Monumental Meeting
Bush pledges support to Afghanistan
By Sandra Sobieraj
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Bush promised Afghan leader Hamid Karzai a “lasting partnership” including economic aid and training for a national military on Monday but turned aside a request for U.S. troops as part of a peacekeeping force. Americans will help build a new Afghanistan “free from terror, free from war and free from want,” Bush told Karzai as the tri-colored flag of the visitor flew in the White House Rose Garden for the first time in nearly four decades.

President Bush talks to reporters as Interim Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai looks on during a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House Monday.

The president said the United States would help train a national military and police force for the central Asian nation that has weathered Soviet invasion, warlords, the terrorist-harboring Taliban and, most recently, battering U.S. military strikes.

Bush was not receptive to Karzai’s interest in having U.S. forces remain in Afghanistan as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

Ruling out such a direct role, Bush said the United States will support the international security force and stands ready to help if its “troops get in trouble.”

“Better yet than peacekeepers ... let’s have Afghanistan have her own military,” Bush said.

He pledged a $50 million loan to help Afghanistan attract U.S. business investment and $3 million from the Labor Department to create jobs.

In their joint appearance under an unseasonably warm sun, Karzai thanked the United States for its help in driving the Taliban from power and defeating Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan.

Karzai said the goal of his impoverished country is to remain “a good partner” and never let terrorists re-infest Afghan lands.

“I assure you, Mr. President, that Afghanistan — with your help, and the help of other countries, friends — will be strong and will stand eventually on its own feet, and it will be a country that will defend its borders and not allow terrorism to return to it or bother it or trouble it,” Karzai said.

A business-suited delegation of 15 Afghan officials, including one woman, accompanied Karzai on his historic trip to the White House — the first visit to Washington by an Afghan leader since King Mohammad Zahir Shah was invited by President Kennedy in 1963.

A breeze played with the folds of the green, red and black Afghan flag standing near the Oval Office where Bush and Karzai met.

With a long, striped green robe draped over his sport coat, Karzai stood at Bush’s right arm and spoke easily in English.

The Afghan people know better than most the horror Americans suffered on Sept. 11, Karzai said.

“The Afghans have suffered exactly in the same way. We have sympathy. We know that pain.”

The Afghan leader was succinct — and curt — when a reporter asked about the failure to capture bin Laden so far. “We are looking for him. He’s a fugitive. If we find him, we’ll catch him. Thank you very much,” Karzai said, turning on his heel and ending the joint news conference.

Earlier, Karzai presided over a flag-raising ceremony at the Afghan Embassy, which was shuttered five years ago after the Taliban militia seized power in Afghanistan and the United States refused relations.

A world away from the rubble in his homeland, Karzai lunched with Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell in Cheney’s ceremonial office.

Karzai was also meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after attending a reception with Washington’s diplomatic community.

The business development loan comes on top of the $297 million first-year installment that Powell pledged last week for Afghanistan’s long-term development. Together, the United States, European Union, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and other donor nations pledged $4.5 billion to Afghanistan over five years.

On Monday, the White House released details of how the U.S. money will be spent.
The largest chunk, $84 million, will be given through the U.S. Agency for International Development to rehabilitate local agriculture and develop a public health system. Nearly $53 million will be spent resettling some of the millions of Afghan refugees who fled their homes in recent years. Some $7 million will go toward the removal of land mines.

The White House also aims to print and deliver 10 million science, reading and math textbooks in time for the start of the Afghan school year in March.

Karzai continues his Washington rounds on Tuesday, meeting with congressional leaders and appearing with first lady Laura Bush at the USAID offices. He is also expected to be at the first lady's side in the VIP gallery for the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

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