session, Mrs. Clinton said she planned to press Mr. Karzai for tangible results in tackling other forms of corruption, which many experts cite as one of the key causes of Afghanistan's growing insurgency and deteriorating security.

"We are asking that they follow through on much of what they previously said, including putting together a credible anti-corruption governmental entity," Mrs. Clinton said to reporters traveling with her from Beijing, where she had been with President Obama on his tour of Asia.

"They've done some work on that, but in our view, not nearly enough to demonstrate a seriousness of purpose to tackle corruption," she said. "We are concerned about corruption. We obviously think it has an impact on the quality and capacity of governance."

Mrs. Clinton said she was troubled that Mr. Karzai named as one of his two vice presidents, Marshal Muhammad Fahim, whom American officials believe has been involved in the drug trade, as well as forging a political alliance with General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord suspected of corruption.

"It certainly raises questions," she said, noting that the United States would wait to see whether Mr. Karzai confronted that issue directly or sought other means to raise confidence in his government.

Still, speaking to employees at the heavily fortified United States embassy, Mrs. Clinton said that the inauguration provided a "window of opportunity" for Mr. Karzai to "make a new compact with the people of Afghanistan" and to create a more accountable government.

"We want to be a strong partner with the government and people of Afghanistan," she said. "This is a turning point that we will face together."

In her fourth visit to Afghanistan, and her first as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton seemed to be walking a delicate balance - praising Mr. Karzai for the progress Afghanistan had made during his years in power, even as she signaled the United States was looking for more.

"It's not all a one-sided negative story," she said. "It's much more balanced than that. If President Karzai was sitting here, he would say 'do you know how hard it’s been to do what I have done for the last eight years?' "

But Mrs. Clinton also reiterated recent comments by White House and other administration officials that United States was seeking a military strategy that would give it a clear way out of Afghanistan.

"We don't have a long term military stake," she said. "We're not seeking to occupy Afghanistan for the undetermined future. We don't want bases in Afghanistan. We do want to help the Afghan government and people build up their own capacity so they can defend themselves."

Mrs. Clinton was met at the airport by the two generals - Stanley A. McChrystal and Karl W. Eikenberry - who have staked out opposing positions in the administration's lengthy, increasingly fierce, internal debate over how many additional American troops to deploy to Afghanistan.

General McChrystal, the current commander in Afghanistan, has recommended that Mr. Obama send up to 40,000 more troops. General Eikenberry, who is the American ambassador, argued in two recent cables that more troops would increase the dependency of Afghanistan on the United States, at a time when the reliability of its leadership was already in doubt.

In a meeting with the generals, a senior administration official said, Mrs. Clinton quizzed the two about how the United States was meshing its military and civilian efforts in the country. She pressed for examples of areas where those efforts were working well, and where there were problems. General McChrystal offered an overview of the broader security situation.

Whatever their differences on strategy, officials said, there was little evidence of friction in the generals' presentation to Mrs. Clinton. On their assessment of Mr. Karzai's reliability as a leader, an official said, General McChrystal and General Eikenberry were largely in agreement.

Mrs. Clinton also complimented the growing staff of the embassy for their work, which she said was dangerous but vital to the American effort in Afghanistan. She singled out Matthew Sherman, a Foreign Service officer who rescued soldiers from a vehicle that had been overturned by a roadside explosive.

By Mark Landler, The New York Times, November 18, 2009