Afghans in a Post-Taliban ‘Era of Hope,’ Bush Says

A year after U.S. forces began the military campaign that overthrew Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, President Bush on Friday declared that the Central Asian nation has “entered a new era of hope” and he promised sustained American involvement in its reconstruction and stability.

But even as Bush delivered his upbeat report, experts warned that the Afghan people still face political insecurity and the specter of famine and disease. The president acknowledged such threats in passing but emphasized the progress.

Bush spoke just hours after winning solid congressional support to coerce Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to get rid of any weapons of mass destruction--or face military action.

And the subtext of Bush’s argument was unmistakable: The Iraqis can expect better days ahead in a post-Hussein regime, just as the lives of most Afghans have improved since the Taliban was driven from power after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Bush spoke in a White House auditorium filled with several hundred aid workers, Afghan nationals and Afghan Americans.

“The institutions of free debate and free press are taking hold” in Afghanistan, he said.

He also provided updates on aid funneled to the country, noting that the U.N. World Food Program, with U.S. support, has provided 632,500 tons of food to nearly 10 million Afghans.

“The United States has also provided seed and fertilizer in time for the spring planting season,” he added.

The U.S.-led attack on the Taliban began Oct. 7, 2001. Almost simultaneously, Bush began promoting various aid programs to help Afghanistan.

In the last year, Bush reported Friday, America’s children have contributed more than $10.5 million to “America’s Fund for Afghan Children,” which he created. He urged them to continue giving.

“We also understand that Afghanistan needs long-term economic reconstruction help,” Bush said, “and we will meet this commitment as well.”

At an international conference in Tokyo in January, the U.S. and 60 other nations pledged $4.5 billion over five years for reconstruction projects. But the World Bank has conservatively estimated that Afghanistan will need $10.2 billion over that period.

The U.S. is also in the process of helping form a national army in Afghanistan. “The idea is to train 18 battalions of over 10,000 soldiers and finish the task by the end of next year,” Bush said.

Another project calls for spending $180 million--to be jointly funded by the U.S., Japan and Saudi Arabia--to build a highway linking the cities of Kabul, Kandahar and Herat.

The president’s upbeat assessment came amid growing concern that Afghanistan’s dire problems will become an afterthought if the U.S. embarks on military action and possibly an occupation of Iraq.

In one sign of that concern, experts at a Council on Foreign Relations discussion in Washington agreed that peace in Afghanistan is fragile and chaos could reign again if international support falters.

Earlier this fall, State Department officials warned that the slow arrival of aid has forced the United Nations to be stingier with the “welcome home” package that it had been handing out to returning Afghan refugees. The program initially was funded with $271 million to provide for a presumed 800,000 refugees, and new arrivals were given 330 pounds of wheat to help weather their first winter.

But instead, more than 1.7 million refugees flooded back. Strapped agencies could give new arrivals only 110 pounds of wheat--enough to feed a family of four for one month--and a voucher for 220 pounds more.

James Kunder, deputy administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, said spring planting aid has produced an 82% increase in cereal crop production in 2002.

“I am not prepared to say that we will have a hunger-free winter in Afghanistan,” Kunder said. But he said the overall food situation has improved since summer.

USAID is spending $7 million in emergency infrastructure work. These include repairs now underway on the Salang Tunnel, through the Hindu Kush mountains, to ensure that the vital main artery that leads north from Kabul, the Afghan capital, stays open for winter food shipments, Kunder said.

Nancy Lindborg, executive vice president of Mercy Corps, which has been running relief programs in Afghanistan for 15 years, said the U.S. aid is “an eyedropper” compared with the military campaign costs in that nation. She lauded Bush’s commitment to helping rebuild but said the U.S. must follow up with more assistance.

“The U.S. has been generous, but the needs are enormous, particularly with the onset of winter,” said Arthur C. Helton, a humanitarian issues specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “And the distraction of Iraq will tend to cause Afghanistan to come off the radar screen.”

“It’s very fair to give the administration mixed reviews,” Helton added. “On the narrow security question, a certain amount has been accomplished. In terms of beginning to see anything like a functioning state, all that exists is a putative government that doesn’t have a reach beyond Kabul.”

“Is it fragile? Yes,” said a State Department official who requested anonymity. But he insisted, “We realize what we have to do in Afghanistan, and we’re going to continue to do it.”