SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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2002
THE AFGHANISTAN FREEDOM SUPPORT ACT
OF 2002
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
MARCH 14, 2002
Serial No. 107–80
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
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COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
NICK SMITH, Michigan
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
DARRELL E. ISSA, California
ERIC CANTOR, Virginia
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JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BRIAN D. KERNS, Indiana
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
JIM DAVIS, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
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GRACE NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
HILLEL WEINBERG, Counsel
PETER D.R. SMITH, Professional Staff Member
MARILYN C. OWEN, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
The Honorable Andrew S. Natsios, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development
The Honorable Alan P. Larson, Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Henry J. Hyde, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, and Chairman, Committee on International Relations: Prepared statement
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The Honorable Joseph R. Pitts, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania: Prepared statement and Afghanistan Trip Report
The Honorable Andrew S. Natsios: Prepared statement
The Honorable Alan P. Larson: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, a Representative in Congress from the State of New York: Prepared statement
The Honorable Cynthia A. McKinney, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia: Prepared statement
The Honorable Darrell E. Issa, a Representative in Congress from the State of California: Prepared statement
THE AFGHANISTAN FREEDOM SUPPORT ACT OF 2002
THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2002
House of Representatives,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
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The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m. in Room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order.
Thank you for joining me to day at the meeting of the Committee. The purpose of today's hearing is to understand not only the current situation in Afghanistan, but also to hear from the Administration its current approach for managing the intricacies of U.S. assistance for Afghanistan in the months and surely in the years ahead.
The United States has an essential role to play in Afghanistan's recovery from its darkest period, misruled by the Taliban, and concurrent occupation of that country by the foreign terrorists who have reaped grave harm on American interests at home and abroad.
Our success or failure in establishing peace in Afghanistan may have profound implications for the U.S. national security in the years ahead.
We on the Committee recognize the importance of a strong American commitment to peace in Afghanistan. We also recognize that this commitment necessarily involves and will require over the next several years the expertise and support of many parts of our government, including components of our Federal Government that lacked previous experience working together in Washington or in the field.
Today, I would like to begin to understand how the Administration is organized to deal with present assistance challenges in Afghanistan, what are the Administration's objectives in Afghanistan, and whether the Administration has a coherent strategy and structure in place necessary to achieving those objectives.
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Severe drought and refugee crises will continue to affect the people of Afghanistan, at least through 2003. But there are other equally important priorities as well that are necessary for a secure and again prosperous Afghanistan.
Among them, we must be enable an indigenous Afghan force to police and protect the safety and dignity of Afghan people. We must help create durable institutions of government that are representative and accountable to the people. And we must continue to fight terrorism and drugs, two evils in particular that if not controlled will continue to plague South Asia and the world.
It is not an overstatement to say that the work we accomplish over the next 2 or 3 years in Afghanistan will have a direct impact on U.S. national security. The Taliban held Afghanistan hostage and played host to foreign forces who were bent on destroying liberty and freedom, the liberty and freedom of the Afghans as well as that of the rest of the civilized world. Unspeakable atrocities occurred daily during this dark reign in Afghanistan's history, atrocities against women and girls, against religious minorities, and those who resisted the Taliban's warped and twisted vision of Islam, and against the cultural and artistic antecedents of Afghanistan.
Only 6 short months have elapsed since September 11, and during this time President Bush has provided leadership and resolve. America and its allies have nearly eliminated every remaining foreign terrorist, having long since destroyed their ill-witted Taliban host. But the balance of our work remains ahead.
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On January 29, this Committee hosted in this room the Chairman of the Interim Government of Afghanistan, Hamad Karzai. That same evening he was a featured guest in the gallery during the President's State of the Union Address. As you all know, the new interim government is in place and Afghan leaders have agreed to a road map for recovery of institutions of representative government.
An international force is assisting in the maintenance of security in Kabul, and U.S. and allied Afghan forces are working side by side to eliminate remaining pockets of resistance. Reconstruction work is beginning with the U.S. providing assistance to Afghanistan's crumbled educational system and alleviating suffering by furnishing food, agricultural inputs, clean water, and medical assistance to those in need.
Following successful donor conferences in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo, the international community pledged unanimously to assist Afghanistan in again being a productive and peaceful nation in South Asia, and it is united in seeking to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a source of future instability and terror.
Yet despite the Kabul-based international security assistance force and separate coalition military successes to date, elsewhere in Afghanistan much of that country remains clouded in insecurity. Threats loom around the corner. Experts predict that this spring will see the largest poppy crop in recent history. Meanwhile drought in Afghanistan continues into its fourth year, and for millions of refugees in Pakistan and Iran life is difficult and dangerous, even too dangerous now to return to Afghanistan.
The factors that have historically created discord and disunity—ethnic differences, economic disparity, religion, language and geography—need to be addressed, not by imposing the rule of one party but by modernization of Afghanistan's structures informed by the traditional process of a just, compromised and devolved power that characterized Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion.
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Even prior to the September 11 attacks, the United States and other donors were assisting the Afghan people displaced within Afghanistan and as refugees in neighboring countries with emergency humanitarian and refugee assistance.
Through the Herculean efforts of the United States and other donors, through the good offices of the United Nation and the non-governmental community, and through the determination of the Afghan people themselves, wide-scale famine was averted, but the food security situation remains precarious throughout the country. Afghanistan will not be food secure for the foreseeable future, and will require not only traditional food aid from the U.S. and other donors, but technical assistance and large-scale civil works to rehabilitate its water management and agricultural systems for the day when the rains return.
One of the obvious problems in addressing this subject of the plethora of agencies and operations within the United States Government, each responsible for a portion of the overall program. The number and variety of these offices and agencies involved highlights one of the unsolved problems we must address—the lack of a central coordinating authority to provide direction to these agencies.
The last thing we need is in-fighting or confusion among various agencies, especially for an issue as important and urgent as this one.
I look forward to hearing from our two witnesses today: Administrator Andrew Natsios, and Under Secretary Alan Larson on the challenges ahead. I suspect, however, that the range of Afghanistan's needs extends beyond the economic, business and agricultural scope of Under Secretary Larson's portfolio, and also beyond the economic development and humanitarian assistance mandate of Administrator Natsios.
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The draft legislation we are considering establishes a significant, 4-year flexible fund for the purpose of dealing with the special situation we find in Afghanistan. It is our intention to free the Administration from the need to find funding in one of the many baskets into which our foreign assistance program is divided.
We welcome the observations of the Administration on this draft bill. I am prepared to work with the Administration and my colleagues to try to address any concerns they may have.
I now yield to the Ranking Member of the Committee on International Relations, Mr. Tom Lantos, for his comments.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Hyde follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HENRY J. HYDE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Thank you for joining me at today's meeting of the Committee on International Relations.
The purpose of today's hearing is to understand not only the current situation in Afghanistan, but also to hear from the Administration its current approach for managing the intricacies of U.S. assistance for Afghanistan in the months and years ahead.
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The United States has an essential role to play in Afghanistan's recovery from its darkest period—misrule by the Taliban and concurrent occupation of that country by foreign terrorists who have wreaked grave harm on American interests at home and abroad. Our success or failure in establishing peace in Afghanistan may have profound implications for U.S. national security in the years ahead.
We on the Committee recognize the importance of a strong American commitment to peace in Afghanistan. We also recognize that this commitment necessarily involves—and will require over the next several years—the expertise and support of many parts of our Government—including components of our federal government that lack previous experience working together in Washington or in the field. Today, I would like to begin to understand:
How the Administration is organized to deal with present assistance challenges in Afghanistan;
What are the Administration's objectives in Afghanistan; and
Whether the Administration has a coherent strategy and structure in place necessary to achieving those objectives.
Severe drought and refugee crises will continue to affect the people of Afghanistan at least through 2003. But there are other equally important priorities as well that are necessary for a secure and again-prosperous Afghanistan. Among them:
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We must enable an indigenous Afghan force to police and protect the safety and dignity of Afghan people;
We must help create durable institutions of government that are representative and accountable to the people; and
We must continue to fight terrorism and drugs—two evils in particular that if not controlled will continue to plague South Asia and the world.
It is not an overstatement to say that the work we accomplish over the next two or three years in Afghanistan will have a direct impact on U.S. national security.
The Taliban held Afghanistan hostage and played host to foreign forces who were bent on destroying liberty and freedom—the liberty and freedom of the Afghans as well as that of theoutside rest of the civilized world. Unspeakable atrocities occurred daily during this dark reign in Afghanistan's history. Atrocities against women and girls, against religious minorities and those who resisted the Taliban's warped and twisted vision of Islam, and against the cultural and artistic antecedents of Afghanistan.
Only six short months have elapsed since September 11th, and during this time, President Bush has provided leadership and resolve. America and its allies have nearly eliminated every remaining foreign terrorist, having long since destroyed their ill-witted Taliban hosts. But the balance of our work remains ahead.
On January 29, this Committee hosted, in this room, the leaderChairman of the interim government of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. That same evening, he was a featured guest in the Gallery during the President's State of the Union address. As you all know, the new interim government is in place, and Afghan leaders have agreed to a roadmap for recovery of institutions of representative government. An international force is assisting in the maintenance of security in Kabul, and U.S. and allied Afghan forces are working side-by-side to eliminate remaining pockets of resistance. Reconstruction work is beginning, with the U.S. providing assistance to Afghanistan's crumbled educational system and alleviating suffering by furnishing food, agricultural inputs, clean water and medical assistance to those in need.
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Following successful donor conferences in Washington, Brussels, and Tokyo, the international community pledged unanimously to assist Afghanistan in again being a productive and peaceful nation in South Asia, and it is united in seeking to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a source of future instability and terror.
Yet despite the Kabul-based Iinternational sSecurity aAssistance fForce and separate coalition military successes to date elsewhere in Afghanistan, much of that country remains clouded in insecurity. Threats loom around the corner—experts predict that this Spring will see the largest poppy crop in recent history. Meanwhile, drought in Afghanistan continues into its fourth year. And for millions of refugees in Pakistan and Iran, life is difficult and dangerous, even too dangerous now to return to Afghanistan.
The factors that have historically created discord and disunity in Afghanistan—ethnic differences, economic disparity, religion, language, and geography—need to be addressed not by imposing the rule of one party but by a modernization of Afghanistan's structures informed by the traditional processes of adjustment, compromise and devolved power that characterized Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion.
Even prior to the September 11th attacks, the United States and other donors were assisting the Afghan people—displaced within Afghanistan and as refugees in neighboring countries—with emergency humanitarian and refugee assistance. Through the Herculean efforts of the United States and other donors, through the good offices of the United Nations and the nongovernmental community, and through the determination of the Afghan people themselves, wide-scale famine was averted. But the food security situation remains precarious throughout the country.
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Afghanistan will not be food secure for the foreseeable future, and will require not only traditional food aid from the U.S. and other donors, but also technical assistance and large-scale civil works to rehabilitate its water management and agricultural systems for the day when the rains return.
One of the obvious problems in addressing this subject is the plethora of agencies and operations within the United States government, each responsible for a portion of the overall program. The number and variety of these offices and agencies involved highlights one of the unsolved problems we must address—the lack of a central coordinating authority to provide direction to these agencies. The last thing we need is infighting or confusion among various agencies, especially for an issue as important and urgent as this one.
I look forward to hearing from our two witnesses today—Administrator Andrew Natsios and Under Secretary Alan Larson—on the challenges ahead. I suspect, however, that the range of Afghanistan's needs extends beyond the economic, business and agricultural scope of Under Secretary Larson's portfolio, and also beyond the economic development and humanitarian assistance mandate of Administrator Natsios.
The bill before us establishes a significant, four-year, flexible fund for the purpose of dealing with the special situation we find in Afghanistan. It is our intention to free the Administration from the need to find funding in one of the many baskets into which our foreign assistance program is divided.
We welcome the observations of the Administration on this draft bill. I am prepared to work with the Administration and my colleagues to try to address any concerns they may have.
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Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me first thank you for calling today's hearing on reconstructing Afghanistan and for your leadership in putting forward legislation to help the Afghan society recover.
We are indeed fortunate at this particular junction in our nation's history to have your judgment and perspective as Chair of this Committee.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Chairman, as you know, I have recently concluded a visit to China, Japan, Germany, and France for the purpose of making it clear to the various governments and the media in those countries that the United States and Congress of the United States stands united behind the President's war against international terrorism. And I am convinced that we will be able to develop a united front with respect to aiding Afghanistan.
As we move on to the next steps in the war on terrorism, which we have to, it would be inexcusable if we failed to finish the job we have begun, bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan, and ending the use of that long-suffering nation as a base for international terrorism. We will not win the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Chairman, until we have won the peace.
As we meet today, warlords remain powerful in Afghanistan, women and children are starving, and some families sell their young to get a few days worth of food. It will take years, not months, for the international community to help Afghanistan's new leaders solve the horrendous problems they face.
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For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I was pleased to join our distinguished colleague, Mr. Ackerman, and other Members of this Committee in introducing legislation last December to authorize a comprehensive reconstruction plan for Afghanistan.
H.R. 3427 would authorize $1.4 billion in assistance over 4 years to improve the security situation in Afghanistan, upgrade the delivery of humanitarian services, lay the groundwork for Afghanistan's economic reconstruction, promote the participation of women in Afghan's society, and tackle the many critical human rights issues the country is plagued with.
While it certainly would not do all that is needed, it is an appropriate response from the United States, particularly given the costs we have already borne to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban. Certainly more is required of others in Europe, in Asia, and from the wealthy oil countries of the world.
Our legislation also tied our assistance to continuing the groundwork begun in Bonn for democracy and good government in Afghanistan.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, we are in the process of working with your staff closely to be able to agree on a legislative proposal which takes the best aspects of both of our bills, and I am confident we will reach that accommodation in the next few days.
As we draft this legislation, we must keep several principles in mind.
First, we must deal with the humanitarian and economic situation in Afghanistan immediately. If the people of Afghanistan have no hope, they will once again be dominated by warlords, drug traffickers and terrorists.
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Second, we must help provide security in Afghanistan both by helping the government to establish a military force to defend itself and by providing support for the interim peacekeeping force. Only the establishment of security will enable Afghanistan to eliminate terrorists and drug trafficking, and to reduce the interference in Afghanistan's affairs of its neighbors. And security, obviously, must reach way beyond Kabul. The present situation where the peacekeeping forces are in the Kabul area only is clearly unacceptable, and must be changed at as rapid a pace as possible.
Third, Mr. Chairman, we must help the people and government of Afghanistan to rebuild their societies by restoring or establishing the health, the education and agricultural sectors to empower civil society and promote democracy.
To achieve these objectives the United States and others must be willing to commit significant funds over the next decade for Afghanistan. We must insist that the Japanese, the Europeans, wealthy Arabs and Muslim nations continue to use their resources, and we ourselves must be willing to commit more than a billion dollars in reconstruction aid over the next several years.
Mr. Chairman, Afghanistan is proof positive of the need for the United States to remain actively engaged throughout the developing world with foreign aid, technology and education. Fifty years from now I hope that historians looking at the impact of September 11 on U.S. foreign policy will be able to say that fundamental reevaluation of our funding priorities and that a new Marshall Plan for the developing world was the result.
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Hopefully, Mr. Chairman, historians will be able to cite the Afghanistan reconstruction legislation that will be considered by this Committee as soon as next week as the first example of America's new vision of the world and of our responsibilities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.
We will entertain opening statements with the admonition that I hope you will be as brief as possible because we would like to get to our witnesses, but I would like to afford the opportunity to the Members to make an opening statement. And for any of you so considerate as to want your remarks to be included in the record in lieu of presenting them, it is so ordered.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gilman is recognized.
Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will abide by your admonition.
I want to thank you for holding this important hearing on the Afghan Freedom Support Act. I also want to welcome our distinguished witnesses here today, Administrator Natsios and Under Secretary Larson.
Afghanistan and the Afghan people are at a critical crossroads in their survival. Afghanistan has been torn apart by the deadly manipulative interference of its neighbors and its warring groups, tribes, drug lords. Drought and fighting has caused a humanitarian crisis, has left millions of Afghans with little hope and too much despair.
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The Afghanistan Freedom Support Act before us today attempts to help Afghan people and to help themselves. This measure offers a mix of security, of development, of humanitarian and anti-narcotics assistance that will help the Administration in its efforts to build a stable Afghanistan and a better future for the Afghan people.
Mr. Chairman, in just a few days the former King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, will be returning to Afghanistan to help bring together a Loya Jirga, a grand assembly. The King's return and the Loya Jirga are significant events for this Committee, both of which we can be proud of.
Prior to September 11, in this Committee room we passed several resolutions supporting the Loya Jirga and the King. We brought together in this Committee room all the major Afghan factions to assist in this effort. For many years Representative Rohrabacher has been at the forefront of that effort, and we commend him for his vision and tenacity.
This measure, the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act, will help to bring all of the good work to fruition, and I look forward to hearing our distinguished witnesses today with regard to this proposal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Berman?
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Mr. BERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Last week I returned from Afghanistan, and words cannot describe the destruction I saw in Kabul. Most buildings there are rubble, with the rest severely damaged.
I commend this Committee's efforts to shape how we go about helping Afghanistan rebuild. This is very much in our national interest, and I just wanted to say that despite the destruction I saw there I did come away with hope for the future.
Our delegation visited a hospital, a hospital where the Taliban had taken the incubators and had forbid the treatment of women. And outside that hospital little children would put their hands over their hearts, kids on the street, and say thank you. We visited a couple of orphanages, and in one of these orphanages a little girl 7 years old told me that she wanted to be a doctor when she completed her education, and that is why she was studying so hard, so that she could help her people. Her parents had both been killed by the Taliban. And the teacher showed me scars. The teachers, men and women, had been tortured by the Taliban for the sin of teaching these orphans, young boys and girls, or trying to teach them under that environment. So I understand how difficult this process of rebuilding that society is going to be.
I would like to report that Radio Free Afghanistan, which is a product of this Committee, is now up and running, and Chairman Karzai told us how these broadcasts mean so much to his country, because when he travels around to remote pockets of that country for the first time people know who he is because of the radio. He said tens of thousand of people mob him, whether it is a Shiite area or other area, and he said,
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''They know that I am leading the country, not the local warlord, and that is a big difference and they know that because of the radio.''
And so I do want to point out, Mr. Chairman, that although Radio Free Afghanistan is only authorized through fiscal year 2002, we need keep these broadcasts going so that accurate information gets to the people of Afghanistan, because this is a long struggle ahead for Chairman Karzai and for the people there. They need information. And as he said, it is going to take some time to disabuse people of what they heard from Taliban radio for so many years.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman.
Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for scheduling this hearing and for offering a proposal for reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan.
As was noted, Mr. Lantos and I offered a similar proposal last December, and I believe there is a great deal of commonality between the two of them, which would indicate that we are heading in the same direction.
It is important for the Congress to speak on the question of reconstruction because there are too many in the region who believe, as we have heard from Chairman Karzai last month, that the United States will abandon Afghanistan again when this war is over.
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An authorization bill that lays out the policy of the United States and articulates our long-term commitment to the region will go far in convincing the people of Afghanistan that we are there in peace as well as in war.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I think there are several issues that such a bill should address. Chief among them is the security situation on the ground. No level of assistance will be effective if aid workers cannot reach those in need.
As I believe we will hear from Administrator Natsios, the current security situation is unsuitable for rapid or sustainable change. I know that the Administration has pledged to help establish an Afghan army, and an Afghan police force, and I know that we believe that ultimately Afghans should provide their own security. But we have had mixed results at best with such efforts. Haiti is the example that springs to mind, and this is really a long-term solution.
There is an immediate need to deal with the situation in the near term, which is why we should support the expansion of the multinational force to bridge the gap between now and the time that Afghanistan national army or police force is ready to assume the role.
I do not believe that the security issue should be left to local commanders and warlords, which brings me to my next point.
There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the form of government the new Afghan nation should have, whether it should have a strong central government or whether it should be decentralized. I thought this was a question that the Bonn process set out to resolve. This is why there will be a Loya Jirga, a new constitution, and finally an election so that Afghans, men and women may choose.
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While I sympathize with those who argue that we cannot impose a strong central government on Afghanistan and that attempts to do so in the past have failed, we cannot simply allow authority to accrue to those local commanders who seem to be the most powerful.
Channeling our assistance through entities with ''practical authority'' is a recipe for plunging Afghanistan back into the conflict from which it has so recently emerged. It is also an invitation for Afghan's neighbors to decide who is the ''practical authority,'' try to choose favorites and to again interfere in Afghan politics.
We have already seen media reports of such a relationship in Herat between Ismail Khan and the government of Iran. Some balance must be found that allows a central government to project its authority sufficiently to conduct foreign and defense policy, and allows legitimate local leaders to run their own domestic affairs.
As we move forward with development assistance the question of narcotics must be addressed. There is currently a large, as you point out, even record crop of poppy about to be harvested in Afghanistan. This is a serious problem. But Afghanistan has a number of serious problems, and they all need to be addressed at once.
I think it would be a mistake to closely link our assistance to Afghanistan's counter-narcotics efforts, and an even bigger mistake to channel our assistance through those whomever we perceive to be in charge locally. That will simply empower the local commanders and give them the resources to challenge the government in Kabul.
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Chairman Karzai has pledged his support on poppy eradication and signed a decree banning its growth. We should work with him with UNDCP and with the Europeans, in whose markets most Afghan heroin winds up to deal with this problem, but it should not be the sole focus of our assistance efforts.
The last thing, Mr. Chairman, I want to address is the military assistance program in the proposal. I think that a new program to provide military assistance without restrictions to any country except those designated as terrorist states and with only 5 days notice to Congress addresses a problem that does not exist.
I agree that military assistance should be provided to Afghanistan to create a national standing army and a police force, and to support the multinational forces there. But other than the need to address some reimbursement and contracting issues, which the Department of Defense has raised, I do not see the requirement for us to cede to the President new unfettered authority to provide military assistance on a global basis. He does not seem to have any problem, for example, in the Philippines or in Georgia.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to working with you and with Mr. Lantos and others on this legislation and to hearing today's witnesses in the fervent hope that they might actually comment on the legislation pending before us.
Chairman HYDE. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Recently, several of us met with former King Zahir Shah. I think it is extremely important that a successful Loya Jirga be established and that the former King's leadership is very important. I would suggest that if we cannot address the selfish quest for power by the tribal leaders and local warlords, then our efforts and the world's efforts at humanitarian assistance, reconstruction assistance, promoting long-term economic development assistance and our efforts to counter the narcotic trade is going to in the long run be too little or no avail.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Mr. Payne.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will just say I am pleased that you have called this very important hearing, and in order to hear the witnesses I will forego making a statement for the record. Thank you.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you.
Mr. Pitts.
Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again for holding this important hearing on how we can further assist the people of Afghanistan as they rebuild their nation.
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On January 2 of this year, Congressman Frank Wolfe, Congressman Tony Hall, and I traveled to Afghanistan. We were greeted with warm, friendly smiles wherever we went from meetings with the interim administration officials to hospitals, to schools, to orphanages.
There is a hope in Afghanistan that the country will be different and new opportunities in life will emerge out of the terrible suffering that the Afghan people have endured.
Despite the clear hope, the trip was very sobering. The best children's hospital in the nation, in Kabul, lacked basic medicines and medical equipment to treat the children. In fact, two children and their mothers shared a bed—a little bunk bed—and many of the children in the malnutrition ward that we visited, they said one-in-three died each night. No hospital employees had been paid for 6 months, and yet the doctors and nurses worked valiantly to save the lives of the children in their care.
We visited a girls high school that had just reopened 1 week earlier after being shut down for 5 years. The concrete building was full of holes—bullet holes from the Soviet times. One room had no roof, and no rooms had glass in the windows. The girls sat on blankets on the concrete or dirt floor because there were no desks, no chairs, and no textbooks. Yet, the students were so motivated to learn that they had raised money from their meager earnings to buy plastic to cover the window holes, and pay daily for the kerosene to have some heat to keep out the biting cold. The girls greeted us with big smiles and chants of welcome. They were delighted, they said, to be back in school. Teachers needed to be rehired. Eighty percent of the teachers were women. The government needs assistance with providing basic supplies such as paper and pens and chalk and books.
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We visited an orphanage, 900 children in their care, and there are tens of thousands of orphans. Many of the children were obviously suffering from malnutrition and trauma from the violence in the war and the loss of their families. But they gave us huge smiles. They recited, they sang for us, and they welcomed us.
There is an almost overwhelming humanitarian crisis that continues today for food, medicine, and shelter, and yet they have hope, hope that the American people will cement their friendship with the Afghan people by remaining engaged in their country through various avenues. They repeated this over and over: Do not abandon us like you did after the Russians.
The United States and the international community must continue to support Chairman Karzai and the administration in Kabul, as well as the administration's clarifying to the various region of Afghanistan that Federal authority rests in Kabul. In addition, it is vital that the international community ensure that the Bonn Agreement is fully implemented and culminates with the Loya Jirga to be held on June 22 of this year.
Humanitarian aid must continue. The UN world food program, the United States and the other NGOs serving the people there are doing a great job, but the need remains high. U.S. assistance must be deliberate. Security is the primary need, and was mentioned in every meeting and every site visit we had. Unless there is security, no amount of effort will ensure that the new government leaders can implement the very necessary changes in the country. The economy must be developed, primarily through developing the agricultural sector of society.
Prior to 1979 and the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was self-sufficient. It even exported agricultural products to neighboring countries. Studies show that before 1979, 80 percent of the society was in farming. The skills are there, but the opportunity needs to be developed. Unfortunately, the 4-year drought in the country has drastically affected the output of farms, the ability of animal herders to keep animals alive.
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Irrigation assistance and drought assistance need to be constructed and provided as soon as possible, and development of the agricultural sector with alternative crops is a necessary avenue in fighting against narcotic production. Development of the education system is a primary need. An overwhelming portion of the population has been affected by the lack of access to education.
So it is vital that our nation continue to give support to the Afghan people, to the administration led by Chairman Karzai.
And I would like to submit my statement and trip report for the record, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOSEPH R. PITTS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing on legislation detailing how we can further assist the people of Afghanistan as they rebuild their nation.
In January of this year, Congressman Frank Wolf, Congressman Tony Hall, and I traveled to Afghanistan. We were greeted with warm, friendly smiles wherever we went, from meetings with Interim Administration officials to hospitals, schools and orphanages. There is a hope in Afghanistan that the country will be different and new opportunities and life will emerge out of the terrible suffering the Afghan people have endured.
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Despite the clear hope, the trip was very sobering. The best children's hospital in the nation, the Indira Ghandi Pediatric Hospital, lacked basic medicines and medical equipment to treat the children, in fact, two children and their mothers shared each bed, one of three children in the malnutrition ward died each night, and no hospital employees have been paid for six months. Yet, the doctors and nurses worked valiantly to save the lives of the children in their care.
We visited a girls school, the Dorkhanai High School, that had re-opened one week earlier after being shut down for over five years. The concrete building was full of bullet holes from the Soviet invasion, one room had no roof, and no rooms had glass in the windows. The girls sat on blankets on the concrete or dirt floor as there were no desks or chairs. Yet, the students were so motivated to learn, they raised the money from the meager earnings of their families to buy thick plastic to cover the window holes and pay for kerosene heat to keep out some of the biting cold in the schoolrooms. The girls greeted us with big smiles and chants of ''Welcome, welcome.'' They were delighted to be back in school. Teachers need to be re-hired (80% of the teachers were women), and the government needs assistance with providing basic supplies such as paper, pens, chalk and books.
The Allauddin Center Orphanage has 900 children in their care—800 boys and 100 girls. The children, many obviously suffering from malnutrition and trauma from the violence of the war and the loss of their loved ones, gave us huge smiles and recited and sang for us.
There is an almost overwhelming humanitarian crisis that continues today. Food, medicine and shelter are lacking for much of the country's population. Yet, there is hope—hope that the American people will cement their friendship with the Afghan people by remaining engaged in their country through various avenues.
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The United States and the international community must continue to support Chairman Karzai and the Interim Administration in Kabul as well as the Administration's clarifying to the various regions of Afghanistan that federal authority rests in Kabul. In addition, it is vital that the international community ensure that the Bonn Agreement is fully implemented and culminated in the Loya Jirga to be held on June 22, 2002.
Humanitarian Aid must continue. The UN World Food Programme and US and other NGOs serving the people there are doing a great job. But the need remains high.
U.S. assistance must be deliberate. Security is the primary need, and was mentioned in every meeting and site visit we had. Unless there is security, no amount of effort will ensure that the new government leaders can implement the very necessary changes in the country. Second, the economy must be developed, primarily through developing the agricultural sector of society. Prior to the 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was self-sufficient and even exported agricultural products to neighboring countries. Studies show that before 1979, 80% of the society was in farming. The skills are there, but the opportunity needs to be developed. Unfortunately, the four-year drought in the country has drastically affected the output of farms and the ability of animal herders to keep animals alive. Irrigation systems and drought assistance need to be constructed and provided as soon as possible. In addition, development of the agricultural sector with alternative crops is a proactive avenue of fighting against narcotics production.
Development of the education system is one of the primary needs. An overwhelming portion of the population has been affected by lack of access to education. As reflected in our visit to the girls' school, the people have a desire to pursue an education as they view this as the primary avenue for bettering their lives
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It is vital that our nation continue to give support to the Afghan people and to the Interim Administration led by Chairman Hamid Karzai.
I would like to submit my Trip Report for the Record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
AFGHANISTAN TRIP REPORT—JANUARY 2002
Mr. Speaker, I recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan with Congressman Frank Wolf (VA) and Congressman Tony Hall (OH). We were greeted with warm, friendly smiles wherever we went, from meetings with Interim Administration officials to hospitals, schools and orphanages. There is a hope in Afghanistan that the country will be different and new opportunities and life will emerge out of the terrible suffering the Afghan people have endured.
The visit was a highlight, but it was also sobering. The best children's hospital in the nation, the Indira Ghandi Pediatric Hospital, lacked basic medicines to treat the children, two children and their mothers shared each bed, one of three children in the malnutrition ward died each night, there is a lack of basic medical equipment, and no hospital employees have been paid for six months. Yet, the doctors and nurses worked valiantly to save the lives of the children in their care.
We visited a girls school, the Dorkhanai High School, that had re-opened one week earlier after being shut down for over five years. The concrete building was full of bullet holes from the Soviet invasion, one room had no roof, and no rooms had glass in the windows. The girls sat on blankets on the concrete or dirt floor as there were no desks or chairs. Yet, the students were so motivated to learn they raised the money from the meager earnings of their families to buy thick plastic to cover the window holes and pay for kerosene heat to keep out some of the biting cold in the schoolrooms. The girls greeted us with big smiles and chants of ''Welcome, welcome.'' They were delighted to be back in school. Teachers need to be re-hired (80% of the teachers were women), and the government needs assistance with providing basic supplies such as paper, pens, chalk and books.
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The Allauddin Center Orphanage has 900 children in their care—800 boys and 100 girls. The children, many obviously suffering from malnutrition and trauma from the violence of the war and the loss of their loved ones, gave us huge smiles and recited and sang for us. A delegation of firefighters from New York City had visited recently and donated enough food for the children for the next three months, but after that, it will again be a struggle to feed these young children. The firefighters also provided warm blankets for these children who, in the winter due to lack of adequate heating facilities, sleep three to a bed with three rooms of children crowding into one room—this way they can all be in rooms in which there are heat sources.
We also visited a women's bakery with the United Nations World Food Program Women's Bakery Project that has been vital in helping women, particularly widows, support and feed their families. During our visit, we learned that one woman had been a doctor at the hospital, but she left to work at the bakery so that she could earn money to actually support her family.
There is an almost overwhelming humanitarian crisis that continues today. Food, medicine and shelter are lacking for much of the country's population. Yet, there is hope—hope that the American people will cement their friendship with the Afghan people by remaining engaged in their country through various avenues. Government aid to Afghanistan is vital, but people to people diplomacy, sister relationships between schools and hospitals in the U.S. partnering with schools and hospitals in Afghanistan, will be invaluable in helping to rebuild the nation and the historic friendship between our nations.
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Our meetings with government officials also gave us hope. The Chairman of the Interim Administration, H.E. Hamid Karzai, is an impressive, capable, straightforward man who has the capacity to lead his country to establish a coalition that will last through the historic transitions the nation is experiencing. The Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) in June will mark a key transition for the people of Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai appears to be the one who can lead the people through that transition.
In response to our visit, there are several key points that must be addressed as our nation, government and people remain engaged with the people of Afghanistan:
1. The United States and the international community must continue to support Chairman Karzai and the Interim Administration in Kabul as well as the Administration's clarifying to the various regions of Afghanistan that federal authority rests in Kabul. In addition, it is vital that the international community ensure that the Bonn Agreement is fully implemented and culminated in the Loya Jirga to held on June 22, 2002. The Loya Jirga is the traditionally accepted Afghan method of solving problems and reaching consensus. We must continue our support for the new government, otherwise lack of stability could create the opportunity for another pre-September 11 environment of factional fighting, violence and upheaval, and a central power vaccum that would have severe implications for our national security.
2. Humanitarian Aid must continue. The UN World Food Programme and US and other NGOs serving the people there are doing a great job. But the need remains high. The UN estimated that they would be feeding 8 million people within Afghanistan, not to mention refugees in neighboring countries, in the next three months to help avert an even greater crisis. Food aid is needed, as is medical and educational assistance. People to people diplomacy can be conducted through Chairman Karzai's office in Kabul.
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3. U.S. assistance must be deliberate. Security is the primary need, mentioned in every meeting and site visit we had. Unless there is security, no amount of effort will ensure that the new government leaders can implement the very necessary changes in the country. Second, the economy must be developed, primarily through developing the agricultural sector of society. Prior to the 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was self-sufficient and even exported agricultural products to neighboring countries. Studies show that before 1979, 80% of the society was in farming. The skills are there, but the opportunity needs to be developed. Unfortunately, the four-year drought in the country has drastically affected the output of farms and the ability of animal herders to keep animals alive. Irrigation systems and drought assistance need to be constructed and provided as soon as possible. In addition, development of the agricultural sector with alternative crops is a proactive avenue of fighting against narcotics production. Third, development of the education system is one of the primary needs. An overwhelming portion of the population has been affected by lack of access to education. As reflected in our visit to the girls' school, the people have a desire to pursue an education as they view this as the primary avenue for bettering their lives. Studies from around the world support this: the development of educational systems changes nations. The Afghan people may lack the basic materials for education, but not the desire to learn.
Mr. Speaker, there are tremendous needs in Afghanistan, but there also is a tremendous amount of hope and an expectation that this time will be different. I look forward to visiting Afghanistan in the future and seeing these hopes and expectations lived out. As Chairman Hamid Karzai said during our meeting together, ''Think of the help as help to our children. The families will do well if the children do well.'' As we look forward to the hopes and expectations of a new Afghanistan, I will be working with the generous people of Pennsylvania and others across this nation to extend a hand of friendship, partnership and care through practical projects that will help build up the Afghan people.
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Chairman HYDE. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Brown.
Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Lantos, for calling this hearing.
I would like to reenforce the importance of health programs, as Mr. Pitts mentioned, and development strategies. In addition to the other tragedies, the people of Afghanistan are also threatened by the global killer, tuberculosis. Afghanistan ranks near the top of countries most ravaged by TB due to decades of war and restrictions by the Taliban, and the 401 foreign development assistance efforts to control TB have been severely limited. Few statistics on TB situation are available. Reports from various non-governmental organizations working in Afghanistan prior to September 11 note that TB control efforts then were reaching only 15 percent of the Afghani population, primarily around Kabul.
The World Health Organization estimates that from 2001 to 2004 approximately $3 million will be needed per year to control TB in Afghanistan. We must address the TB epidemic if we are to help Afghanistan rebuild.
Studies suggest that on average 3 to 4 months of work time are lost as a result of TB. This results in average lost potential earnings of 20 to 30 percent of annual household income. For the families of those who die from the disease the situation is obviously worse. For those families there is a further loss of roughly, in the average, 15 years of income because of the premature death often of the breadwinner who died from tuberculosis.
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Increased U.S. support is urgently needed for TB control programs in Afghanistan, and for treating Afghan refugees in Pakistan. This should include both increased U.S. bilateral aid for TB as well as U.S. resources for the global TB drug facility to be able to provide low cost TB programs, not just to Afghanistan but to Pakistan and to other nations.
Drugs to treat TB cost in the developing world only about $10, and treating TB is one of the most effective ways to extend the life of a person with AIDS from just a few weeks to at least a year, often as long as 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years.
The drugs and the program support for TB are inexpensive. We just need to make sure they are part of America's aid package for Afghanistan and a centerpiece for international health efforts.
The President's fiscal year 2003 budget request proposes, amazingly enough, to cut funding for infectious disease account in the Child Survival Act, especially TB and malaria, by nearly a third, to a level of 110 million in fiscal year 2003, from 155 million to 110 million. It is absolutely the wrong time to cut funding programs in global health. At the same time, the President wants to cut taxes, mostly for the most privileged people in this society, and then failing the world's poorest people, and that is outrageous.
If our goal is to help stabilize Afghanistan, we must help that nation overcome diseases like TB that kills its primary breadwinners and orphans its children. We must adopt a comprehensive development strategy and funding to combat global illnesses must be a part of that strategy.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Mr. Issa.
Mr. ISSA. No comment, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Mrs. Davis? Mr. Sherman?
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to echo Mr. Lantos' comments on the importance of burden sharing, and echo the comments of Mr. Royce, who along with Mr. Berman has shown such leadership regarding Radio Free Afghanistan. We ought to be expanding as well as reauthorizing that project, and trying also in our broadcasts in the Farsi and Baluchi languages to reach Iran with the truth about world affairs.
Aid is the right thing to do for the world's poorest and most downtrodden people. Here though it is also important for our own national security, first as to narcotics which, while overshadowed perhaps in the press today, continues to ravage our streets, but we should not use the fact that poppies are being grown in Afghanistan as a reason to do less for Afghanistan. It is actually a reason to do more. We should do everything necessary to help that country get back on its feet, plus do everything necessary to make sure that farmers can get a high price for their legitimate crops such that along with poppy eradication efforts they decide that it is both reasonable and in their own interest to cultivate other crops.
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It is also important for our national security because world public opinion is an important part of our national security, and this battle against terrorism is not a clash of civilizations, but rather the United States has been a generous and courageous ally of Islamic peoples.
In war, we have been courageous and we have saved the Bosniaks, the Kosavars, the Kuwaitis, and now the Afghans. And now we can demonstrate that in peace we are also good allies of Islamic peoples. In doing so, we not only meet our moral responsibilities as a well-to-do-nation, and as the world's only superpower, but we also enhance our own security in ways perhaps far more significant than some expensive programs put forward as national defense programs.
Thank you.
Chairman HYDE. Mr. Blumenauer.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the Committee leadership that you and Mr. Lantos have developed in terms of looking at the big picture.
I think you are right on the money in terms of asking about the level of assistance, and as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, the mix of assistance that is provided.
I am concerned about some of the areas where we do not have the right mix of actions. Now, it is not to say that I have not been hanging on every single word of the opening statements, but I have had a chance to glance at the two statements that we are about to receive, and there is virtually nothing that is stated about what we are going to do in terms of urban redevelopment.
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We are approaching the point in the next couple of years where the majority of the world's population for the first time in human history is in the cities. We have a vast expanse, not just in Afghanistan, which is one of the greatest examples and one of the most urgent and pressing, but we have a vast expanse from Cairo to Manila, and many, many cities in between that are cauldrons of unrest, where there is significant, unnecessary loss of human life.
My colleague, Mr. Brown, referenced the health needs in terms of tuberculosis. We have the equivalent of four World Trade Center tragedies every day from needless deaths caused by water-borne diseases, and it is within our power to do something about it with our urban program, which we have discussed in this Committee with Secretary Powell in the past. For the urban aid program that we have, we spend the equivalent of three cruise missiles.
I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that as we go back and forth in terms of seeking information from our witnesses, I hope we can focus on what we are going to do to rebuild and stabilize these troubled urban areas in Afghanistan, throughout the Middle East, and in the developing world, which are going to take on two and a half billion more residents in the next 25 years.
And I appreciate the leadership, Mr. Chairman, of you and Mr. Lantos in looking at the big picture, and I hope our Committee can focus on this one element where a little bit of investment can go a long way.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you.
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Mr. Schiff.
Mr. SCHIFF. I am going to pass, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Schiff.
We welcome first today Andrew S. Natsios, who was sworn in as Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development in May 2001. USAID is the Government agency that administers economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide.
Administrator Natsios has served the agency for many years prior to becoming Administrator, first as Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, and then as Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Food and Humanitarian Assistance.
We look forward to hearing your statement today, Mr. Administrator.
Our second witness will be Alan P. Larson, who is Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs at the Department of State. He assumed his duties in November 1999, and continues to serve as the senior economic official, advising the secretary on international economic policy and leading the work of the department on issues ranging from trade, aviation to bilateral relations with America's economic partners.
Ambassador Larson has been a career public servant with the Department of State, serving at a high level in a number of endeavors involving economic and business affairs and international energy, energy policy, and resources.
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We welcome both of our witnesses today. We ask that you summarize your statements to try to hold them within the 5-minute frame. Your full statements will be made a part of the record.
And although my letter of invitation suggested you speak to the draft bill that you received last Friday evening, your statements do not address that. I understand you are prepared to discuss that orally today, and so we invite your comments, Ambassador Natsios.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANDREW S. NATSIOS, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. NATSIOS. Thank you, Chairman Hyde, Congressman Lantos, Members of the Committee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today.
Afghanistan has been a major priority for our agency and for the Administration for many months, even before the terrorist attack. As the Chairman indicated, it was in the spring of 2001 that we began action to deal with the problems of Afghanistan.
I would like to thank the Committee for the outstanding support it has shown for us thus far, for the cooperation that we are certain we can count on in the future.
On Monday, President Bush hosted a White House ceremony to mark the 6-month anniversary of the September 11th attacks. And he noted tremendous difficulties at hand. Faced with the difficult challenges ahead he averted mass starvation, began clearing land—mine fills and building roads and improving health care. USAID has had a major role in all of this. Today we are not only supplying emergency food assistance and other humanitarian relief, but we are also investing $167 million in recovery reconstruction made available for this fiscal year.
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We are also putting Afghans back to work rebuilding roads and irrigation systems, building schools and hospitals in immunizing children, providing seeds for the next crop.
We are now printing 9.7 million textbooks. I have some here. I am certainly willing to pass them out. We will have four million of these textbooks printed by next week for the opening of school. The first shipment of these books will arrive in the regional capitals beginning on Friday of this week. We will print four million now, and the rest will be printed for later distribution.
We are also retraining women teachers. A large portion of the workforce in the schools are women. This is one way for the reintroduction of women in a systematic fashion back into leadership positions in Afghan society.
Another one of our quick impact projects has been for the refurbishment of the Ministry of Women's Affairs run by Dr. Sima Samar, who is the Vice Chairman of the interim authority.
We have four major priorities. The first is humanitarian assistance and assisting the return of refugees and internally displaced peoples; secondly, the reestablishment of food security; third, creating the conditions for stability, providing alternatives to conflict, terrorism and drug trafficking; and fourth, to assist the Afghan interim authority which is critical for political stability in the country.
The drought, which is now in its 4th year, has put severe stress on the entire society. In fact, no Afghan I have met, and I have been there twice now in the last 4 months, has any memory of a drought lasting this long. Many people in the villages say they do not know what they will do next.
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With one more year of a drought of this magnitude, whole areas of the country will be completely uninhabitable because there will be no water left, even in the deep wells.
The livestock production base has been almost entirely destroyed in large parts of the country. It is a nomadic culture, a rural culture. Eighty percent of the people in Afghanistan live in rural areas. This means unless the situation changes dramatically we will have to continue the emergency food aid and humanitarian programs for the foreseeable future.
First, our first priority is to move people back to their villages, if it is possible, if there is enough water, so that we can bring people back from the camps. In the long-term, camps are not a desirable thing to have, whether for refugees or internally displaced people.
Our second objective is to focus on food security. Food security is three things: It is production of sufficient food through the agricultural system for people to eat; it is the production of enough jobs in the economy so people have enough money to buy food in the markets if they cannot grow it themselves; and people must have good health in order to absorb the food. If for example they have tuberculosis, you can feed them all you want, they will not get better if they are malnourished. TB and malnutrition are intimately related to each other. In fact, that is why they call it consumption. And so you have to restore health in order to get food security restored.
The third objective is in the area of counteracting conflict, terrorism and drug trafficking. We have six focuses in this. One is crop substitution. We will be doing a $3 million crop substitution program beginning next week, in the Helmand Valley in the south, which is one of the principal poppy growing areas.
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Second, we will begin physical infrastructure to create jobs to draw people away from poppy production.
Third, we need access to credit so people can grow legitimate crops. We need to get the kids back in the schools, off the streets, particularly girl children who have been basically isolated in Afghan society for 5 years now. We need to rebuild local institutions to help regain legitimate local elders and village authorities and move away from the warlords.
And, finally, we need food assistance as a salary supplement for Afghan civil servants, especially for teachers, and we have agreed to do that. We will be providing a salary supplement in the form of food aid to provide assistance in the form of a salary to Afghan civil servants.
Our fourth and final goal is to support the interim authority, because if the interim authority fails and there is political instability, the rest of our effort will fail. We must have security and political stability in order to reconstruction the country.
Peace is a prerequisite for progress. We must reintroduce women back into the mainstream of society. They were there before Taliban. They have a long tradition of women's leadership in many areas of the country long before Taliban came on the scene.
Afghanistan has to be reconstructed by the Afghans. We can help them do that. We can support them in doing that, but they have to take the leadership or this will not work. We need to build on Afghan capabilities, and finally, we need to address the needs of those who have not had access to schools and training in order to get a workforce of trained and skilled people to govern the country.
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As Secretary Powell said of Afghanistan earlier this year, President Bush, the Congress and the American people recognize fully that rebuilding that war-torn country will require additional resources and that our support will be multi-year effort.
We have opened a USAID mission in January. It will remain open for some time, for years. We do not open missions for 6 months or a year or 2. We are there for the long term.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Natsios follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANDREW S. NATSIOS, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Chairman Hyde, Congressman Lantos, Members of the Committee: I am very pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today and have the chance to discuss what the U.S. Agency for International Development is doing with respect to Afghanistan.
As you can well imagine, Afghanistan has been a major priority for our agency and for the Administration for many months, and it is likely to continue that way for a long time to come. I would like to thank this Committee, therefore, for the outstanding support it has shown us thus far and for the cooperation that I am certain we can count on in the future.
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Afghanistan presents one of the most difficult humanitarian and development challenges USAID has ever faced. The Afghans are a remarkably resilient people, but the stress of the past 22 years has taken a tremendous toll on people's lives. About half the country lives in absolute poverty. Average life expectancy is 46 years. Malnutrition is widespread. The child mortality rate is among the highest in the world. About a third of the Afghan people are still dependent on external food aid. Individual security is uncertain. Unemployment is running at about 50 percent, and 70 percent of the people are illiterate. Virtually all the country's institutions and much of its infrastructure have been destroyed.
Most of this was apparent when I became USAID Administrator last spring and cited Afghanistan as one of the three countries in the world with the greatest humanitarian needs. By then, three years of drought, more than two decades of war, and the Taliban's appalling misrule had raised the specter of impending famine. Already the world's leading supplier of emergency food assistance to the Afghan people, we stepped up our efforts as the summer progressed.
The events of September 11 only added to the challenge—and redoubled our determination to help the Afghan people. Throughout the fall, and in the midst of the campaign to remove the Taliban, we continued to work with the World Food Program, and other international and local NGOs, to deliver food and humanitarian assistance. Despite the difficulties and the approach of winter, by December we had surpassed our goals and delivered several hundred thousand metric tons of food, an unprecedented amount given the circumstances. Although pockets of hunger remain, the widespread famine we feared has not occurred.
Altogether, the U.S. Government spent more than $183 million on humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan in FY 2001. We have already surpassed that in the first six months of this fiscal year, with overall U.S. Government assistance totaling more than $239 million thus far. Of that, $83.9 million has come from USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, $75 million from our Food for Peace program, and $14.2 million from our Office of Transition Initiatives.
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On Monday, President Bush hosted a White House ceremony to mark the six-month anniversary of the September 11th attacks. At it he noted both the tremendous difficulties Afghanistan has posed, and the success our assistance has helped make possible. ''Afghanistan,'' he said, ''has many difficult challenges ahead—and yet, we've averted mass starvation, begun clearing mine fields, rebuilding roads and improving health care.''
USAID has played a major role in all this. Today, we are not only supplying emergency food assistance but also investing $167 million in recovery and reconstruction assistance made available this fiscal year. We are also putting Afghans back to work rebuilding roads and irrigation systems, repairing schools and hospitals, immunizing children, and providing seed so that farmers can plant their crops this spring.
We are also printing 9.7 million textbooks, four million of which will be ready for the opening of Afghanistan's schools nine days from now. We are re-training women teachers so that they can return to their classrooms now that the Taliban has been removed. Another of our quick-impact programs has paid for the refurbishment of the Ministry of Women's Affairs. That the work was completed for International Women's Day—March 8—has served, I think, as both a symbol and a concrete demonstration of our commitment to Afghan women.
By funding a series of quick-impact programs and designing USAID's Afghan strategy so that our emergency assistance contributes directly to our longer-term development goals, we are gaining months of precious time.
Our near-term priorities are clear. For the present, we have four specific goals in support of the war against terrorists of global reach and the U.S. policy of assisting Afghanistan:
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Providing humanitarian assistance and assisting returned refugees and internally displaced persons;
Re-establishing food security;
Creating conditions for stability, providing alternatives to conflict, terrorism and drug trafficking; and
Assisting the Afghan Interim Authority.
Let me explain in more detail. Unfortunately, the drought that has plagued Afghanistan for four years is still under way. That means that unless the situation changes dramatically—and soon—we must continue our major emergency food aid and humanitarian assistance programs.
Stability and recovery in Afghanistan will be difficult until people can return to their homes and resume normal lives. So along with providing emergency humanitarian assistance, assisting refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) to resettle where conditions allow is our first goal. Life in these camps is seldom safe or healthy, despite the efforts of the international community to provide for them. As we have seen in many countries, the poverty and powerlessness of the people who live in these camps make them tempting targets for many kinds of lawless groups.
Second, we must focus our attention on re-establishing food security as quickly as possible. This means ensuring that food production is increased, that people have the family income to buy food, and that they are sufficiently healthy to benefit from it.
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In order to do this, we will emphasize Afghanistan's agriculture and infrastructure. Our immediate focus is on critical inputs: seeds, tools, and fertilizer for this spring's planting season. We also need to rebuild irrigation systems and rural feeder roads, plant new trees and orchards, extend farmers credit, and create viable alternatives to poppy cultivation.
Much of this we have already begun to do. Since September we have launched many small cash-for-work, food-for-work, and seed-for-work projects.
In order for people to be able to purchase food—instead of receiving it as a handout—we need to help restore Afghanistan's economy. To do this we will emphasize local reconstruction programs that generate jobs.
This, too, we have already begun. Since December, we have funded several different food-for-work programs that employ Afghans throughout the country on water supply, irrigation, road repair and seed distribution projects. Altogether we now have nine food-for-work projects under way, at a cost of approximately $2.3 million.
Most of those who die in famines or near famine situations succumb not to starvation, but disease. While, as has been noted above, wide-scale famine has been averted, there are plenty of Afghans who are undernourished and vulnerable to disease. Our goal, therefore, is to ensure that children, in particular, receive enough food and vitamins, and that they get immunized and treated for various diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections. We are also looking to provide pre- and post-natal care for mothers, build community wells and latrines, and improve overall hygiene and sanitation practices.
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Again, we did not wait for peace to begin our development relief. Since December, we have supported a wide range of basic health activities. This includes training, providing vaccines and vitamins to children, and establishing emergency obstetric care centers.
Our third goal is to create conditions for stability and provide alternatives to conflict, terrorism and drug trafficking.
To do this, we plan to emphasize several elements in our programs in addition to rehabilitating the agricultural sector:
crop substitution to reduce poppy growing;
physical infrastructure rehabilitation;
access to credit;
education, especially for girls;
establishing and strengthening local institutions for accountable government; and
food assistance as salary supplements for Afghan civil servants, especially teachers.
Reopening schools, supplying textbooks and training teachers can make an important contribution to Afghanistan's stability. For the first time in years, girls will have the opportunity to attend school and obtain the education they deserve. This is true for many boys, as well. Attending school helps restore a sense of normalcy to children's lives; it gets them off the streets and back into established routines, enhancing security in the process. Further, as two-thirds of Afghanistan's teachers have traditionally been women, reopening the schools will return thousands of these women to the workforce, with all the economic benefits that this entails for themselves and their families.
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Similarly, restoring Afghanistan's agricultural sector has multiple benefits. Historically, 80 percent of the population depends on farming and grazing. Revitalizing this sector not only will reduce dependency on international food assistance, but give employment to former combatants, help stabilize the security environment, and spur the economy.
Our fourth goal is improving the governing capacity of Afghanistan's Interim Authority and its successors. In the short term, this means providing support to the Interim Authority and the Transitional Government expected to be in place later this year. Over time, it will entail many different programs and areas of emphasis. Among these are good governance and rule of law; re-establishing functioning markets and improving the investment climate, especially in agriculture; private sector development; agricultural research and training programs; basic education; and improving the health sector.
We have few illusions that rebuilding Afghanistan will be a quick or easy job. Still, we can greatly improve our chances for success if we recognize and abide by the following ideas and principles:
Peace is a prerequisite for progress. The pace of reconstruction naturally depends on the extent to which the country's factions, regions, and ethnic groups cooperate. Under the current security conditions, no one should expect our efforts to produce rapid and tangible change or to continue indefinitely if civil war or chaos break out.
The role of women in the recovery and reconstruction effort will be critical. Before the Taliban, Afghan women occupied important positions in the country's economic, social and cultural affairs, and we will support their efforts to do so again.
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Afghan ownership is essential. To ensure success and sustainability, our programs must have the support of the Afghan people and build on their traditions and practices. At the same time, they must take ethnic balance into consideration.
Build upon existing Afghan capability. Afghans have a strong tradition of self-reliance. Programming should reinforce their traditions of community responsibility, support local NGOs, use Afghan technical experts, and encourage the return of Afghan expatriates to the country.
Encourage the return of refugees and IDPs.
Address the needs of those who have not had access to school and training. A generation of young Afghans have grown up in an atmosphere of violence and conflict. Many who took up arms lost the opportunity to attend school or receive training. As a result, many lack skills that are transferable to civilian life. Addressing the needs of these individuals will be an important priority.
At the Tokyo donor's conference this January, Secretary of State Powell pledged $297 million on behalf of the U.S. Government to help the Afghan people. Of that, USAID is managing $167 million in Fiscal Year 2002. We have programmed this as follows: $77 million in humanitarian food assistance; $22 million in other emergency supplies; $38 million for agricultural and rural economic development; $9.7 million in health care; $6.5 million for education; and $13.5 million for good governance and political stabilization programs. Another $2.7 million will fund the War Victims Fund, polio eradication and other programs. Altogether, we have already obligated $104 million of this $167 million.
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As Secretary Powell said of Afghanistan earlier this year: ''President Bush, the Congress, and the American people recognize fully that rebuilding that war-torn country will require additional resources and that our support will be a multi-year effort.''
We expect this. We are aware that our goals for Afghanistan are ambitious and that even under better circumstances it would be hard to guarantee success. But however difficult the reconstruction of the country proves to be, there is one thing I can guarantee you, Mr. Chairman: we at USAID are committed to doing our very best for Afghanistan.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ALAN P. LARSON, UNDER SECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC, BUSINESS AND AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for organizing this hearing on a matter that we all consider to be an important national priority, the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
It is clear from the statements Committee Members have made this morning that the Committee and the Administration share a determination that we can and we must get this right. We cannot allow Afghanistan to slip back to what it had become in the past, a crucible for terrorists and a haven for drug traffickers.
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I have outlined in my written statement many of the issues that the Administration believes will be critical to our success, as well as the steps that we are taking to achieve our objectives. As I outlined in my written testimony, this is going to be an immensely difficult task. It is going to require that we pull together our work on a number of different strands, and simultaneously address security, political, humanitarian, reconstruction and recovery needs of this country.
It is also going to require that we have close internal coordination at home, as well as close international collaboration with major donors and international institutions, including the UN system, the World Bank and other multilateral development banks.
I can report that while the task is immense, the response of the international community today demonstrates a strong shared sense of commitment: A commitment to support a broadly representative government in Kabul; a commitment to using our resources to strengthen the interim authority so that a once-failed state can become a viable nation and a stable partner; a commitment to creating a society that offers opportunities for all of its citizens, including its women and children; and a commitment to supporting the declared and explicit objective of the Afghan interim authority that Afghanistan should not become a center for terrorism or drug trafficking.
On the burden sharing issue that has been raised already, I would just like to highlight that at the Tokyo Donors Conference we were able to elicit $1.8 billion in pledges for the first year of this effort, and $4.2 billion of pledges for assistance in the years to come.
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We have many tasks ahead of us, and I have touched on those in my testimony. One of the most important and one that many Members have addressed already this morning is the pressing need of security. We do need to eradicate the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. We need to ensure that ISAF has the ability to carry out its mission, and we need to help Afghanistan develop a professional multi-ethnic army. We also need to be helping in the construction of a strong professional police force.
We also must tend to immediate issues on the civilian side. We have to help build the capacity of the Afghan interim authority and of its successors to function effectively as a government. This includes some very basic issues like having places to work, as well as critical issues like developing and sticking with an operating budget for the country.
We are addressing many of these issues through our bilateral assistance programs which Administrator Natsios has just outlined. I want to reenforce his emphasis on the need for quick tangible improvements through quick hitting projects.
Mr. Chairman, the Administration and the Congress do share the same goals, objectives and priorities in our support for Afghanistan, and it is in this spirit that we are reviewing very intensively and very seriously the legislation that you and your colleagues have put forward. It is obvious to me that we agree on the need to address the humanitarian crisis, to build a representative government, to enhance the role of women, to fight narcotics production and trafficking, to support reconstruction particularly in the agricultural sector, the education sector and the health sector, and this is exactly what we are trying to do.
At the same time, I think we are all aware of the fact that the situation in Afghanistan is extremely fluid, and it is in that spirit that I say that any earmarks or ceilings or floors or measures that would restrict the authority of the President and Secretary of State to respond to fast-breaking developments would be a source of concern because they could make our response to this fast changing situation less effective.
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Mr. Chairman, we recognize also that this is a task that is going to require the best efforts of the United States and of all of our partners. We are pleased that we have forged a strong cooperation with the European Union, Japan and Saudi Arabia, who served with us a Co-Chairs of the Afghanistan Reconstruction Steering Group, as well as with other donors throughout the world. We welcome the very strong role of the United Nations in this effort, as well as the World Bank and other international organizations. And we have been very impressed with the strong positions that Chairman Karzai has taken on reconstruction issues. Working with the Congress, we intend to maintain this strong coalition in support of reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Larson follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ALAN P. LARSON, UNDER SECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC, BUSINESS AND AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Committee, it is my privilege to appear before you to discuss our assistance efforts in Afghanistan.
Many members of Congress have visited Afghanistan in recent months and have seen first hand the country's daunting challenges: a fledgling, fragile, and fractious government, surrounded by independent warlords, in a country prostrate after more than two decades of war.
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The long years of conflict destroyed Afghanistan's physical and political infrastructure, shattered its institutions, and wrecked its socio-economic fabric. Many, if not most, of the talented and educated left. What little industry the country had was mostly destroyed. The little it exported was mostly narcotics. Many parts of the countryside are heavily mined. This devastation was brought about by conflict but exacerbated by a severe and prolonged drought, now in its fourth year.
The Taliban intensified the anguish of Afghans. They pursued policies that victimized their own people, especially women and girls and ethnic minorities. They made no effort to provide health, education, and other social services. Instead, they devoted their resources to waging war on the Afghan people, and exporting instability to their neighbors. They welcomed terrorists and provided them with safe haven and support with tragic results.
As a result of the economic and political devastation of the country, Afghanistan is among the least developed countries in the world by any criteria. Average life expectancy in Afghanistan has been reduced to 46 years; according to the World Health Organization, the infant mortality rate at birth is 152 per 1,000 births; the mortality rate for children under 5 is 257 per 1,000.
It is not surprising that such an environment became the crucible in which terrorists found safe haven and drug traffickers flourished.
With the downfall of the Taliban, the challenge the United States and the international community face is to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a threat to its own people, its neighbors, or to civilized society. We want to see an Afghanistan that is a responsible member of the world community and never again a hub for terrorists and drug traffickers that threaten our security. We would like to see an Afghanistan in which its people are able to express their voice within a representative political system and the government respects human rights, especially of the most vulnerable—women and minorities.
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The Administration is working with its partners in the international community to help Afghanistan make this transition from a failed state to a stable one. Such an approach requires that we address simultaneously and weave together all strands of public policy that make for a stable society—political, military, security, economic, reconstruction, and humanitarian. Lack of progress on any one of these elements will make it harder to achieve our objectives on the others. We would like the international community to help Afghanistan fashion a virtuous circle in which political stability leads to a secure environment, which allows economic activity and reconstruction to flourish, which creates income and employment, which alleviates the humanitarian crisis of the people, which creates a constituency for greater political stability.
Mr. Chairman, we believe the Congress and the Administration share the same goals, objectives, and priorities on support for Afghanistan. The Congress and the Administration agree on the need to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and to support programs that build representative institutions, enhance the role of women in society, fight narcotics production and trafficking, build AIA capacity, and support reconstruction, especially in the agriculture, education, and health sectors. This is exactly what we are trying to do.
DOMESTIC POLITICAL SITUATION
The ouster of the Taliban and the establishment through the Bonn Agreement of a broad-based interim government has created an opportunity to break with Afghanistan's recent history. It will not be an easy task and there will be disappointments along the way. The situation remains fragile and volatile. There have been clashes in the North and Southeast; there are reports of anti-Pashtun violence in the North; the Afghanistan Interim Authority must still establish its authority in many parts of the country; the recent killing of the Minister of Aviation at Kabul International Airport was of particular concern.
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Nevertheless, the domestic political situation is moving in the right direction. The AIA and the UN have begun a process which will lead towards a constitutional government that respects all ethnic and religious minorities, that values its women and girls, and that does not harbor terrorists and drug traffickers.
The Loya Jirga is set for late May or early June. A 21-member organizing committee, which includes 3 women, was announced last month. The committee has begun public meetings to establish the procedures for the Loya Jirga. The USG supports this process fully. We are in discussions with Afghan leaders and the UN on how to ensure broad participation of all ethnic groups, geographic regions, religions, and women. We are ready to assist the AIA and the UN in any way we can, including with logistical help for participants.
ISAF
For recovery and reconstruction to proceed rapidly, it is essential that the immediate security environment be enhanced. ISAF, under UK lead, is fully operational with 4,400 troops on the ground from 18 countries. Joint patrols with Afghan police are proceeding well. Streets in Kabul are free of armed groups, but crime at night remains a problem.
A robust and credible international military presence in Kabul has been key to stability of the Karzai government. Continued ISAF presence is required during the run-up to the Loya Jirga and through the end of the year.
Although an ISAF fund has been established by the UN, no donor has contributed to date, and ISAF is currently self-financing. It is conceivable, however, that at some point we would be asked to contribute to this fund to support ISAF operations.
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AFGHAN MILITARY
The development of a credible Afghan army is the key to long-run security in Afghanistan, and, as such, an important component of Afghanistan's future stability and economic recovery. It is, therefore, a high USG priority. A CENTCOM assessment team visited Kabul last month and is now in the process of preparing its report and making recommendations. President Bush has pledged U.S. support for the development of Afghanistan's security forces. We are encouraging the international community to assist with the large amount of resources needed for demobilization, training, and professionalization of the military. We have stressed to the AIA that it needs to focus on a modest force configuration, with a broad-based ethnic mix. ISAF is currently training a battalion to provide static security for the government in Kabul. CENTCOM is poised to begin training additional battalions.
Regular and reliable payment of Afghan military salaries—both to those currently under arms and to those that will form a new national army—is important. Failure to provide for regular military salary payments would enhance the threat of civil disorder and endanger efforts to build a new Afghan national army.
The AIA has a limited capacity to pay military salaries due to donor funding constraints and a lack of internal resources. To ensure the AIA has the ability to establish an effective new Afghan army, an appropriate, reliable way must be found to pay the salaries of military personnel of that army.
POLICE
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Ensuring the domestic stability needed for long-term recovery requires as well a professional police force. The AIA has indicated its intention to develop a national police force, and Germany has agreed to take the lead on organizing international police assistance to the Afghan authorities. The United States recently sent a team to Kabul to assess the state of the police and examine from the US perspective what assistance we can best provide in coordination with the Germans and other donors.
RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION
The administration views reconstruction of Afghanistan as a continuation of our campaign against terrorism. Our military campaign is succeeding. These successes can be fully consolidated only if the international community, working with Afghan authorities, supports a recovery and reconstruction plan that stabilizes Afghanistan and help prevent it from again becoming a haven for terrorists and drug traffickers.
Our commitment to assist the people of Afghanistan has been long-standing and firm. Even before September 11, we were by far the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to Afghans; in FY 2001, we provided $183 million in aid. Thus far in FY 2002 we have given $240 million. The U.S. channels the majority of its humanitarian assistance through U.N. agencies, such as the World Food Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. We also work directly with several large non-governmental organizations.
Our first priority has been the stabilization of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, famine in Afghanistan has been averted, in large part due to the heavy infusion of U.S. food aid.
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While we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance, we have begun to implement recovery and reconstruction programs with a focus on quick impact, employment-generating projects. Our reconstruction focus in Afghanistan will be on agriculture and rural development, demining, education, and health care.
THE INTERNATIONAL EFFORT
The United States took the lead in focusing the international community's attention on Afghanistan's reconstruction needs. We knew we could not and should not do this alone and immediately set about finding partners.
As co-host with Japan of the November 2001 Senior-Level Afghanistan Reconstruction Conference in Washington, we kicked off the planning effort for Afghanistan's recovery by inviting the major donor countries. At that time, the EU and Saudi Arabia agreed to join us as co-chairs of a Steering Group that would help coordinate international engagement in Afghanistan. Together, in a series of almost daily conference calls linking officials in Washington, Riyadh, Tokyo, Brussels, and later Madrid (once Spain assumed the EU Presidency), as well as during a planning meeting in Brussels in December, we worked out plans for the January Afghanistan Conference on Reconstruction Assistance in Tokyo. We also encouraged the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Asian Development Bank to prepare an urgent needs assessment.
This exhaustive preparation was critical. We were gratified at the success of the Tokyo conference, in large part due to excellent cooperation and coordination among the co-chairs. The $1.8 billion in first year pledges exceeded our expectations. It exceeded needs assessment estimates of the UNDP, World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Multi-year pledges totaled $4.5 billion.
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In Tokyo, the United States pledged $297 million for the first year of the reconstruction effort. This pledge represents previously appropriated and authorized funds. We intend to continue to make substantial contributions in future years.
The international community also formalized an organizational plan for implementing Afghanistan's reconstruction. The conference established a Steering Group consisting of the 62 countries that met in Tokyo, with the United States, Japan, the European Union, and Saudi Arabia as co-chairs to provide policy guidance for the reconstruction effort. An Implementation Group, with the AIA as Chair and the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the Afghan Support Group, and the United Nations Development Program as co-chairs, was to coordinate the implementation of reconstruction on the ground. The Afghan Support Group remained responsible for coordination of humanitarian assistance.
We continue to collaborate closely with our Steering Group co-chairs to monitor the reconstruction response and to develop ideas to address problems, including through regular conference calls involving multiple agencies from all the co-chair governments. We also work with the international financial institutions, the development banks, the United Nations. These organizations have played a key role in providing us with detailed assessments of Afghanistan's needs and will be key players in successfully addressing those needs. Afghan reconstruction is truly an exercise of global scope.
KEY RECONSTRUCTION ISSUES
Although the Tokyo conference was a good beginning to the reconstruction effort, many obstacles remain as we go forward. The AIA, the Administration, and the other Steering Group co-chairs have been concerned that reconstruction is not moving fast enough. There are inherent limitations, however, on the speed with which assistance programs can be implemented, such as:
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The uncertain security situation in many parts of the country is a major obstacle to the delivery of reconstruction assistance.
We need to enhance the capacity of Afghanistan and the AIA to absorb the reconstruction effort. We are actively exploring with the UN and other international partners ways of strengthening the AIA's administrative and bureaucratic capacity.
It is essential resources be used in an accountable and transparent manner. Secretary Powell raised this issue with Chairman Karzai in Kabul, and he made a clear commitment that it was one of his priorities too. Nonetheless, we will remain vigilant and establish monitoring systems to guard against waste and malfeasance.
I would also like to make some additional observations regarding our assistance programs in Afghanistan:
The United States and other Steering Group co-chairs agree that we need to make sure the reconstruction effort is used to politically strengthen the AIA and its legitimate successor, and advance the Bonn process. Assistance for regions and provinces and local communities should be used as a carrot to influence them to support the AIA and the Bonn process.
Counternarcotics must be an important part of our assistance in Afghanistan. We will work with the UN, bilaterally, and with other donor countries to strengthen counternarcotics efforts, which will include alternative crop assistance.
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The bulk of U.S. assistance in Afghanistan is through USAID. About $200 million in USAID programs are currently being implemented or will be implemented in the next few weeks. Mr. Natsios will provide you more detail on these programs, but let me say that our focus is on projects that are visible and create immediate employment and generate incomes.
Return of displaced Afghans, whether they be in neighboring countries or within Afghanistan, will be an important gauge of progress, and will require significant international assistance. The State Department's refugee account is prepared to support the reintegration of those refugees and displaced persons who choose to return home this year, and to assist communities in absorbing returnees back into their populations.
It is vitally important that our efforts be coordinated with the AIA, the UN, and other donor countries and organizations to avoid duplication and gaps. To date our coordination has been exemplary.
Looking ahead, we will come to the Congress for additional funding for Afghanistan. The process of establishing an effective and broad-based central government, managing a credible political process, enhancing the security situation, implementing counterterrorism and counternarcotics programs, demobilizing tens of thousands of troops, and supporting a return to economic stability is going to require significant resources.
Some recent reports suggest that the drought in Afghanistan continues to be severe. As a result, the humanitarian assistance effort will continue longer than had been expected, and this may slow down the pace at which recovery can move forward.
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NARCOTICS
Working with the international community, the United States will offer strong support for Afghanistan's policy to ban opium cultivation, processing and trafficking. We are concerned at initial reports that Afghan farmers have planted a substantial crop of opium poppy, which will mature for harvest in April and May. Unless action is taken in the next few months, Afghanistan is poised once again to become the world's leading producer of illicit opiates.
We are working actively with our G–8 partners to develop diplomatic and operational strategies to counter the Spring 2002 opium harvest in Afghanistan. We are working with the international community through the UNDCP to encourage the AIA to make eradication of the spring opium crop one of their top priorities, and to develop an effective counternarcotics capability within the AIA. At the same time, we are working with the AIA on developing employment generation projects in poppy growing areas, and on funding alternative crop and farmer input programs in poppy growing areas. A difficult security situation and the absence of effective law enforcement in the rural areas are complicating our efforts.
BUILDING AIA CAPACITY
Much of what we hope to see happen in Afghanistan depends on the AIA and its successors being able to establish effective government. Yet reports from the field indicate AIA lacks the capacity at this time to engage fully with the international donor community on the reconstruction effort. It lacks equipment (e.g., phones, computers, pencils, paper), well-trained people, and technical assistance.
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We are working with our reconstruction partners, particularly the Afghan Reconstruction Steering Group co-chairs, to address this gap. We have asked UNDP to reorganize the activities of their Fund for start up and recurrent costs. UNDP has focused on paying civil service salaries; we have urged them to shift some resources to capacity building.
In addition, USAID has begun planning a mission to assess Afghan Ministerial capacity needs. This mission should give us a well defined idea of what the ministries need so we can gauge and plan the appropriate response. The study will also help us focus other donors on this issue, and help us generate resources from them. We will continue to work with the UN and the AIA to explore innovative ways of strengthening the AIA's capacity.
AIA OPERATING NEEDS
Another key issue is the short-term operating needs of the AIA. Before it fled Kabul and other cities, the Taliban looted the central bank vault, leaving no funds for AIA operations. As noted, government ministries had to start operations without even the most rudimentary supplies and equipment.
Donors established a trust fund in the UNDP to assist with the short term operating needs of the AIA. To date donors have pledged about $37 million, and provided about $27 million to this trust fund. This money has been spent primarily for the salaries of civil servants. SRSG Brahimi has asked donors to increase the funding to $50 million. We have provided $4 million for this trust fund and have urged others to donate generously.
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On a separate track, the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury have worked aggressively to unblock over $240 million in gold and cash of the Afghan Central Bank at U.S. financial institutions. While the bulk of the unblocked Afghan deposits will likely remain in the U.S. as reserves (e.g., $195 million in gold), about $47 million in cash is available for the AIA to access and use now. We have spoken at length with AIA officials, and together we have developed procedures allowing access while ensuring that only the appropriate AIA officials can withdraw funds. The Afghan Central Bank also has considerable assets in other countries. We have worked with governments holding assets and the AIA to ensure those funds are unblocked as soon as possible. We have helped AIA receive its escrow overflight fees from IATA.
INTERNAL COORDINATION
An effort as ambitious and complicated as Afghan reconstruction requires remarkably intensive coordination internationally and at home. The connections between the various levels of this enterprise—the security, humanitarian and developmental—cut across traditional bureaucratic lines. This requires people in a number of different parts of the US government—the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, USAID, the NSC and others—to talk frequently to make sure we're all pointed in the same direction and that our plans, actions and words reinforce one another. The Secretary has named Ambassador James Dobbins as the coordinator to ensure this coherence.
We have established a number of mechanisms to manage this constant dialogue. The interagency Policy Coordinating Committee on Development that I chair has a subgroup on Afghanistan chaired by our Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs that has met frequently—sometimes two or three times a week—since November. Officials on the security side have held daily secure video conferences in which we often discuss the relationship between security, reconstruction and humanitarian assistance. As a result, the interagency coordination has been close to ideal.
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STATUS OF EMBASSY
Obviously, our success will depend critically on our presence on the ground. Our embassy resumed operations in December. Charge d'Affaires Ryan Crocker is leading our mission in Kabul. The Secretary visited our dedicated, enthusiastic staff in Kabul on January 17. Our staff is operating in very difficult conditions but we are doing everything possible to improve those conditions quickly. Many of your colleagues in Congress have visited Kabul and have seen first hand the difficult circumstances under which our Embassy personnel are operating.
Currently, we have a relatively small number of State Department personnel in Kabul, which we expect to increase by about 40% by summer's end. We have purchased modular housing units to accommodate our personnel and are planning chancery rehabilitation projects. We would, of course, be happy to provide, in a closed session or non-public report, any further details the Committee wishes to receive on a number of personnel and the housing and security arrangements for them.
It goes without saying that our Embassy remains on the highest possible security alert in this critical threat environment. The 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade provides security for the chancery.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, in closing, I want to say that the recovery and reconstruction of the country is an important Administration priority. The State Department and other U.S. agencies are working hard to achieve the President's goals in Afghanistan. Thank you.
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Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Under Secretary.
Before recognizing the Members for questions, I just want to say this is a perfect example of complicated and important legislation that we make a major effort, and a successful effort, in joining with the Democratic Members of the Committee and their staff because we understand and appreciate the need for bipartisanship on especially important foreign policy issues.
That is not to say there are not disagreements and controversies, but I have never served on a Committee that has been more interested on both the Democratic and Republican side in reaching agreement on important legislation, because that is really the only way anything will get passed and get into law, and that is what we are here for.
So I just want to pat ourselves on the back in a bipartisan way because it is very helpful. This legislation is important in that regard.
And now, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Larson, do you see any significant restriction or earmarks in the Chairman's bill?
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Gilman, we are studying this very carefully, and we will be getting back with a full response to the various proposals in the bill.
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What I wanted to highlight in my brief remarks about flexibility was the fact that this is an extraordinarily fluid and complex situation, and I have noticed that so many of the Members who visited Afghanistan commented about this as well.
So I am not commenting on any specific provision, but just wishing to underscore the need for flexibility of response as we move forward in this effort.
Mr. GILMAN. Well, we certainly want to make certain there will be flexibility. We hope you will get back to us at an early date with your proposals.
To both of our witnesses, what exactly are you planning to do to address the issues of the impending harvest of an opium crop in southern Afghanistan, as well as the impending selling of the summer crop in the northern areas?
The Afghan government apparently does not have much jurisdiction in the south at this time. Are you prepared to work with the de facto authorities in the opium growing areas or are we going to wait until the Afghan interim authority has extended its full authority to those areas?
Mr. NATSIOS. I can talk about the USAID strategy for dealing with this.
We have learned a lot of lessons over the last 20 years, what works and what does not work. One thing you do need on the ground is order. If you do not have some degree of security on the ground, it is very difficult to run an anti-narcotics program in terms of the agricultural sector.
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Mr. GILMAN. Well, Mr. Natsios, who will be in charge of coordinating our assistance in that direction?
Mr. NATSIOS. There is a UN agency that has some competence in this area which is setting up shop in Kabul. We have been having discussions with them at the field level about coordinating our anti-poppy activities with the Europeans who have a bigger interest, in fact, than we in that most of the heroin does not go the United States—it goes to Russia and western Europe.
It is a serious problem. If you read Ahmed Rashid's book called The Taliban, a good friend of mine, he notes that in 1990 there were 30,000 heroin addicts in Iran, 50,000 in Iraq—50,000 in Pakistan. There are now three million. In 10 years, three million addicts in Pakistan. It is catastrophic.
I mentioned this to Chairman Karzai because I visited with him several times, once in Kabul, once here. I went on the plane with him when he came to Washington. He said it is also a very serious problem, heroin addiction, within Afghanistan itself. It has to be addressed.
Mr. GILMAN. Well, because of that importance, who will be in charge out there in the field?
Mr. NATSIOS. We cannot just do this alone. We need to do this internationally or we will be working at cross-purposes with other donors, and so we are relying on the UN coordination function that is being set up now to help us work together with the other donors.
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Mr. GILMAN. Who in the U.S. will be responsible?
Mr. NATSIOS. The State Department.
Mr. LARSON. Yes.
Mr. GILMAN. Who?
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Beers in the State Department is our coordinator on narcotics matters, and if I could just complement what Mr. Natsios said about what we have been doing.
We are in very, very active discussions with the UN system and with a couple of key donors on immediate measures that we could take to address the crop in the ground. We are pleased that Chairman Karzai has not only made his pronouncement about banning poppy cultivation, but he and his administration have been in discussions with regional authorities about the importance of addressing this issue.
The sorts of measures that we are considering are measures that would provide incentives to farmers to rip out this crop on their own, and we are prepared, Mr. Gilman, to come up and brief you and other Members of the Committee on this emerging plan as we are able to develop it further.
Mr. GILMAN. Is there any reason why the DEA is not part of this planning and coordinating?
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Mr. LARSON. I am certainly open to considering any approach that works. But I think that what we want to do is make sure that we can operate through and with the assistance of the UN system, which has the presence on the ground that can help make these sort of efforts work.
As Mr. Natsios has said and others have commented, we have to work within the security situation, and that makes it difficult to get to some of the regions where this poppy cultivation is a problem. And in that spirit, and recognizing that this is a crop that is going to be harvested within a couple of months, we are going to want to move very, very quickly.
Mr. GILMAN. I hope——
Chairman HYDE. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. GILMAN. Just one last comment.
I would hope that you would consider making the DEA part of your overall assessment for the program since they have such worldwide experience.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman?
Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your leadership and the cooperation of yourself and your staff with our side. As you point out, this is too important an issue to be political about.
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Did I understand, Mr. Secretary, that you said that you would look at the bill and then get back to us with any suggestions you might have?
I was under the impression from the notice to you, that both of you were to come here to talk to us about what the bill does. We are talking about spending maybe a billion dollars here, and we all know there is a problem. And we are trying to draft some serious legislation, and we are having you here as experts, and the people who are going to administer and oversee this.
And to basically have you tell us that you are first going to look at the legislation—would you rather have us do just anything and then screw this up? If you want to have some input, this is the time, guys.
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Ackerman, we take very seriously the legislation that has been drawn up. And as I said in my opening remarks, we see in the legislation a lot with which we agree. We think that the priorities that the Committee has identified and the emphasis on coordination, the emphasis on pulling together the various strands of what is a multifaceted effort are all things that we agree with.
We think it is a serious proposal, and that therefore it needs a very, very serious intensive review. That is exactly what we have been engaged in.
So I am prepared to give you some of our preliminary reactions, but we do not have a fully developed Administration position today.
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Mr. ACKERMAN. See, our responsibility is to do the specifics. We do not want to screw this up either, which is why we have asked you to comment on the legislation, because after we draft the legislation, and hopefully it becomes enacted into law with the President's signature, we do not want to have somebody come back and say this is a failed policy because somebody drafted it wrong. To look at it after we do it is not helpful to us.
We are talking about $950 million over 4 years. We do not break it down at all in here. Should we break it down? Do you have any comment or an opinion on that? Should we have a separate amount for reconstruction and a separate amount for humanitarian, or as we do with this particular version, lump it all together?
Mr. LARSON. As I mentioned in an earlier remark, we do think that flexibility is a real virtue, given the fluidity of the situation in Afghanistan. For example, on the humanitarian effort, Mr. Natsios and I have both stressed in our written statements the importance of this effort as we go forward. It is hard to predict exactly how long and at what magnitude this humanitarian effort will need to continue.
We obviously want to transition toward reconstruction, but the pace at which one will be able to do that is not something you can predict right now. And so I think having very strict breakdowns year by year is not something that would be helpful.
Mr. NATSIOS. Congressman, if I could add to that.
Mr. ACKERMAN. Please.
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Mr. NATSIOS. In terms of disaggregating the relief from the reconstruction, I would urge you not to do that. The reason is we used to think, a dozen years ago, that there was sort of a finite quarterly movement from relief to rehabilitation and reconstruction and then to long-term development.
We know now that that is simply not the case. Sometimes humanitarian relief has to continue during the entire reconstruction period. Sometimes, if there is enough mortar in the society, we can end it very rapidly, which is what I prefer. In this particular case this drought is so severe that if there is another 12 months of this we will have to allocate more of the resources to keep people alive and to move them out of the areas where there is absolutely no water left.
So I would urge you not to disaggregate it so we do have the flexibility to move funds——
Mr. ACKERMAN. I agree with flexibility, but you seem to be asking us to say that there is no guess. But we guessed at the amount of money, did we not? We said $950 million. We could have said 850, we could have said two billion. Did we guess too little? Did we guess too much? Or did we guess just right?
Mr. NATSIOS. We committed for this fiscal year $296 million in Tokyo. That was just this fiscal year. We have allocated money in our USAID budget for part of our work next year. There will be a supplemental budget that will be before the Congress in several weeks. I have seen parts of it, the final decisions have not been made on all of the decisions that affect this, but they affect all of the front line states——
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Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me try—let me try a different question.
Chairman HYDE. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. ACKERMAN. I wish I had an answer, though.
Chairman HYDE. Let me interject, if I may, by not coming to the defense of our witnesses, but they have only had 3 business days to study this bill. The viscosity of getting to the people who need to look at it to have input is, I guess, high. It takes time. More a pity that these things move slowly through the State Department to everyone who is entitled to have a piece of the action, and it all takes time.
Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I——
Chairman HYDE. So if we can communicate our sense of urgency, it might be helpful to you all. We do not mean to be critical, but it should not take too long to get this to the people who need to have some input.
Mr. NATSIOS. Our staff is reviewing it, Mr. Chairman, right now.
Mr. ACKERMAN. If I could just underscore what you have said, Mr. Chairman——
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Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman.
Mr. ACKERMAN [continuing]. In highlighting the urgency of this and expressing a sympathy to the fact that we too on our side have only had 3 days to look at this legislation as well, but we have a responsibility to react to it and to help fashion it, and returning to you for some answers.
So maybe we can hold another hearing, Mr. Chairman, when they have had a chance to look at this, so that we can ask these questions and they can actually comment on the legislation if they need more than this.
Chairman HYDE. One way or other the questions will be answered, I am sure.
Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The sense of urgency that we are talking about today should underscore that the American people have to have a commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan at the same level of urgency and magnitude as our Government has had in fighting the military battle in Afghanistan. If we are to win the hearts and souls of the people of Afghanistan who have suffered so much on our behalf during the Cold War and suffered so much under the Taliban since then, we have to move forward not only in fighting the oppressors and the Taliban and the kooks that are in Afghanistan, but we have to have a commitment to making sure the lives of the people of Afghanistan are built up. And once we have that recognition by the Afghan people, at that point, I think, we will have accomplished a great thing for the cause of peace and also repaid a great debt that we owe the people of Afghanistan.
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With that said, I see three areas that are vitally important for us to be involved in. One is, and Mr. Gilman might have touched on this, we have to be involved, and as you did in your opening statement, mention political stability.
This Loya Jirga has got to be successful in the coming months, and we have got to play a major role in helping the Afghan people establish the procedures they need to set up a government that will reflect their will and their desires; in other words, put the people of Afghanistan in control of their own destiny for the first time in a long time. The Loya Jirga, if it is going to be successful, has to have some resources from us.
Second, we need to get involved in a big way in de-mining that country. It is a disgrace that the United States of America provided so many land mines to the people of Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union, and then after the war we did not offer help to clear those land mines. Children are being blown up every day by land mines that we helped provide that country. There is no doubt, we must do the moral thing, and let us put some money into that. I would like to know how much we are putting into de-mining, and whether or not we are going to make the major commitment that is needed.
And last of all, of course, Mr. Gilman has touched on this, if those poppies are harvested, there is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars that are going to exactly the wrong people, who will undermine the Loya Jirga, undermine democratic government, undermine all of the progress that we have made, and probably will undermine stability in Pakistan as well.
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So there is no excuse, gentlemen, today we have got to act, we have got to be partners with the people of Afghanistan, we have to help them de-mine, we have got to help them out on a successful strategy in the Loya Jirga to create stability in their country, and we have got to prevent the drug lords from becoming the dominant monetary force in that country, and that is what this is all about.
Please feel free to comment.
Mr. LARSON. First of all, Mr. Rohrabacher, I think we are totally in agreement on that, and as are other of the major partners in this reconstruction effort. The commitment to the political reform process is very, very strong, and all of the donors have made this clear in part by saying that their contributions are really contingent on the Bonn Agreements being implemented and on this Loya Jirga going forward in the creation of a representative government.
We also take very seriously the importance of the de-mining effort, and we took the initiative for the United States in the margins of the Tokyo conference to hold a separate session, to organize donors who could work with us on the de-mining effort.
Again, on the narcotics point, I think that Chairman Karzai himself has stressed that he recognizes their own strong interest in avoiding having the creation or the recreation of a narco-trafficking regime that would undercut the government.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, as you know, Chairman Karzai has very little power.
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Mr. LARSON. Right.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. He does not have his own army. He is going to depend on the United States to be willing to use force, and our money, I might add. The King of Afghanistan mentioned a few days ago that he was disappointed that there was so much vigor on the part of the United States Government to fight the military fight, yet he had not seen much vigor and enthusiasm on the ground already in terms of rebuilding the country.
Mr. LARSON. Yes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think that was a just criticism, and I understand it takes awhile to get these things going. But if we can so efficiently set up a military operation, it seems to me we could be a little more efficient in setting up the rebuilding operation.
Mr. LARSON. Sure.
Mr. NATSIOS. Mr. Chairman, if I could——
Mr. GILMAN. (Presiding) Yes, please.
Mr. NATSIOS. There is a map here. You have a smaller version of it, Congressman, in your papers there from us. We did decide to put it in the form of a map so you can see by province what we are doing.
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We were given 167 million in aid in January. That was 2 months ago. Of the 167 million, 107 million, which is two-thirds of it, has already been signed into contracts and grants. The money is moving, and all of these activities are taking place as we speak in these provinces. The rest of the money will be spent in the next 2 months. This, I have to tell you, is at speed we have never seen before in any reconstruction effort. So we are moving very rapidly.
If you were on the ground on these remote areas, you would see these projects, and we do have photographs which we would be glad to provide you with. We are rebuilding a hospital in Kandahar, rebuilding a girl's school in Mazar-e Sharif. We are building a cement factory—that was the first thing they asked for—in Kabul, which unfortunately one of our bombs hit. I am sorry to tell you that, but it did.
If we can rebuild the cement factory, we can rebuild the country because that is the big factory that produces the cement to do all the reconstruction work. So, when I met with him in January, Chairman Karzai said please repair that immediately, and we are doing that.
We have a whole series of grants that have gone in to begin the reconstruction of schools, of roads, of health clinics at the local level, and those literally are beginning now, so we are moving at a very rapid rate. I have to say I am very pleased as to how fast the staff of USAID has moved to get these things in place and get the money out the door.
Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Meeks.
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Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am sorry I missed most of the testimony, so if I ask any questions that may be repetitive, just let me know, and I will get the answer.
But I am concerned, and I think in the same vein of several of the questions that were asked and to make sure that we are getting the best bang for our buck. I understand that we pledged 300 million, but only 100 million of that is in the form of new money. What we are going to do, and I think it is important for us, is to use the Japan strategy to build so that the country can become independent in and of itself again.
So my question is, and I guess you have answered it in part, what are we doing to build the national institutions and to help structure capacity, which is what you were somewhat addressing now?
My next question would be, you know, has any thought been given to what type of industries or enterprises that can sustain the economies of Afghanistan over the longer term? And what, if anything, is the Administration doing to facilitate the exports of goods from Afghanistan to the United States or other parts of the world?
Mr. NATSIOS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if I could respond to the Congressman's very good question.
USAID had a mission in the 60s and 70s, until the Soviet civil war started and we had to shut down and leave. One of our principal staff is Chris Brown, whose father was a chief of the USAID mission in Kabul in the 1970s. He went to high school there. He is now a foreign service officer with us, and he is the one that helped do this book project which I just talked about a few minutes ago. We are printing 9.7 million books.
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So we have staff who remember the old Afghani state and want to rebuild it so that we can bring back the great prosperity of the country.
It is an agricultural society. Eighty percent of the people live in rural areas. Two-thirds of the people are either farmers or herders, and the rest are people who work off the rural economy by selling animal skins in the markets and that kind of thing.
If we do not get the agricultural economy moving, there will be no economy. That is what the basis is. The cities rely on the agricultural produce to function. I actually saw the benefit of one of our big projects there when I was in Kabul in January. We saw some beautiful apples. I thought they had been imported, but they were from a USAID project 30 years ago. They were among the best apples I have ever seen in the developing world. They are still functioning, those orchards.
The vineyards grow the best grapes and the best raisins. I might add they also used to have wineries. I asked several Afghans, I said I suppose in this country you would not have wines. They said we had elegant wines before the war, and we want to rebuild those wineries. I said that is probably something we probably cannot fund, but we will help you with the vineyards.
The vineyards were vast. The Taliban destroyed them. But they did not kill the roots. And when I talk to agronomists who are crisscrossing the country now to invest in agricultural production programs, they are telling me most of the vineyards can be brought back. They have vast pomegranate groves, almond trees, quince trees. The amount of produce that was exported from Afghanistan before this chaos was enormous. It was a very rich agricultural country. We want to restore that. That is one of the central focuses of our program.
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Mr. MEEKS. Thank you. And my last question then, do you see any opportunities starting to develop? We refer to model economy. I mean, develop certain skills so that in the world of today and the world of tomorrow they can be involved in a model economy, and their economy can grow. Are we doing anything to help in that area?
Mr. NATSIOS. One of the things we need to do is work with the Afghan finance minister, which we are doing right now; they do not have a currency. They are making decisions now as to what they want to do. They had the afghani, but they have not printed any in many, many years. They need a currency.
Also, they need a central bank. They do not have one. The Taliban left with the remaining gold in the central bank, what was left of it after all these years of destruction. They have to have a central bank or they cannot have a national economy.
The ministries do not have the capacity to govern the country, and so Chairman Karzai and Ashran Ghani, a friend of mine, who is the chief advisor to Karzai, has come up with a list of things he would like us to do to strengthen the ministries. We are going through that list. We have been hiring contractors to come in and do what they can. For example, they do not have telephones in the ministries. They do not have heat. They do not have electricity. They do not have computers. Some people have computers, but the computers cannot talk to each other.
We have to have all those things functional, and what we are doing now is designing a strategy with a contractor to come in and put all those things in place so that the ministry can actually do things.
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Now, all of these things we are doing, we are doing with the ministries. We are not doing things independently. I have told the NGOs and the UN if they want to work independently, they will get no money from us. We are there to support a stable, civilian government of competent people.
I have to tell you, I am very impressed with the quality and the competence and the dedication and the honesty of the members of the cabinet that we have dealt with. Our mission director spent a lot of time working with them. He is very impressed. This is an unusually skilled group of people who are leading this interim government. We hope the government that comes out of the Loya Jirga will be as competent. We think it will be.
So they are off to a good start. We now have to support them with this infrastructure so they can get their work done.
Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Royce.
Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Afghanistan has seen over 3 years of drought, and the aqueducts, the water systems have all been destroyed by the Taliban.
I had an opportunity when I was there in Bamiyan to see what had happened to a town that tried to stay non-aligned when the Taliban came in. There is one survivor who lost every member of his family, who showed us how they burned all the orchards, all the vineyards, and destroyed the system for infrastructure. There is no living thing in that town now.
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Congressman Rohrabacher and I come from an area in southern California with a high population of Afghan-Americans. Every month or so they hold a big rally. Dana Rohrabacher and I were just at one down in UCLA.
We hear from Afghan-American bankers that one of their bankers has now gotten on a plane, collected the money, and gone back to Kabul. We also hear from Afghan-American civil engineers. Some of our top water people in this country are Afghans because they taught at the University of Kabul and fled here. They want to go back and rebuild Afghanistan. I would like to see the United States take advantage of Afghan-Americans who possess the very skills and the communication ability to do just that. So if they are willing to pick up and make great sacrifices for their homeland, even given the difficult conditions that they are going to have to live in over there, my question is, can we see that Afghan-Americans are given preference in great efforts in Afghanistan? Can we add to this legislation something that would give them the needed support because, in so doing, we would take a body of people who comprehend the society, who have the skills and are going to be able to communicate the values and probably help the new government? They are probably the only ones who are going to stay with it when the going gets tough over there in order to get the water systems back up, in order to get the banking system functioning.
So let me get your response to that. I would really be interested in your response to us adding that into this legislation.
Mr. LARSON. I am going to give a brief response and have Andrew comment on the specific aspect of this.
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We share your view, Mr. Royce, that this is a community that has a lot to offer, and we have met with them several times, and we have helped facilitate some meetings between representatives of this community and organizations like Ex-Im Bank and OPIC and the Trade and Development Administration (TDA) because we do see a continuum of cooperation that they can provide that ranges from technical assistance in the short run, just their physical presence working on projects over there, as well as beginning to develop some of the business ties that will become more important as time moves on.
You had a very specific question that I think Andrew can answer.
Mr. NATSIOS. We all support exactly what you say, Congressman. The question is how to do an operation so it works in a systemized way on a large scale. The Afghans are returning from Europe, Canada and the United States. The minister of construction, for example, was President of a very large construction company in Germany. He has returned to become the minister.
Mr. ROYCE. A very small percentage.
Mr. NATSIOS. Pardon me?
Mr. ROYCE. A very small percentage at this point are returning.
Mr. NATSIOS. Yes, very small percentage, but some very, very skilled people.
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Mr. ROYCE. Right. I would just like to see this——
Mr. NATSIOS. Expanded, and we have two ways to do that.
Mr. ROYCE. Okay.
Mr. NATSIOS. There is the International Organization for Migration (IOM). We have actually begun negotiation of a contract with them, the focus of which will be to bring people back because, if you bring them back and there is no place for them to live and there is no job, there is no way for them to work, no offices, there is going to be a problem. They will leave and come back here.
And so IOM will work on that, and we have just had conversations last week with the Soros Foundation, which is interested in specifying that their private funding will be focused on exactly this issue. So we are going to work with them in the same way on the technical level, to specifically take these people and move them into different ministries and different disciplines.
We have just dispatched a well known hydrologist from the United States to begin working with the ministry to bring some of the hydrologists in to do a national survey of the water situation, which is absolutely critical. If we do not do that, we may do the wrong thing, and we do not want to do that.
So the hydrology part of it is, one, essential to the survival of the country, especially if there is another year of this; and, two, we do have two mechanisms in place, that will be in place shortly, they are not quite yet, they are in the middle of negotiations to systematically bring people back.
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Mr. ROYCE. Can you think of any preference concept that would maybe——
Mr. NATSIOS. Why do we not get language to you in the Committee that would——
Mr. ROYCE. That would be helpful to us. Yes.
Thank you very much.
Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Tancredo?
Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I understand that there is a significantly large population, indigenous population in Afghanistan that is presently hook on opium, and especially women, we are told.
First of all, is this a new phenomenon? Secondly, what do you think has caused it? And what, I guess, are we doing to try and stop this if it is there?
Mr. NATSIOS. Let me just quote again what I had said earlier and expand a little bit.
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The preeminent work on Afghanistan in the nineties was by a Pakistani reporter from the Far Eastern Economic Review, Ahmed Rashid, a friend of mine, with his book The Taliban. He also just came out with a new book last month on Islamic Fundamentalists. I have not read it yet so I cannot commend it to you, but he is very able.
He said in his book, and he did a lot of research on the issue, that the drug lords in the 1990s were given carte blanche by Taliban, and he says in the book they did it deliberately to poison the west and the neighboring countries who look out for their enemies. It was a deliberate strategy.
The notion that they had a ban on poppy production is true, but they did not do it for health reasons, to stop the poppy production. They had produced so much opium that it was depressing the price of it in the market, and they wanted to jack the prices back up to make more money. That is why they put a ban on poppy production for 1 year, not for the sake of health and good governance or anything like that.
There is a serious addiction problem in the country, but there are five and a half million addicts between just Pakistan and Iran, all of who became addicts in the 1990s. There was also no addiction prior to the 1990s, or very low levels of addiction according to what he has suggested.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Larson.
Mr. LARSON. Yes, just very quickly.
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We are working with UNDCP on a proposal to reduce demand for illegal narcotics in Afghanistan, and we have been working with an entity called the Columbo Plan Drug Advisory Program to run narcotics demand reduction exercise throughout the Muslim world, and so these are two avenues that we want to pursue in tandem.
Mr. TANCREDO. Let me then go immediately to that. The second point is that in terms of trying to actually stop the production in Afghanistan we have a model, but there is another place that we have worked and worked with the government very successfully, and that is Bolivia. What we did, along with the DEA, was go after the precursor chemicals. If we could in fact replicate that effort in Afghanistan—Bolivia has virtually stopped production because we were able to actually interdict and stop the precursor chemical which is necessary for the production of opium, one thing.
Now, the problem is—well, I am not sure if it is a problem, but right now the DEA, as I understand it, is not involved in the effort to try and interdict any of the stuff coming into Afghanistan, and it needs to be. It really has the expertise. We have done it, and it can be done in Afghanistan. So please let me encourage you to think about, and not just think about, but to actually obtain the expertise of the DEA in our efforts to stop production in Afghanistan.
Mr. LARSON. Congressman, we will certainly take that on board, and I wanted to assure you just quickly now that we already are working on border control programs on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border to address this precursor issue that you mentioned.
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Mr. TANCREDO. We understand and appreciate your efforts. It is just that I do not think the DEA is part of the plan yet and that is really important. They have the expertise so let us not reinvent this wheel.
Mr. LARSON. Understand.
Mr. NATSIOS. Congressman, if I could just add a couple of points. If you look at the textbooks, we passed four of them out, the textbooks, by the way, go from the back to the front, so what looks like the back is actually the front. It has writing on it. There are two cartoons on what look like the front. And the ministry of education—the minister of education insisted, along with Chairman Karzai, that we put those on before we publish the books.
And what is says on it is one guy is eating fruit, he is healthy. The other guy is hooked on heroin on the back of these books, in pretty terrible condition. That will be on 9.7 million textbooks for every school child.
I am not suggesting that is end of the opium trade. I am suggesting that the Afghans themselves are concerned enough about this that they insisted we alter the production of the book as its original book as a public service announcement.
The second point is about the man who designed the USAID strategy in Latin America, particularly in Peru and Bolivia. It was successful on the development side, not on the enforcement side, on alternate crops. We transferred him——
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Mr. TANCREDO. Yes.
Mr. NATSIOS [continuing]. Two weeks ago to design a strategy for Afghanistan.
Mr. TANCREDO. I understand.
Mr. NATSIOS. So he is working on that.
Mr. TANCREDO. On the development side but not——
Mr. NATSIOS. On the development side. That is my job. I do not do enforcement.
Mr. TANCREDO. All right, thank you.
We should try to talk to McGraw-Hill about doing the same thing with our texts. Thank you.
Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Pitts.
Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony, and for what you are doing. You have a very big task ahead of you.
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I would like to associate myself with Mr. Royce about the importance of engaging the private sector. The non-governmental organizations of which we are the only ones left there, are doing a wonderful job. We visited them, the foundations, various aspects of the private sector, and explored sister relationships with institutions. These are very, very important since there is much work for everyone to do.
None of this will be successful, however, unless we provide for safety and security in the country. And my questions are: What is your opinion about the current level of the international peacekeeping forces and their scope of mission? Are they sufficient to create a climate for reconstruction?
What is the plan for providing assistance to the Afghans to provide for their own national defense force and national police force? And, what agency is going to take the lead on this?
Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Congressman.
We see a need for an extension in time of the mandate of ISAF, and I think that will be going forward. In addition, there is very active discussion about the expansion of the mandate geographically, and I think one can expect in a fairly short period of time to see some new developments on that as well.
Mr. PITTS. Where are they now?
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Mr. LARSON. In Kabul.
Mr. PITTS. That is it?
Mr. LARSON. Yes.
Mr. PITTS. I understood that.
Mr. LARSON. Yes.
Mr. PITTS. I just do not think most people understand that. Only in Kabul?
Mr. LARSON. That is correct. That is correct.
We are placing a high priority on supporting the efforts of the Afghan government to develop a national professional multi-ethnic army and a national professional multi-ethnic police force.
On the police force, Germany has taken the lead on that internationally, which we support. They have a track record of involvement there. They built a capacity in the 60s and 70s, and they are in active discussions on getting their program started. We have also sent a team out to assess the needs for strengthening the police force, and we will be working very, very closely with the Germans on that, and that is being done out of the INL part of the State Department.
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On the national army, CENTCOM has just come back from a trip to assess the needs for training and equipping a national military force, and we will be assessing their recommendations, and looking forward, moving ahead with those efforts as quickly as we can.
Mr. PITTS. Does the Administration intend to furnish support directly through ministries of the interim—or the government that is established? If so, what form and which ministries?
Mr. NATSIOS. Do you mean for reconstruction or do you mean for the military?
Mr. PITTS. No, I mean for reconstruction. I took your answer to be that we would help——
Mr. LARSON. Yes.
Mr. PITTS [continuing]. With the military.
Mr. LARSON. Yes.
Mr. NATSIOS. We are working with the ministries, but at this point most of the ministries do not have the capacity. For example, there is no banking system.
Mr. PITTS. I understand.
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Mr. NATSIOS. So how would we move monies into an account when there are no banks to move it into? The banks are in fact in the United States or neighboring countries.
What we are working with them on is to create the capacity, reestablish the order of the civil service system so that in a year or two they will be able to take over much of the function. But right now it is a little early to do that. But all of the decisions we have made are made jointly. We are not doing anything independently, and our mission director and our Ambassador are spending a lot of time dealing with the ministries, Chairman Karzai, and Ashran Ghani, who is the Chief Advisor to the Chairman on reconstruction, who was with the World Bank for 20 years, a very, very skilled international civil servant, to work on this together.
But right now it is a little premature, and they know that, and I said, do you want us—they said no, no, we just want to make sure we are making the decisions with you and not having these things be made, ignoring their interests, and that is what we are doing.
Mr. PITTS. I think I have time for one more question.
What about communications? You mentioned the Afghans cannot talk to each other. Have we sent over 500 cell phones so the government has the ability to communicate? Also have we sent a few towers to help them be able to communicate with their various ministries and their government around the country, or what are we doing in that regard that would help?
Mr. NATSIOS. We are designing a contract now for a full array of services that will make the ministries functional in just a managerial sense. That will include computers that can talk to each other, that are connected to each other. It will include—they sent some desks in from Sweden, for example, which is nice, but there were under 100. You know, they have thousands of civil servants who have needs. Some of them are very skilled civil servants, I might add, who have stayed with this, who are from 20 years ago, and they are still in the ministries. They would like to work but because of the destruction over the last 20 years, they do not have a place to work in many cases.
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Mr. LARSON. I am sorry. If I could just add very quickly, Congressman, we see this as something we need to get others involved in as well. We have been working very closely with UNDP, and we will be organizing on the ground in Kabul next week a meeting of the core donors to talk about meeting these immediate capacity needs of the Afghan government, just to be able to operate effectively: Telephones, desks, computers and things of that sort, and to make sure that what we all do quickly, we do in a coordinated way.
Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Leach.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me express my appreciation for the leadership of both of you. Clearly, a lot of thought has gone into this issue. The question is can there be too much, and we are being tested, and we all know that in terms of both the military and military actions.
I want to raise a couple of question on the sectorial aspects of society, one relates to demands. Very few societies can work economically if there is not an infrastructure of financial services. And what attention is USAID giving to that issue, or others?
In particular, it is fairly self-evident that Afghanistan is a society that large institutions do not necessarily fit very well, and so one of the question is what are we doing on the issues that have been around for 20 years or so in the region, such as micro lending?
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And then from an American perspective relating to say Eastern European leadership 100 years ago in terms of cooperative lending, et cetera. And I express this because of the smallness of the communities and the lack of the relevancy of lots of the American kind of financial institutions at the highest levels. What attention is being given to this. Sectorially, what thinking is occurring within our Government on this subject?
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Leach, I would like to make two quick comments and then Mr. Natsios is going to comment on what USAID is doing.
One of the first steps that we took was to ask the World Bank and UNDP to begin a needs assessment of the country, and that has evolved into specific sector studies that they are leading. And they have had a number of teams in Afghanistan already, and more that are going very, very quickly to make sure that there are well thought-out sectorial plans that are developed in conjunction with the Afghan authority.
On financing in particular, Mr. Natsios mentioned a little bit ago that one of the crucial issues they have to face is the selection of a currency, and the IMF is working very closely with the interim authority on basic financial issues like the establishment of a currency arrangement and the sort of preliminary steps that they need to take to have a functioning financial system.
On our bilateral programs, Mr. Natsios will respond.
Mr. NATSIOS. We have just completed a study which is for basically the southern and western half of the country. We interviewed 750 people randomly in different social classes to find out what is really going on. I have to say I really did not understand the micro economic level. Why do people survive 4 years of drought and civil war and not have a famine? They should have had a famine 3 years ago and they have not. We have never quite seen a coping and survival strategy this sophisticated or complicated or this successful before. I have never seen this and I have seen famines for 13 years.
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They have the most elaborate, most sophisticated informal, informal banking sector, and system of any developing country in the world. And our staff has been astonished at the sophistication of it. They do not need any training in micro finance. All they need is more money in the system.
We have given grants already last fall to some of the NGOs to begin micro lending, but it is to build on the existing structures that exist with high levels of accountability. But we do not have to train them in any respect. They are teaching us things. I have never seen anything quite like this before. We have surveyed people in the large cities: The only city we have not done now is in Mazar-e Sharif, and the person has gone up there to begin work in the northern half of the country to complete this survey data to give us a picture of what is really happening.
In the areas we have done it already, which is more than two-thirds of the country, 80 percent of the people are in debt, some of them heavily in debt. That is how they survived the things. They have borrowed money. They know people who are very wealthy and still have money, in a formal banking sector. They bought food and they survived.
One of the problems we found, and I have never seen anything like this either, some of them are so heavily in debt that they cannot leave their houses without some money lenders coming in saying we want a little bit of money back now. And so their kids, their teenage children are supporting the families. We are seeing a very high portion of teenage children were the principal breadwinners in the urban areas, and it is attributable to this 80 percent debt level.
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So one of the things we are designing into our strategy, which we have had to expand based on this survey, is we need more jobs that will increase family income so they can pay off the debt and stabilize the economy. But their lending system helps them survive this chaos, and now we need to create a larger, more formal sector, which the banks, the World Bank will do, the Islamic Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, working with the finance ministry. Whatever help they need, we will certainly offer it. But they are taking the lead in that sector.
But we are working in the informal sector at the local levels to get this debt thing under control because it is causing some dysfunction in the society.
Mr. LEACH. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the fact that the systems exist. I am not willing to think that this money lending system based on individuals historically worked very well. Often institutional arrangements are fairer to communities, so I want to repeat a suggestion, which is you might want to talk to people at the Credit Union National Association who have given advice to lots of different countries, and done lots of different studies on how to set up community-based lending institutions that move away from simply reliance on individuals making loans, and that may or may not be fitting in this society. But your description is not one that is exactly comforting. And so there are aspects that might be effective, but there are aspects that are also very discomforting.
Finally, let me just ask one other sectorial issue, and that relates to health care to a degree. Obviously the overwhelming issue is the diseases that are so terrifying to the world's society. What kinds of work are you doing in that area?
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Mr. NATSIOS. Let me just add one point to the last topic. We provide substantial funding to the Credit Union Association. We work with them all over the world. That network is primarily funded by USAID. So not only do we agree with it, we have funded it. We have had a long association with it, and I think, frankly, some of the officers who run it are former USAID officers, retired. We fully agree with you, and we intend to put that into—it is in the strategy.
I did not mean to comfort you by my comments. I think it is very disturbing that 80 percent of the people are heavily in debt. I was trying to explain why they survive these horrendous situations in a way that was very surprising to us in terms of its sophistication.
The health situation in Afghanistan is one of the worst we have ever seen anywhere in the world. They have the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. They have one of the two or three highest child mortality rates under 5 in the world. Twenty-five percent of the kids in the last survey died before they were 5.
We do not know what the data is now because no survey was set up. We have just funded CDC to set up a surveillance system to tell us where the hot points, where the highest death rates are so that we can focus on it. We have done, I think, I think it is $7.5 million worth of proposals we have funded in the last, just in the last few weeks to begin mass immunization campaigns through UNICEF, WHO, and the NGOs because we are really worried, given the levels of malnutrition, that we could have some measles epidemic which could wipe out huge numbers of kids.
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So the immunization campaign is just beginning now in the areas that we can work in. It is a terrible situation. The drought has made the water supply very dangerous to use because what is left is usually polluted water. And if people drink it and do not boil it first, you know what happens. The diarrhea problem is the worst killer right now for children. So we have a sanitation and water programs that have gone in place.
If you see this chart here, there is a key that says which projects are water, which projects are sanitation, which are immunization programs by province.
Mr. LEACH. Thank you.
Mr. GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Leach.
Gentlemen, I have just a few quick questions and if you do not belabor the responses we will try to get through very quickly.
I did not get an answer to my earlier question about whether you were willing to work with the de facto authorities and deal with the drugs, or will we wait for the central government to establish an order? Could respond to that quickly?
Mr. LARSON. We have tried the steps that we think are very strongly in our interest to provide our assistance in a way that strengthens the national or the interim authority and its successors. We have noted that the interim authority itself has been going out to regional leaders talking about the importance of suppressing this crop, and we are working on a plan which we are prepared to brief to you and other interested Members in more detail that would get after the crop in the ground by working through the interim authority.
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Mr. GILMAN. We would welcome receiving that any day.
The opium crop, come April, will be ready for harvest. Does the Administration need any new authority to make certain the farmers are going to destroy their opium crops?
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Gilman, I am not aware of any need for new authority. We do have this plan in the making which we will brief you on. If we identify any needs, obviously we will be very quick to tell you about them.
Mr. GILMAN. And who is in charge of coordinating U.S. assistance efforts for Afghanistan? Who is the person?
Mr. LARSON. The Secretary has asked Ambassador Jim Dobbins to coordinate both policy and reconstruction efforts on a day-to-day basis. And so Mr. Dobbins in the point person on this. I think what Mr. Natsios and I have been stressing in the remarks that we have been making is that there are many aspects to this, which we are trying very hard to pull together, and I think we are doing the best job I have ever seen in coordinating many different aspects of policy.
Mr. Natsios has the responsibility of implementing our bilateral assistance programs. I have a team that has been working with me to try to make sure that the international organizations, the UN, the World Bank, the other development banks, as well as major donors are dovetailing their efforts with ours. And we have been involved in very, very frequent consultations with other major donors to make sure that we also stay in tandem, not just in the run up to donors conferences, but in the implementation period afterwards.
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Mr. GILMAN. Exactly what role will the coordinator play, and will he have a responsibility over assistance programs of the agencies other than the State Department and USAID?
Mr. LARSON. The coordinator is responsible to the Secretary of State to make sure that this is working in the way it should, and to inform the Secretary and the President if there is any need for either resources or new approaches to make sure that our mission is successful.
Mr. NATSIOS. If I could add, Mr. Chairman, the State Department has the lead. In the field the Ambassador does, and our mission director reports to the Ambassador and our office is next to him. And they have set up a database for all U.S. Government agencies. Before they can come into the country they must file a report on all of the initiatives they intend to take to make sure there is no overlap and no contradiction in strategy differences.
So we have a database for all programs, because you have to receive country clearance to go into the country to Kabul.
The second mechanism in place in terms of field coordination is an international system for exactly the same thing, to coordinate all donor assistance going into the country. In Islamabad, we are now working with the UN to transfer that database into the UN coordination unit that is being run by Nigel Fischer, who is the deputy to Mr. Brahimi, the head of the UN effort. That will be moved from Islamabad, where it has been functioning for some time now, into Kabul very shortly. We are paying for much of that and supporting that function in terms of international systems that coordinates at the field level. This is in Kabul itself.
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Mr. GILMAN. Just two last questions. Are the current levels of peacekeeping forces and the current scope of its mission sufficient to create a proper climate for reconstruction?
Mr. LARSON. Well, again this is something that is under very, very active review—both the question of the time duration, the geographic expansion, and the size of the force and the resources needed. I signal that we are clearly intending to extend the duration, and I think we will be coming forward to the Congress with thoughts about the issue of expansion and the size of the force.
Mr. GILMAN. And one last question. Which office or agency has the lead on supporting the Loya Jirga?
Mr. NATSIOS. We have seconded who has done this before in other conflict situations at the request of the State Department. The Ambassador to the United Nations has the lead for this. It is a person experienced in this, and they are now working to set up the system in the field to brief villages as to how this process will work, making sure that logistics——
Mr. GILMAN. Who's that person?
Mr. NATSIOS. I can get you the name. I do not know the person personally.
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Mr. GILMAN. Would you let us know who that is?
Mr. NATSIOS. Yes.
Mr. GILMAN. This is a United States representative; is that correct?
Mr. NATSIOS. This is an operational person, Mr. Chairman. This person is to make sure operationally this all happens.
Mr. GILMAN. And he is in charge of the Loya Jirga?
Mr. NATSIOS. No, he is not in charge of it. He is just a staff person.
Mr. GILMAN. Yes. Who will be in charge to make sure that we are doing the right thing?
Mr. LARSON. No, I——
Mr. GILMAN. Do you want to discuss this?
Mr. LARSON. Yes. Let me just very quickly set the architecture. The United Nations, in the person of Mr. Brahimi, is the person that we collectively in the international community have asked to work with the Afghans to make sure there is a representative process politically, and that this Loya Jirga is successful.
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Within our own Government, Ambassador Dobbins and his team are the ones that are working with Mr. Brahimi and the United Nations as this process moves forward.
Mr. GILMAN. Who in the U.S. Government will work with Mr. Brahimi?
Mr. LARSON. That is what I just said. Ambassador Dobbins is the person that the Secretary has designated to coordinate on a day-to-day level all of our activities on the reconstruction.
Mr. GILMAN. Ambassador Dobbins will be our man with the Loya Jirga?
Mr. LARSON. He will be working with Ambassador Brahimi and the others that we collectively have asked to help the Afghan people organize this process of political reform and of the creation of a representative new government.
Mr. GILMAN. Well, I want to thank you both for being here today. We thank you for your patience, and the Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
I want to thank Chairman Hyde for holding this important hearing on the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act. I also want to welcome our witnesses here today.
Afghanistan and the Afghan people are at a critical crossroads in their survival. The country is being torn apart by the deadly manipulative interference of it neighbors and its warring ethnic groups, tribes, drug lords. Drought and fighting have caused a humanitarian crises that has left millions of Afghans with little hope and much despair.
The Afghanistan Freedom Support Act attempts to help Afghans help themselves. It offers a mix of security, development, humanitarian and anti-narcotics assistance that will assist the Administration in its efforts to build a stable Afghanistan and a better future for the Afghan people.
Mr. Chairman, in a little over a week the former King will be returning to Afghanistan to help bring together a Loya Jirga or Grand Assembly. His return and the Loya Jirga are important events for this Committee...both of which we can be proud of. Before September 11, this Committee had passed resolutions supporting the Loya Jirga and the King, and we brought together in this very room all the major Afghan factions to assist them in this effort. For many years Representative Rohrabacher has been at the forefront of this effort and I commend him for his vision and tenacity.
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The Afghanistan Freedom Support Act will help to bring all of our good work to fruition and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA
Last January in Kabul, Secretary Powell promised Chairman Karzai and the Afghani people that the United States would not abandon them. And I am pleased to see the International Relations Committee is looking for serious and long-term ways to help the Afghani people rebuild their war-ravaged country and rehabilitate their devastated society.
Given its past record in the region, the United States owes it to the people of Afghanistan, the region, and the world to take the lead in the construction and rehabilitation of Afghanistan. As we have seen, our past in Afghanistan has come back to haunt us in a very big way. It seems by our current behavior in Afghanistan and elsewhere, however, that our military and political leaders have yet to learn that important lesson.
While the $297 million for FY 2002 pledged by the United States in Tokyo in January is an important first step, this amount is grossly inadequate. The United Nations estimates that at least $15 billion will be required over the next decade to rebuild Afghanistan. Given the nearly exclusive role of the U.S. military in the current war in Afghanistan, its superior economic capabilities relative to other donors, and its stated security and strategic concerns in the ongoing war against terrorism, the United States ought to pay its fair share.
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In addition, the Administration ought to seize the opportunities presented in Afghanistan to adopt a more multilateralist approach to its international dealings, particularly with the other ''Six plus Two'' countries, and hopefully moderate some of the caustic rhetoric that has done so much damage to the image of the United States in recent months.
Our assistance to Afghanistan should begin first and foremost with a commitment to help clean up the mess we left there 13 years ago after we asked the Afghani people to help us fight our war against the Soviet Union, and the mess we are leaving now in the wake of our war against the Taliban and Al-Qaida.
Many of us are concerned that U.S. interest in Afghanistan will be, if not short-lived, then certainly short-sighted. Already there are signs that despite the Administration's noble rhetoric, U.S. concerns will in the long-term focus on security matters and economic interests. Sadly, recent meetings between the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan and that country's oil minister seem to suggest that there is more to this war than meets the eye.
Human rights organizations have documented the many serious abuses committed by U.S.-backed anti-Taliban forces (Northern Alliance), including summary executions, looting, and the lawlessness that exists in many parts of the country. Meanwhile, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, whereas by October 2001 ''opium poppy cultivation has almost totally disappeared'' in Taliban-controlled areas, ''a rising tide of narcotics—both opium and the heroin refined from it'' was pouring out of areas under the control of America's new anti-Taliban allies, the Northern Alliance.
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In the name of political and strategic expediency, this Administration is greeting abuses committed by allied Afghan forces with a wink and a nod. If all this sounds familiar, it's because we've been there before. Just as yesterday's Mujahideen became today's Taliban, today's Northern Alliance may well become Afghanistan's newest repressive government. We must not let our latest legacy in Afghanistan be that we helped the Afghan people to simply trade one set of oppressors for another.
Human rights, rule of law,—especially helping to institutionalize an indigenous culture of tolerance, equality, and participation—must go beyond promises and rhetoric. Tangible support for these ideals and institutions is the surest way to guarantee Afghani, regional, and ultimately our own the long-term security interests.
Let me also add that, as Congressman Rohrabacher has pointed out, the United States must also commit itself to helping rid Afghanistan of land mines we ourselves helped to lay down. Too many innocent, men, women, and children losing their lives and limbs as a result of these land mines; helping to remove them is the only decent thing to do.
Meanwhile, in our current war, the United States must show that it is a responsible party and is prepared to right its own wrongs. There is no way to know exactly how many Afghani civilians have been killed, injured, or suffered property damage as result of U.S. bombing runs. But estimates run in the thousands. These hapless victims and their families have no political influence in Kabul and no lobbyists in Washington to take up their cause. But they do have a dedicated American aid worker named Marla Ruzicka. Ms. Ruzicka, a representative of Global Exchange, has worked tirelessly on behalf of Afghan civilian victims of U.S. bombing. She represents the other face of America—the one that shows that American values of justice and compassion have not been buried in the rubble of Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Kandahar.
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By compensating these innocent and already embattled individuals and families for their losses, the United States would be sending a message that, when it comes to accountability, it practices what it preaches. Moreover, by living up to our own standards of respect for human rights, democracy, and freedom, we are demonstrating that the United States is prepared to lead in word as well as in deed. If we really want to win over the hearts and minds of people around the world, we ought to begin by showing people that, in addition to being feared, America is also worthy of being admired—something all the public diplomacy programs in the world cannot buy.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DARRELL E. ISSA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing, and Ambassador Natsios and Under Secretary Larson for taking time out of your busy schedules to testify before the Committee.
Mr. Chairman, I am encouraged by the ''Afghan Freedom Support Act,'' which we are discussing today. The people of Afghanistan are living in conditions that are unimaginably desperate. Within the past two decades, the Afghani people have experienced droughts, famine, the occupation of a brutal Soviet military, a bloody civil war, and the fanatical misrule of a fundamentalist regime. The results have been devastating. The Soviet occupation left the country ravaged, with over two million people dead, 700,000 widows and orphans, and over one million Afghan children who were born and raised in refugee camps outside the country. The Soviets also left the countryside littered with millions of landmines, in the process destroying Afghanistan's agricultural capacity. After several years of chaotic and bloody civil war, the Taliban regime took power and systematically gutted Afghanistan's judicial system, dismantled the economy, and brutalized the nation's female population. With the Taliban deposed and the resulting uncertainty about the future, Afghanistan is clearly in need of help.
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This bill represents our nation's interest in giving the Afghani people hope for a new life. It demonstrates that the war on terrorism does not involve only an assault on terrorism itself, but also on the seeds of terrorism, which are economic despair, poverty, and political oppression. Mr. Chairman, the fact that we are investing in the long-term development of Afghanistan, rather than simply walking away from the Afghani people's plight, is a testament to the greatness of our nation and the compassion of our people. I hope that this legislation will serve as a model for our nation's foreign assistance policy in the future. I look forward to the continued debate on the merits of this bill, and I thank the Chairman once again for providing the leadership to see that hope is restored to this broken region.