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March 17, 2005

Top Stories

Condoleezza Rice In Afghanistan; General Myers Says Security Situation 'Very Good'

KABUL, Mar 16 (Reuters)—Speaking on the eve of a visit to Kabul by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Air Force General Richard Myers gave an upbeat assessment of Afghanistan's progress since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001. "Every trend line in Afghanistan is going up, and going up at a great rate," Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at Kabul's international airport. "The one significant risk is maintaining the momentum of success in Afghanistan," said Barno. "If this was ten mile race for Afghanistan, we're about at mile three right now."

Secretary Rice will briefly visit Afghanistan as part of her whirlwind Asian tour, staying for the afternoon and then returning to Pakistan. The focus of her visit to the region has been the India-Pakistan peace process and cooperation on counterterrorism.

Bush Names Khalilzad to Be Ambassador to Iraq

WASHINGTON, March 10 (NYT)—President Bush has chosen Zalmay Khalilzad, the ambassador to Afghanistan, to become the new ambassador in Baghdad…Mr. Khalilzad, a protégé of Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz since long before Mr. Bush took office, served as a senior director on the president's national security council staff during the early years of Mr. Bush's first term. Administration officials say his deep knowledge of Afghanistan and its internecine politics was invaluable during and after the Afghan war...In Iraq, Mr. Khalilzad will face another complex cast of political and tribal leaders - without the lifelong affiliation with the country that has been so useful in Afghanistan. His primary mission will be to expedite the training of new Iraqi police and military forces so that they can take over security duties from American troops.

Khalilzad evoked mixed feelings among Afghans, who feel his involvement in Afghan politics was often heavy handed and imperious. Nevertheless, he had a rare grasp of Afghan politics and culture, and became an adept navigator of Afghanistan's internecine politics. Most importantly, Khalilzad had the ear of the President, and his presence in Afghanistan meant that Afghan issues could draw attention at the highest levels of government. Khalilzad's departure is just one more example of how attention and resources - from the Special Operations Forces that were removed from the hunt for Bin Laden to prepare for Iraq operations to recent budgetary allocations - have been shifted wholesale from Afghanistan to Iraq. Are American interests best served by placing the administration's best Afghan expert into a complex country where he must start his education anew?

House OKs $81.4 billion more for Iraq, Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, March 16—The House on Wednesday approved an $81.4 billion emergency spending package for combat and reconstruction…In a setback for the White House, the House trimmed president's request for Afghan reconstruction projects and State Department programs and prohibited any money in the bill from being used to build a sprawling U.S. embassy in Baghdad, despite intense lobbying by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...The White House said in a statement that while it supports the bill as a whole, the president is concerned that the legislation does not adequately pay for matters deemed urgent by the administration, including the State Department programs.

Source: White House Fact Sheet

Afghanistan unveils new budget

KABUL, March 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News)—Afghanistan's annual budget for the year 2005-2006 has been increased by 15 percent over last year with nearly 50 percent of the budget being allocated for security related expenditure. The Ministries of Interior and Defense, entrusted with the task of securing the war torn country internally as well as externally have been given 44 percent of the $678 annual budget (32.833 billions Afs) for the year 2005-2006.

Announcing the new budget the Finance Ministry said that 50 percent of the budgetary expenditure could be met from internal revenue generation. The country is still dependent on external funding to meet its budgetary needs. The Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Ahadi told a press conference on Tuesday that the domestic revenues were less than the government had expected. He expressed hope that the revenue generation would increase and that next year the government would be able to meet a larger part of its expenditure. Despite the 15 percent increase Ahadi says there is no plan to increase salaries of government employees in the next fiscal year because domestic revenue earnings are still inadequate.

He said the years of war had established the practice of revenue collection by local commanders and this continued even now, making it difficult for the government to collect its due share. The only way to increase the salaries of government employees was to increase income taxes and to collect the customs revenues and land taxes.

Other News:

Brits Warned US of Detainee Abuse in 2002

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI)—In January 2002, one day after the British Secret Intelligence Service was granted access to U.S.-held detainees in Afghanistan, the agency became so concerned about prisoner treatment that it warned its personnel not to take part in coercive interrogations, documents show. The British government's "stated commitment to human rights makes it important that the Americans understand that we cannot be party to such ill treatment nor can we be seen to condone it," reads a memo from the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6…

"We know very little about what techniques the U.S. government authorized for use on detainees held in Afghanistan," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "We believe the government is withholding key documents that show who is responsible for the widespread abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody there." She added that the president's February 2002 announcement suspending the Taliban's Geneva protections "set the stage for the systemic and widespread abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq."

Musharraf Says Forces Nearly Nabbed Bin Laden

ISLAMABAD, March 15 (WP)—Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that the Pakistani army might have come close to capturing Osama bin Laden near the Afghan border in the late spring or early summer of last year…In the past, Pakistani officials have consistently denied having specific knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts, although he and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, have long been thought to be hiding in the semiautonomous tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border…Three Pakistani security officials said in interviews Tuesday night that they were perplexed by Musharraf's comments and were not aware of any instance in which Pakistani forces had come close to capturing bin Laden. But in an interview late last year, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, the commander of the Pakistani army's 11th Corps, said that when he took up his command last March he had been open to the idea that bin Laden might still be hiding in the tribal area of South Waziristan. He said he ordered his troops to look for the "signature" of bin Laden's elaborate and highly compartmentalized security entourage, details of which had emerged from interrogations of foreign militants captured in South Waziristan.

UN: Afghanistan Needs Legal System to Protect Human Rights

KABUL, March 15 (Online)—Afghanistan needs to improve its judicial system in order to protect the human rights of its citizens, said Manoel de Almeida de Silva, the spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. "The issue of human rights in Afghanistan goes hand in hand with the issue of reform of the justice system," de Almeida e Silva told a briefing Kabul. Illegal militias remain a problem in the country where 42,000 armed fighters have surrendered their weapons under a program operated by the UN and the Afghan government, said de Almeida e Silva, who was giving his last briefing before leaving Afghanistan after three years. Afghans may be frustrated that the peace process hasn't produced the results they expected over the past three years, de Almeida e Silva said.

Murder Suspected in 26 Iraq/Afghan Deaths: NY Times

NEW YORK, March 16 (Reuters)—At least 26 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing military officials. …Army officials told the Times that the killings took place both inside and outside detention areas, including at the point of capture in often violent battlefield conditions. The newspaper said the number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any figure previously reported by the military and was provided to the Times after repeated inquiries. The cases include at least four involving Central Intelligence Agency employees that are being reviewed by the Justice Department for possible prosecution, the Times said.

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Afghanistan Watch is prepared by Carl Robichaud, a program officer at The Century Foundation.

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