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Christiane Amanpour: Afghanistan looking for jump start
(CNN) -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in Afghanistan on Sunday, where he met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and promised to boost economic aid to the country. Rumsfeld also spoke of the need for Afghans to take control over their own security. CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour recently returned from Afghanistan and she spoke Sunday from London with CNN anchor Sean Callebs about the challenges still facing the country. CALLEBS: Karzai's government has made it clear he would have liked to have seen the security force move from outside [the Afghan capital] Kabul to the outlying areas where the government, its troops, forces and the U.S. have been fighting and dealing with warlords for the past two years. AMANPOUR: I think it's important to be clear, despite what Secretary Rumsfeld said, he obviously knows the administration has pledged to keep in some 9,000 American forces who are there in what's known as Operation Enduring Freedom, and they are the ones who are out in the lands, mostly in the east and south, fighting off remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Taliban is now regrouping, and in the weeks that we were there, and it's continued now, have been the bloodiest, most violent weeks in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban two years ago. So in effect, what Secretary Rumsfeld is saying is that yes, security should be in the hands of the Afghan forces eventually. That's all well and good. But unfortunately, because of a lack of money, a lack of effort, a lack of commitment, personnel, perhaps -- and also the structures in Afghanistan, building up the indigenous security forces -- the army there has gone much, much slower than predicted. To be very frank, Secretary Rumsfeld and the Bush administration know that they now need to act with increasing urgency to rescue what started as a success in Afghanistan from the jaws of potential failure. Because with the resurgence of the Taliban, rumors of al Qaeda, with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden still on the run, there is an increasingly violent challenge to the American forces there and the American-backed government.
So the U.S. Is going to be infusing an emergency $1 billion of aid to try to head off disaster, or as they call it -- accelerate success. But they need to do a lot to rebuild that army quicker and to do some visible reconstruction to give the people there some kind of confidence that the promises the Bush administration made, if you remember two years ago, to rebuild that country is, in fact going to be kept. Because right now, those promises are not being kept entirely. CALLEBS: Let's pick up on something else that Rumsfeld said today. He talked about a stronger central government, more financial aid coming in, more reconstruction to help unify this country. All these promises have to ring so familiar to President Karzai. He's heard this for such a long period of time. You spent a great deal of time with him. Is there frustration building? AMANPOUR: You know, President Karzai is a gentleman and in public extremely careful and polite. He knows America is his biggest benefactor and he's grateful, as he says, for anything that comes the way of he and the Afghan government. However, $4.5 billion was what the United States and the rest of the international community promised to rebuild Afghanistan back two years ago. The minimum that many external experts and, indeed, the Afghan president asked for was $15 billion to $20 billion. And that's not just a fantastical number. This country is not about being rebuilt, it's about being totally constructed, totally built -- the infrastructure, the ministries, the civil society, the whole thing is broken. And therefore, the whole thing needs to be built up. And Karzai and his ministers are getting increasingly concerned that unless they can deliver for the people that they are going to be made to pay the price. There's an election coming up in Afghanistan under the international constitution, under the Afghan constitution that was drafted after the Taliban fell, were toppled. America obviously wants to see Karzai back in power. He's democrat, he's moderate, he's forward leading, but they're going to have to do something to prop up his government, show the Afghan people that some reconstruction is taking place and improve security. CALLEBS: You talked about the bloody fighting that's been going on in recent weeks. Any concerns among the government there that because this funding, because reconstruction has been moving so slowly, that the situation is right for the Taliban to come into these outlying areas and really make inroads and lead to total chaos in that country? AMANPOUR: Well, that is a concern of the government. It's also a concern of some of the top-level American military officials we talked to there. They're basically saying, look, we're out here in these lands, we don't have much money or personnel to help us, if you like, spread our credibility around. We need to be able to do more than paint a couple of schools and shore up the walls on a couple of clinics. There's some really good work being done by American military civil affairs teams and lots of others -- what you call NGO's, international aid organizations. But these are all small scale. The Afghan people need to see roads being built all over the country. They need to see their economy have some kind of jump start. They need to see a proper health infrastructure. So America apparently seems to be getting this message, belatedly many people believe. They are putting in an extra $1 billion. It's by no means enough to do what needs to be done. But hopefully they'll be able to do a little bit of value ahead of those elections.
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