A rchive Date
[ 15-10-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSAttack0201/17_war-ap.html
U.S pledges support
By KATHY GANNON - The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Afghan prime minister told Secretary of State Colin Powell during a historic visit Thursday that Afghanistan needs a long-term commitment from the United States so it can become a normal country after years of being run by terrorists. Powell promised, "We will be with you."
Powell told Hamid Karzai, head of the interim Afghan administration, that the United States would make a substantial financial commitment at next week's international aid donors conference in Tokyo.
He also vowed that U.S. forces would pursue the remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network and the ousted Taliban militia so they do not threaten Afghanistan's stability.
"We don't want to leave any contamination behind," Powell said of continuing military efforts in Afghanistan. "That is in the interests of the Afghan people and certainly the mission we came here to perform."
Powell's visit to Afghanistan was the first by a U.S. secretary of state since Henry Kissinger in 1976.
Meanwhile, Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said that the United Nations is ready to help some of the millions of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and Iran return home in a "gradual" process. He did not elaborate.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said its workers would hold private meetings with al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners flown from Afghanistan to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Red Cross will make public comments about prisoners' conditions, ICRC spokesman Darcy Christen said. Some human-rights campaigners have criticized housing the prisoners in cells open to the elements and less than 50 square feet in size.
So far, 110 prisoners have been flown out in less than a week to Guantanamo from a holding center at the Marines' base in the southern city of Kandahar.
In neighboring Pakistan, five men believed to be al-Qaida members were arrested after a high-speed car chase that began when a pedestrian was run down on a remote road, witnesses and Interior Ministry officials said Thursday.
The five unidentified men, reportedly wearing women's burqas as a disguise, were speeding toward an area controlled by local tribes to seek refuge when they were detained Wednesday night outside Daoud Khel in western Punjab province.
Police and a Pakistani intelligence official in Lahore said the detained men included one Saudi, one Yemeni and at least one Pakistani.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops were supervising Afghan forces collecting weapons house to house in the southern town of Spinboldak, near the border with Pakistan. Marine demolitions teams exploded old warheads for surface-to-air missiles discovered at a Taliban air-defense site, Marine officials said at a daily briefing in Kandahar.
Before leaving in the afternoon en route to India, Powell told a joint news conference that Afghan funds frozen in the United States during the years of Taliban rule would be freed in coming days and that Washington would make "a significant contribution" at the Tokyo aid conference.
But President Bush said Wednesday that U.S assistance would not include troops taking part in an international peacekeeping force.
Afghanistan's coffers are emptied, drained by years of warfare and looted by the fleeing Taliban as their Islamic extremist regime crumbled in November before an onslaught of American bombs supporting the rival northern alliance, which forms the core of the new government.
United Nations officials have said that Afghanistan needs millions of dollars immediately to pay the salaries of civil servants - currently eight months in arrears - whose efforts will be crucial to installing a stable administration and institutions.
Afghan officials have not said how much money they want, but World Bank President James Wolfensohn on Tuesday said that rebuilding the country will cost $15 billion over the next 10 years.
Karzai emphasized that Afghanistan needs more than money.
"The Afghan people have been asking for a staying commitment, a staying partnership, from the United States to Afghanistan in order to make the region safe, in order to make Afghanistan stand back on its own feet and continue to fight against terrorism or the return of terrorism in any form to this country," Karzai said.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's special envoy on Afghan assistance, Sadako Ogata, said Japan should lead the way in rebuilding the country.
Japan is reportedly considering about $500 million for Afghanistan, but officials declined to confirm the figure Thursday. Donor countries are expected to chip in up to $5 billion for the first 21/2 years of reconstruction. The United States has pledged $400 million for the first year, and Congress is considering offering more.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday that searches of more than 40 sites used by al-Qaida yielded documents, diagrams and material that showed "an appetite for weapons of mass destruction." But it did not appear al-Qaida had succeeded in making such weapons before the U.S.-led military campaign began in October.
 World Fact Book (CIA]
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