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Afghanistan aid set for $1 billion boost
From Elise Labott
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration is expected to announce in coming weeks a major increase in aid to Afghanistan in an effort to boost reconstruction in the country. "There is a renewed focus and a ... renewed energy and hopefully new resources that we're going to try to put on the Afghan project," the administration's coordinator for Afghanistan, William Taylor, told reporters recently. "What we're trying to do is focus attention, people, energy, resources on Afghanistan, and we're looking for ways to do that." A senior administration official said the additional funding would be about $1 billion over the current $900 million being spent this year by the United States for reconstruction. Rather than go to Congress for a budget supplemental, the official said the administration would scrape up the funding from various arms of the U.S. government. Taylor said the renewed effort is urgent because the United States wants to demonstrate significant progress with reconstruction before Afghanistan holds national elections next year. "We really are eager to move these projects forward quickly," Taylor said. "We really want to have these projects, these programs, these schools, these clinics, these roads built in a hurry so that again the people of Afghanistan can see that the international community does come through on its commitments to [President Hamid Karzai's] government." The Bush administration has not publicly endorsed Karzai as the next president, but the United States has gone to great lengths to support his interim government. Taylor said the United States backed Karzai's efforts to enforce the constitution, including forcing warlord governors in the provinces outside the capital of Kabul to send revenue to the central government rather than spend funds on reconstruction for their regions. "He recognizes that there are a lot of revenues being collected by, in particular, about four of these governors around the country, and these revenues are being collected but aren't being sent back to the central government," Taylor said. "Reconstruction work is fine. However, it's with stolen money, and so a lot of these cities, in particular Herat, [are] getting the benefits of this money, these resources, and other provinces aren't." Taylor said, "Unless the warlord governors obey Karzai, they're in for a rocky road, and some of these governors and some of these local commanders may well face a rocky road and changes" -- a sentiment echoed by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage while in the region last month. "If President Karzai decides that he needs to, for reasons that he understands and perceives, to replace a local commander, a local governor, then we support President Karzai," Taylor said. The Bush administration has begun to send Provisional Reconstruction Teams throughout the country. According to Taylor, the goal is for the teams to serve as a permanent military presence in eight major cities, covering the main areas of Afghanistan, and to help with reconstruction and provide more security and greater confidence in the country. Depending on the region, the teams range in size from between 50 to 100 members, and each has a combat, military civilian affairs and U.S. Agency for International Development/State Department component. Taylor said the United States also is looking at providing advisers to help support the ministries in Kabul so that they can better provide services and absorb additional resources. "Some of these ministers, while well-meaning and basically honest, are hampered in their ability to take advantage of the international assistance coming in by a lack of people who are able to implement programs," Taylor said, noting that some of them have no previous experience in government. U.S. advisers also could work in outside provinces, trying to improve the capacity of governors and ministers to provide services such as health care, education or road building and maintenance, Taylor said. He said a main priority of the administration is to finish paving a highway between Kabul and Kandahar by the end of the year. The 310-mile-long highway would ease travel through the country and open up commercial routes, he said.
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