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96–173PDF 2005

AFGHANISTAN: UNITED STATES STRATEGIES ON

THE EVE OF NATIONAL ELECTIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 29, 2004

Serial No. 108–150

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

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 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

NICK SMITH, Michigan 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

VACANCY 

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 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, 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 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

LARA ALAMEH, Professional Staff Member 

LIBERTY DUNN, Staff Associate 

BEVERLY HALLOCK, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department 

of State .................................................................................................................. 6

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Richard L. Armitage: Prepared statement .................................. 6

APPENDIX 

The Honorable Nick Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Michigan: Prepared statement ........................................................................ 39

The Honorable Andrew S. Natsios, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development: Prepared statement ...................................................... 40

Responses from the Honorable Richard L. Armitage to Questions Submitted 

for the Record by the Honorable Shelley Berkley, a Representative in Congress from the State of Nevada ........................................................................... 46

Letter and enclosures addressed to the Honorable Henry J. Hyde, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, and Chairman, Committee on International Relations: Regarding documents requested to be 

inserted into the record by the Honorable Richard L. Armitage in response 

to questions asked by Members during the hearing ......................................... 49

(1)

AFGHANISTAN: UNITED STATES STRATEGIES 

ON THE EVE OF NATIONAL ELECTIONS 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:32 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine the Administration’s strategy to support the political and economic reconstruction 

of Afghanistan as that country approaches Presidential and parliamentary elections. Last week, this Committee heard from Administration officials about the security challenges surrounding the 

upcoming elections and what the United States is doing to step up 

efforts to protect the electoral process in Afghanistan. 

Today we will hear from a distinguished panel about what we 

are doing in the political and economic assistance areas to empower 

the evolving democratic process and to provide support to the people of Afghanistan on the eve of national elections. 

First, I want to reiterate my comments that I communicated to 

the Administration regarding the relationship between warlords 

and the drug trade. Waiting to take on the drug lords will not 

make the situation any better. For now, the drug lords are getting 

stronger, faster than the Afghan authorities are being built up. In 

other words, we are falling further and further behind. I expect 

that significant attention will be given to this issue. 

Despite serious challenges in the security area, Afghanistan has 

made great strides in the political realm. In 2003, a constitution 

was drafted, debated, and approved. In addition, an overall successful voter registration process has recently ended with over 10 million registered voters, approximately 42 percent of whom are 

women. Next week, eligible Afghans will enter the final phase of 

the political roadmap outlined in Bonn in 2001, when they will 

have the opportunity to express themselves through Presidential 

elections. 

The people of Afghanistan remain optimistic about their future 

and are eager for a new way of life that is characterized by the rule 

of law and not by the rule of the gun. Successful national elections 

will bring much needed legitimacy to a central government that 

has encountered numerous challenges to its authority throughout 

the country. 
2

However, the United States and the international community 

need to ensure that effective and coordinated support is given to 

the democratically elected government, as it transforms, so that it 

has the ability to deliver real change to the people of Afghanistan. 

Afghans may have unrealistic expectations about how one Presidential election can change their lives. Regardless, visible, positive 

consequences must be realized through improved security and accelerated reconstruction, or else we risk the chance of the Afghans 

becoming disenchanted with the democratic process as a means to 

secure their livelihoods. We cannot afford to lose the hard won confidence of the Afghan people. Otherwise, Afghanistan could revert 

to an environment characterized by chaos, on which terrorists 

thrive. 

We must be careful to avoid any perceptions that the United 

States has been more concerned with the outcome of the upcoming 

Presidential election in Afghanistan, than it has been with supporting a meaningful electoral process for the Afghan people. 

United States goals for a stable and independent Afghanistan could 

be undermined if there are perceptions that the United States has 

played a heavy hand in Afghan’s domestic political decisionmaking 

process. 

There should be a major acceleration of civic education before 

parliamentary elections this spring, so that Afghans are empowered to make their own judgments and have confidence in the integrity of the elections. 

As for next week’s Presidential elections, it remains to be seen 

how fair and credible they may be. Voter registration has achieved 

some notable successes, which I applaud. However, with only 100 

to 200 observers to be spread out among 5,000 polling sites and 

with threats of extortion and intimidation being voiced by local 

warlords and their private militias, I remain concerned about the 

monitoring of the elections and look forward to hearing testimony 

on this subject. 

As I said, we have a distinguished panel representing the Administration today. I look forward to hearing from the Deputy Secretary about our country’s long-term commitment to an independent and democratic Afghanistan. 

Last week we heard from Defense and State Departments, and 

I hope to hear from you today, Mr. Armitage, about the struggle 

with narcotics and the warlords. From your particular perspective, 

I hope we will hear about the status of high-level decisions within 

the Administration regarding what we will be doing to put the drug 

traffickers and warlords out of business—and who will be doing it. 

Additionally, I hope you will take a moment either in your presentation, or later, to discuss the activities of Afghanistan’s neighbors, 

in particular Iran and Pakistan, and their impact on Afghanistan’s 

stability. Also, it would be appreciated if you could relay some information on the discussions that are ongoing with other major 

states, such as NATO and the EU and their members, and any further contributions we can expect from them. 

I now yield to my friend and colleague, the Ranking Democratic 

Member, Tom Lantos, for any opening remarks he may wish to 

make. 

3

Without objection any Member may place his or her opening 

statement in the record of today’s proceedings. Mr. Lantos. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want 

to join you in welcoming our friend, Secretary Armitage. It is good 

to have you come before our Committee again, sir. As always, I 

look forward to a candid and open discussion with you. 

I want to put my opening comments in context, Mr. Chairman. 

There is a very high degree of bipartisan unity in this country with 

respect to Afghanistan and there is nominal support from NATO. 

I underscore the word ‘‘nominal,’’ because in Afghanistan we do not 

have the divisiveness that has characterized actions and developments in Iraq, and it is this relatively high degree of consensus 

which shows up the freeloading and sheer hypocrisy of some of our 

European allies and of some of our friends in the Middle East. 

They are simply not carrying their load in Afghanistan anywhere 

near to their capabilities, and that is what I would like to focus on. 

Mr. Chairman, at the end of next week, the people of Afghanistan will hold their first national election for a President. This historic event will be partial fulfillment of what America went to war 

against the Taliban to accomplish. I remember it wasn’t so long ago 

that you and I managed the resolution on the Floor denouncing the 

Taliban for their monstrous, murderous treatment of women, for 

their destruction of religious statues, and for their barbaric behavior. 

It is indeed a victory for United States’ foreign policy that we are 

here discussing Presidential elections in Afghanistan and the demise of the Taliban. But I fear, Mr. Chairman, that the appalling 

absence of security in Afghanistan not only imperils the upcoming 

Presidential election, but next year’s critically important legislative 

elections as well. Without a sufficient number of well-trained 

troops from NATO and our other friends to guard the polling 

places, protect candidates, protect voters from violent attacks, and 

to prevent voter intimidation, Afghanistan’s elections could mark 

yet another tragic chapter in the history of that war-damaged, warsavaged nation. Given the importance of a free and stable Afghanistan to international security, I simply fail to understand, Mr. 

Chairman, how our allies—such as France, Germany, Belgium and 

Turkey, and friendly countries in the Middle East, such as Egypt—

have failed the moral test of sending adequate numbers of troops, 

in some cases no troops, to help nurture a democracy and sustain 

Afghanistan in its time of desperate need. 

Mr. Secretary, when I asked your colleagues at the State and Defense Departments last week why our allies refuse to dispatch 

more troops to Afghanistan, I was shocked by their response. One 

official said, ‘‘I can’t really explain it.’’ I hope, Mr. Secretary, you 

will make an effort to explain it. Another of your colleagues proceeded to pay tribute to the contributions made by the pitifully 

small NATO contingent in Afghanistan. Mr. Secretary, where is 

the Administration’s outrage over the fact that NATO and key allies in the Middle East have not only refused to help in Iraq, which 

is a controversial and separate issue, but turned their backs on Afghanistan as well? 

Mr. Secretary, in my judgment, your Administration should be 

strongly and publicly requesting that the Egyptians send troops to 

4

Afghanistan, as I did when I was in Egypt a few weeks ago. But 

when I made this point to your colleagues last week, I was informed that the United States is looking for troop contributions 

only from countries, in his words, ‘‘that had a certain level of capability.’’ In light of the fact that the United States has given the 

Egyptian military more than $30 billion—I repeat, more than $30 

billion—in military aid over recent years, how is it that they do not 

have troops capable of assisting in Afghanistan? In fact, of course, 

the Egyptians do have the troops. They just refuse to send them 

to defend regional security. 

Mr. Secretary, I told the Egyptian leadership during my visit a 

few weeks ago that I will not relent in my effort to transfer a good 

portion of our current military aid into Egypt’s educational and 

health care systems. Unless Egypt is prepared to be a responsible 

actor on the international scene, my colleagues and I will continue 

to offer my initiative to reduce our aid commitments to the Egyptian military and increase our commitments to the Egyptian people 

in the fields of health and education. 

Mr. Secretary, our friends in Europe, including France, Belgium, 

Germany and Spain, have also shown appalling judgment in failing 

to dispatch troops to secure the upcoming elections in Afghanistan. 

Our European allies are basically freeloading when it comes to 

shouldering their share of global security responsibilities, both in 

Afghanistan and in Iraq. The Administration must be prepared to 

publicly condemn them for their failure to act. 

In the region, we contribute 512 troops per million Americans of 

our population. Germany’s contribution is not 512, but 23 troops 

per every million German citizens, while France’s contribution is a 

pathetic 9 troops per one million French citizens. The performance 

of these European nations in Iraq, in terms of providing election security, is equally pathetic. While NATO has now committed to send 

some 300 officers to train Iraqi security forces, a pittance from an 

alliance with over a million non-U.S. troops under arms, it is an 

absurdity and an outrage that these four wealthy countries—on 

which we spent tens of billions of dollars in the Marshall Plan and 

tens of billions more protecting them from the Soviet Union over 

two generations—now make a point of arrogantly refusing to contribute one single officer, or even one Euro, to fulfill NATO’s commitment to train Iraq security forces so they can provide for an 

election climate which is plausible. 

Mr. Secretary, you are familiar with my longstanding respect for 

NATO. But lately it has become ever clearer to me that NATO 

risks losing all of its credibility, even among its staunchest supporters. NATO is apparently unable to summon European troops to 

Afghanistan to protect polling places and ensure that candidates 

are not assassinated. NATO has failed to extend its mandate to 

provide security along major highways, to end banditry, to end 

human rights abuses, opium production and trafficking. NATO 

member, Turkey, which was supposed to send some 12,000 troops 

to Iraq, should be sending at least that many to ensure regional security in Afghanistan. 

Mr. Secretary, despite the freeloading ways of our allies in Europe and the Middle East, I remain convinced that Afghanistan can 

emerge as a stable and prosperous nation in the years ahead. It is, 

5

however, imperative that we understand that we have made a 

long-term commitment to that nation, which will continue long 

after the upcoming November elections. It remains equally critical 

that those now prosperous nations, that were freed from both Nazi 

tyranny and protected from Soviet domination, understand that 

they have a profound moral obligation to help win the freedom and 

prosperity of other nations around the globe. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. 

I would like to welcome Richard Armitage. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman HYDE. Yes? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Could I say something in response to the Ranking 

Member for the record? 

Chairman HYDE. Very well. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t take but a second. 

Mr. Lantos did bring up some points that I think are critical that 

we correct for the record. I must say that I do agree with him on 

a lot of what he says about our European allies and Turkey, for instance, that they could do more. They have a meager 200 troops 

in Afghanistan. 

Our allies are making efforts that I think the record needs to reflect. There are 7,000 European troops in Afghanistan. Eurocorps, 

led by Germany and France, is the leading ISAF mission. Also, 

there are 18,000 European troops in Iraq. The EU is taking over 

the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and getting ready to deploy 7,000 troops to Bosnia with another 5,000 to Kosovo. Spain 

and Italy have just agreed to send upwards of 2,000 more troops 

to Afghanistan for the elections and France has sent 5,000 troops 

to Haiti at our request. I just wanted the record to reflect what 

they are doing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LANTOS. If I may respond to my friend for just a moment, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Of course. 

Mr. LANTOS. One of our problems, Ms. Davis, has been that over 

the years, increasingly we have been busting our gut to put a favorable face on a dismal performance and your comments, while 

technically accurate, only contribute to this very serious mistake. 

We liberated Europe. We kept Europe free from Soviet takeover 

for two generations. We had hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe protecting Europe. We succeeded in large measure in making 

Europe prosperous and Europe has simply opted out, with the exception of the Brits and a few others, from their global responsibilities. It is a fact of life. We should no longer delude ourselves by 

saying that Turkey has 200 troops in Afghanistan, while the Turkish military, as I recall, has about 600,000 troops. To have 200 

troops in Afghanistan is a pitiful absurdity. 

While you may be correct in the figures you have cited, the fundamental message you are sending to our European friends is that 

it is all right for them to continue freeloading, to continue insisting 

that the United States carry the bulk of the load physically and financially in the trouble spots of the world. I don’t think we are 

6

doing ourselves any favor by underscoring the minimal contributions they are making and remaining silent on their profound failure. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. I would like to welcome Richard 

Armitage. Prior to becoming the Deputy Secretary of State in 2001, 

he was President of Armitage Associates. 

Previously he achieved the personal rank of Ambassador for his 

public service, which includes an appointment as the Coordinator 

for Emergency Humanitarian Assistance and key diplomatic positions, such as Special Emissary to Jordan’s King Hussein, during 

the 1991 Gulf War. 

Mr. Armitage has also held senior positions in the Departments 

of State and Defense, as well as in Congress, including service as 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs 

from 1983 to 1989. 

He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and subsequently 

completed three combat tours of duty with advisory forces in Vietnam. 

Welcome, Mr. Armitage. We are honored to have you appear before our Committee today. Please proceed with a liberally construed 

5-minute summary of your statement, your full statement will be 

made a part of the record. 

Secretary. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RICHARD L. ARMITAGE, 

DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lantos and Members of the 

Committee, thank you very much. The honor is mine. I am delighted to be before you again. 

I know what the deal is here. Your job is to ask questions. Mine 

is to try to answer them. I am going to let you get about your job, 

and I will try to do my best to fulfill mine. 

I just would like to make a one- or two-sentence statement. It is 

a pleasure for me to be before this Committee, as this is the Committee that originated the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act. I 

think in large measure it gave the people of Afghanistan the confidence and gave us the credibility that we were in this for, as Mr. 

Lantos suggests, the long haul. I will let you do your job, sir and 

I will try to do mine. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Armitage follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RICHARD L. ARMITAGE, DEPUTY

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Committee, I appreciate this opportunity to discuss with you today our efforts to help the nation of Afghanistan become a secure, thriving democracy. Indeed, this Committee has been instrumental 

in the success we have seen to date, so I also appreciate this opportunity to thank 

you for all of your support, including the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002. 

Three years ago, the United States embarked on a campaign in Afghanistan to 

defend our country. Today, our goal remains to defeat terrorism, and specifically to 

deny terrorists any safe haven in Afghanistan. We have seen many victories in this 

campaign, but I believe all Americans understand that the key to long-term success 

is to help Afghanistan become a stable country. Indeed, the international community stands with the people of Afghanistan in this noble endeavor. In turn, the Afghan people and their government have welcomed the support of the United States 

and the international community. 

7

The elements of lasting stability in Afghanistan are to elect a sovereign government, improve the security situation, and reconstruct a nation wrecked by a quarter-century of war and tyranny. As we pursue these objectives, the outcome we want 

to see is a self-governing Afghanistan, where all the people, men and women alike, 

enjoy human rights and freedom of conscience. We also want to maintain our partnership in the global war on terrorism. 

In the quest for stability, elections are the most immediate challenge. In ten days, 

Afghanistan will hold Presidential elections, followed by Parliamentary and local 

elections next spring. Mr. Chairman, you expressed some concerns about the elections to the Department of State’s then Coordinator for Afghanistan, Ambassador 

Bill Taylor, in a hearing four months ago. At the time, nobody was sure of the ultimate response to your questions. Today, however, I am able to offer you some encouraging answers. 

Mr. Chairman, you asked whether registered voters would be representative of 

the Afghan population as a whole. By and large, the answer is yes. I am pleased 

to report that more than ten million Afghans have registered to vote—far more than 

the Afghan Government and the international community anticipated. More than 40 

percent of those who have registered are women—a percentage considerably greater 

than we expected. Overall, voter registration in all but two provinces has exceeded 

68 percent of the estimated voter-age population, and is much higher in some parts 

of the country. Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan will also have the opportunity 

to vote. We believe that the results of the October 9th election will indeed represent 

the will of a broad cross-section of the population. 

Four months ago, Mr. Chairman, you also asked whether security issues would 

derail the election. Certainly, we know that the Taliban and other insurgents will 

continue to try to disrupt the process, perhaps even by attempting a large-scale attack on Election Day itself. We are prepared for that possibility: forces from 41 

countries, plus the Afghan National Army and police, will be on the ground, ready 

to defend the integrity of the election process and the right of the Afghan people 

to vote. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, you asked whether the regional warlords who control their 

own militias would hijack the election to consolidate their own hold on power. Here, 

I think, we have seen one of the most encouraging signs of progress in the past couple of months. Showing political courage and determination, President Karzai has 

succeeded in reducing the influence of several of the most prominent militia leaders. 

Some have even agreed to join the national government or opted to run for political 

office themselves, becoming part of the political process. Some have also acquiesced 

to putting their militias under the command of officers in the Afghan National 

Army. It may well be that these factional leaders are starting to accept that their 

future lies within the framework of the Afghan constitution. 

Afghan and United Nations election managers tell us that vote counting will last 

for several weeks. If no candidate wins a majority, there will be a run-off two weeks 

after the results of the first round are officially announced. Election workers and 

security forces will be ready to gear up again if a run-off is necessary. We believe 

that the result will command respect from the Afghan people and the international 

community. A successful Presidential election will be the first step in developing a 

tradition of democratic elections in Afghanistan, a tradition that can carry over into 

next spring to make Parliamentary and local elections a success, as well. 

This is, of course, very encouraging, but even a democratically-elected government 

will need a better security situation in order to govern successfully. For the time 

being, that will mean ongoing international assistance. Operation Enduring Freedom, with 20 countries contributing soldiers, continues the fight against the 

Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other insurgent elements. Thirty-six countries have contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force, which is under the control of NATO. Seventeen Provincial Reconstruction Teams—13 under U.S. management—also provide security across the country. 

At the same time, the United States is helping Afghanistan to develop the security forces the country will need to defend itself. This security assistance is multifaceted: we have already trained more than 25,000 members of the national police 

force, as well as some 11,800 soldiers of the Afghan National Army, who are now 

deployed in 16 provinces. These troops have succeeded in stemming recent violence 

in western Afghanistan and elsewhere. Finally, the process of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration is progressing, albeit slowly, with all heavy weapons now 

cantoned in Kabul. 

As you are all aware, terrorist elements are not the only security challenge the 

fledgling government will face. There is also a serious and growing narcotics trafficking problem. One year ago, this was considered a secondary concern, but today, 

President Karzai and other Afghan officials say that the drug trade and the associVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
8

ated corruption may be the most significant threats to a secure and democratic Afghanistan. Indeed, there is a direct link between drug trafficking and the militants 

and recalcitrant warlords who seek to undermine the central government. 

We know from past experience in other parts of the world what it will take to 

run a successful counternarcotics campaign in Afghanistan. First, the government 

must recognize and acknowledge the extent of the problem. Then the government 

needs the political will, the resources, and the programs to deal with the problem. 

As I noted, there is a consensus among a cross-section of Afghan officials that drug 

trafficking presents perhaps the most serious challenge to the state. We believe that 

regardless of the outcome of the October 9th elections, there will be a firm commitment to meeting this challenge head on. As for the resources, international donors, 

chiefly the United Kingdom and United States, are providing expertise and financial 

aid needed to thwart this problem. Finally, we are coordinating closely with our 

partners in the British and Afghan governments to develop a detailed counternarcotics plan. The plan is to build on and add to what have been modest efforts 

to date, by improving eradication, interdiction, law enforcement, public information, 

and the development of alternative livelihoods. 

Drug trafficking was not the only criminal enterprise that flourished in the absence of the rule of law in Afghanistan; a lucrative trade in women and children 

also developed. People are trafficked from and through Afghanistan to Pakistan, 

Iran, and Saudi Arabia for begging, labor and prostitution, as well as internally for 

forced marriage, labor, and sexual exploitation. To counter this deplorable practice, 

the Government of Afghanistan is now taking important steps, including providing 

victim assistance and calling for criminal prosecution of the perpetrators. Given the 

limited resources available to Afghanistan, the nascent state of the central government, and the multitude of other challenges that the government faces, these antitrafficking efforts are commendable. The United States directly supports those efforts through financial and technical assistance, including training of police and border security forces. 

Shutting down the criminal networks that sustain trafficking in people and drugs 

is crucial to the security of Afghanistan. At the same time, long-term stability will 

depend on a healthy economy as much as it will depend on security. To that end, 

the United States is leading an international effort to rebuild Afghanistan piece-bypiece, as Members of this Committee are well aware. We are constructing highways 

and provincial roads; we have, for example, completed reconstruction and the first 

layer of pavement on more than 240 miles of the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway. Hundreds of schools and clinics are under construction nationwide, as well as several 

industrial parks. We have distributed 13 million textbooks. We are sending advisors 

to train judges and lawyers. We are providing food, water, medicine, and power, and 

we are revitalizing government institutions. 

The United States has funded much of the reconstruction effort, providing $4.5 

billion to date. Thirty-five other countries, the EU, and other international organizations, have pledged more than $10 billion. In addition, we continue to seek further 

assistance from our friends around the world. 

Mr. Chairman, Afghanistan has come a long way in the short space of one year. 

Moreover, it is entirely reasonable to expect that a year from now, the Afghan people will have a duly-elected president, a parliament made up of local and national 

representatives, and the institutions they need to defend and protect their sovereignty and integrity against religious extremism, terrorism, and narcotics trafficking. From my travels to the region, I can tell you that the Afghan people and 

government appreciate our support in reaching that vision, and they also value close 

and lasting ties to the United States. In turn, the United States has made a longterm commitment to Afghanistan. 

Mr. Chairman, we thank Congress for its past support for Afghanistan. With your 

future support, we believe this is a strategic partnership that will continue to benefit both our nations for many years to come.

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Lantos, do you have any questions? 

Mr. LANTOS. Yes. First, I want to commend you for your statement of extraordinary brevity, which took our breath away and 

only further enhanced our admiration and respect for you. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. That was the whole idea, sir. 

Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Secretary, I would like you to address as candidly as you can the issues I raised. I think we are dealing with 

a fundamental dilemma of our age. 

9

Peace has arrived in Europe. The Balkan Wars were probably 

the last military confrontation we will have seen on the European 

continent and no one is more delighted to see this than I am, as 

one who was born in Europe. It is high time that a continent, 

which was soaked in the blood of its young men—and at that time 

it was only men—has finally reached a stage of peace. Germany 

and France were engaged in three bloody wars in three-quarters of 

a century: The 1870 Franco-Prussian War, the First World War, 

and the Second World War. As you, I have visited many of those 

battlefields and the endless military cemeteries and the millions of 

soldiers who were never buried. So we are thrilled that Europe has 

achieved this goal, which has eluded mankind for so long. But I 

think it is important to underscore that in a place like Afghanistan, 

where there is verbal agreement between Europe and ourselves 

and where there is a formal NATO commitment, we all know that 

the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan is a tiny fraction of 

what is needed to create a stable environment in that country. 

For a long time, it was only Kabul where we had any significant 

forces. There are now tiny military units scattered in a few parts 

of the country. But you, sir, know better than we do how inadequate the military presence is in Afghanistan to guarantee free 

elections and to prevent the intimidation and assassination of both 

candidates and people who just want to vote. 

What is your formula for increasing, significantly, contributions 

from Europe and from other places? When I visited Egypt a short 

while ago and pointed out that, with the huge Egyptian military 

and with our $30 billion of military aid in recent years, the least 

they should do is to provide some security forces, or minimally police forces, to ensure safer elections in Afghanistan, and they, of 

course, felt very confident in responding to me that the Administration is not going to ask them for anything. All they have in Afghanistan is a field hospital, with 62 Egyptian citizens. For a country 

of Egypt’s size and of our aid to Egypt, and the size of Egypt’s military, they ought to do better than that. 

For a long time at the outbreak of the Iraq war, as you well 

know, there were very serious discussion by your Department to 

have 10- to 12,000 Turkish troops deployed in Iraq. For a whole set 

of complex reasons—that we don’t need to go into now—this never 

happened. Those troops are available to Turkey. They are sorely 

needed now in Afghanistan. Why isn’t the Administration making 

a strong effort to have Turkey deploy significant numbers of troops 

in Afghanistan? Because this experiment in Afghanistan may yet 

fail, as you know better than I do. 

I think we will deeply regret our unwillingness to tell the Europeans, the Turks, the Egyptians, and others that they have a responsibility. Pretending that these nominal contributions are adequate totally undermines our case. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Mr. Lantos, you started with a philosophical approach. I will address that, then I will get to the specifics, if I may. 

It is a fact of life. We have learned it in Washington, and I think 

we have learned it in our lives, that gratitude doesn’t travel. Notwithstanding all the things that our Nation was responsible for in 

the main, historically, I don’t think gratitude travels, and that is 

just a fact of life. It is not a pleasant one. 

10

Second, also in the philosophical vein, there doesn’t seem to be 

much outrage anywhere in the world anymore, except in the 

United States. You are focusing correctly on Afghanistan and Iraq. 

I would extend that lack of outrage to Sudan and Haiti, where we 

are the only ones outraged. 

This leads me to something that you have probably said and your 

colleagues have said. We don’t want to be the policeman of the 

world, but as Secretary Powell would point out, every time someone 

dials 911, there is a certain accent they want from the person who 

answers the phone, and that is an American accent. 

I think our Nation is, by nature, probably best described as ‘‘reluctant internationalists.’’ We realize we haven’t a choice, because 

if no one else does it, we have to do it, because that is our moral 

character and our national character. That is kind of a chapeau. 

That is how I see things going forward. 

On your specifics on Egypt and Turkey: I have to check one thing 

for the record, but I think our discussions with the transitional 

Government of Afghanistan have revealed that it has been a little 

reluctant, with both Egypt and Turkey, but I need to check that 

for the record. 

With Turkey, I will be glad to go back to them myself, as they 

did step up, and they did a good job with their 200 people. If you 

can do it with 200, you can do it with 2,000 or more. 

With the Egyptians, I have a strong view that we have spent 

most of our time with them trying to keep them in the game. They 

came willingly with Gaza and the training of police, et cetera, as 

well as the offer for training Iraqi policemen. 

Maybe what they said to you about ‘‘no one has asked us’’ is indicative of the fact that we haven’t pushed them hard enough. I 

want a little asterisk, if I may, because I think something in the 

back of my mind tells me that we had a slight difference of opinion 

with the Government of Afghanistan, but I have to check that. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr. Secretary for being here. 

Over the last couple of years I have asked a question with regards to the poppy crop in Afghanistan in the Government Reform 

Committee, Arms Services Committee, and in this Committee. 

Without fault, every time I ask the question, the response was basically that it was the UK’s problem, because the narcotics from Afghanistan didn’t come into the United States. They went to Europe. 

Do we still have that feeling? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I certainly don’t agree with the latter part of that, 

that since it doesn’t come directly into the United States and goes 

to Europe, primarily by way of Russia, that it is not our problem. 

I look at drugs as I look at oil. It is a fungible commodity and beyond that, as members of the human race, if anybody suffers I 

think we all suffer. 

Having said that, the UK is the lead country, but Assistant Secretary Charles, who was up here in front of the Committee last 

week, has developed a new strategy. It makes us a lot more robust 

and, of course, it means more money, but there is a recognition 

that the poppy crop is up to record levels. Certainly way above 

11

2003. It funds everything from terrorism to fueling corruption, and 

we have to do more and the British have to do more. 

I showed Chairman Jerry Lewis the other day, at his request, 

part of our strategy, which is still secret and classified. I would be 

more than happy to have Mr. Charles come up and show you. 

The burden of it is that we have to be a lot more robust with 

eradication ourselves, along with the Afghans. There has to be 

some sort of alternative cropping, but those two alone won’t work 

unless you have some punishment phase for those who grow and 

transit the opium. The fourth leg of that, if I may, Ms. Davis, is 

that we have to make sure that the Afghan SWAT team, and the 

term that we use for it, is up to speed to take down these labs and 

is well equipped enough to take down warlords, or the subsets of 

warlords, who run these drugs. 

With your permission, I will have Mr. Charles get in touch with 

you after this hearing. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I would certainly appreciate it. How does President 

Karzai feel about——

Mr. ARMITAGE. President Karzai, about 8 months ago, started 

ringing the bell and banging the drum on this. He is as outraged, 

because he realizes this is a direct threat to him and his nation. 

He had come to us originally with an understanding that he had 

to get on top of it, that even the tentacles of it had reached into 

the transitional Government. He is not naive about it at all, and 

I take that as a pretty good sign. 

I don’t know the outcome of the election. He is the most popular 

politician in the country. If that is a sign, he may be elected. If he 

is elected, I have no doubt that he is going to continue pushing us 

and pushing the UK in the prosecution of this, alongside his own 

forces. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I would certainly appreciate a briefing on it. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Blumenauer. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate 

having this issue brought before us. 

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your direct, succinct presentation. 

Perhaps it will inspire us likewise. I will try and do my part to just 

offer one observation, one question. 

I do agree with the point Mr. Lantos has been making about 

some of our friends who have been the recipient of billions of dollars, lots of attention and interest, who appear as though they 

could be doing more in Afghanistan. I want to identify myself with 

the concerns about Turkey, which may be a little different beast, 

but particularly Egypt. I am hopeful that there is a time when we 

can provide a little more pressure and a little more direct engagement, because I think we ought to be getting more for this massive 

investment that we have made. 

I am concerned that the world could be confused about our priorities and our commitments. Afghanistan, as you well know, is a 

larger country than Iraq. It is a poorer country than Iraq and it 

has been desperately damaged by the ravages of war over the last 

quarter century, at least. Yet, it appears as though we are investing on an order of magnitude about 20 times more in Iraq as we 

are in Afghanistan. I appreciate the security footprint is smaller in 

12

that larger damaged country, but that in turn restricts what we 

can do, what the NGOs can do, and the problems there continue 

to linger. 

I feel that this is where we were united. Our Chairman is correct, I think there was great consensus on this Committee and in 

Congress to move forward to deal with the Taliban, deal with the 

al-Qaeda, deal with Osama bin Laden, and to try and do something 

to stabilize that troubled country. 

I would appreciate your observations, putting aside for a moment 

whether we should be investing more or less in Iraq. It appears to 

me that by any measure, we are under-investing in Afghanistan. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. On the philosophical part, when Mr. Lantos 

asked me the question and I answered that gratitude didn’t travel, 

I should have added, I think to be fair, that we didn’t do any of 

this to get gratitude. We did it because we felt it was in our national interest, and I think we are doing most of our foreign aid as 

a cold calculation—of one sort or another—of our national security. 

Specifically, on Afghanistan, sir, the rates of development and 

the rates of literacy, et cetera, between Iraq and Afghanistan are 

significantly different. My view is that with the low base that Afghanistan started with, a little bit of money goes a lot farther than 

it does in Iraq. 

Second, I think historically in Afghanistan, now that their relationship with Pakistan is better and the two-way trade is higher, 

there are not natural enemies of Afghanistan sitting on their border. This gives them confidence that they are going to have the 

time to develop themselves. 

Third, obviously as a landlocked country, Afghanistan lacks what 

it really needs, and that is support and access to the sea, et cetera. 

Where it sits makes it a natural transit point for everything from 

commerce to natural gas. We have the bridge started with 

Tajikistan, we have the roads around Kabul, Kandahar, and soon 

to Herat. Therefore, you are going to find, I think, commerce picking up at a rather astronomical pace. 

I think a little bit goes a long way. Now that is not to say that 

there aren’t needs. We only have about, by my calculations, half 

the schools repaired that need to be and we don’t have all the clinics that we wanted, because we wanted everyone to be within 4 

hours of health care. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. That is not what I am hearing from the NGOs 

who are there on the ground. In terms of the ability to have a security footprint where they can move forward, and the notion—the 

disparity of education for example, notwithstanding—the information I have been given is there is a lot that we can, in fact, do because a dollar goes further, that, in fact, we could have more 

progress. They may be more secure vis-a-vis the Government of 

Pakistan, but we have both warlords and dangerous elements that 

are there in that border region. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. If I may, I think which NGOs you talk to will determine to some extent the answer you get. Doctors Without Borders left, and the reason they left is they were unhappy with the 

fact that a security footprint was provided contemporaneously with 

humanitarian assistance. They felt that this politicized their particular NGO activities. I disagree mightily with them. I happen to 

13

agree that those small security footprints, which provide enough 

security to get something in, are much more effective. 

I think you get a different answer, depending on which NGO you 

talk to. I know Me ́decins Sans Frontie ́rs would give you the answer 

I just did. It is not a very pleasant one, from my point of view. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Leach. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you for coming, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you for having me, sir. 

Mr. LEACH. We appreciate your service. I would like to just ask 

a perspective question and get your response. There is a sense, following on the last question, that we have lost our sense of priorities. That Afghanistan, after all, was the place where the plotting 

for 9/11 occurred and that the United States has given disproportionate attention to Iraq, rather than Afghanistan. There is also a 

sense that some of the sympathy for the United States after 9/11 

has dissipated, based on our policy in Iraq and that that may have 

an element of rationale for others being less supportive of our policy in Afghanistan. 

Would you comment on those two possibilities? Do you think 

there is any truth to that perspective or would you differ? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think that the perception of that is a very real 

problem that we have to face, and face almost on a daily basis. 

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the President asked me to go to 

Afghanistan to speak with Mr. Karzai about these matters and to 

make it crystal clear to him that, at least from the Administration’s 

point of view, we weren’t going to turn away. Other Members, particularly of this body, Mr. Kolbe and others, have gone time and 

time again, and I think have indicated that from their point of 

view, the U.S. Congress wasn’t going to lose interest. But the perception of it is there—that we are too tied up, too heavily involved 

in Iraq to spend attention to Afghanistan. 

I don’t think that President Karzai or his colleagues have that 

view, because we spent a large amount of time with him. He was 

in New York with the President again, and the President has made 

it clear that we are going to stay in this. 

I think that the good news is that there doesn’t seem to be the 

electricity surrounding Afghanistan that there is around Iraq, for 

a lot of different reasons. There seems to be good support for a dependable amount of money. We have almost a billion dollars in the 

2005 budget, which you are contemplating right now, which seems 

pretty predictable. We also have the feeling that, slow and as unsatisfactory as it is in some cases, both the security and aid that 

most of our European friends are providing means they are still in 

it. They are not going to shy away. They are not quitting. They are 

just not going fast enough as far as we are concerned. I think that 

it is a mixed picture, but it is much more perception than it is reality, Mr. Leach. 

Mr. LEACH. Let me just follow up with one other observation. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Go ahead. 

Mr. LEACH. It appears that even though we have a democratic 

election and don’t want to say we are for a candidate or against a 

candidate, that the United States has been extremely fortunate in 

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tional level, that is quite impressive and that, in some ways, we 

are kind of vulnerable because of that. 

That is, if something were to happen to some of this leadership, 

it would be a disaster for our foreign policy, more importantly, for 

the Afghan people. It would seem that that alone is a reason to enhance the priority status of Afghanistan. That is, if we have the 

bad luck of bad leadership, we might not want to be committing 

as much. If we have the good luck of good leadership, we would 

want to really be doing everything conceivable we can for the country. 

Would you care to comment on that? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Sir, you didn’t get where you are by luck and depending on luck, and I don’t think any Members or anybody does. 

It is a bad policy. 

I think we have done a little better than that. We could get bad 

leadership. It is possible. There are 18 candidates for President. It 

is interesting to note that the second most popular candidate, according to opinion polls, is a woman, which says something about 

the status of Afghanistan these days, especially after 23 years of 

war and the Taliban. 

I take some hope from two things: I thought the number of people who registered to vote was phenomenal and staggering. The 

reason I say that is because I went out and visited the election registrars about mid-campaign, and they were nowhere near this number. It just started to spread like wildfire. I thought that was a 

good sign. 

The second thing is, I have a poll here—which I would like to put 

in the record—which is not a U.S. Government poll, but shows that 

85 percent of the Afghan people think they are on the right track. 

These two things give us a good basis that whatever happens, 

the people of Afghanistan are deciding that they want to change 

from the way business has been done, or business as usual, over 

the past almost quarter century. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. 

Welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I am not sure how you do polls in Afghanistan. 

I think throughout history, 85 percent of the Afghan people always 

thought they were on the right track. How is the election going? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. They have been campaigning for several weeks. 

I noted that yesterday, President Karzai was campaigning with one 

of his putative rivals, Mr. Dostum, also a warlord. Mr. Dostum 

made the point—and the point has also been made by those responsible for cantonments—that a majority of his weapons are in cantonment, and most of his men have taken part in the DDR process. 

I think the election is going pretty well. People are getting out. 

There are rallies. Even rivals are standing together and at least 

what they are saying, rhetorically, is that we have to have an Afghanistan that represents all people. That is the good news. 

It is going to be tough. We have 4,800 voting places, with a total 

of 25,000 stations. Men will vote separately from women, because 

we think that makes women more comfortable. We have about 

15

2,000 people thus far signed up to be election volunteers. Security 

is obviously a tough call. We have 35,000 police. Afghan police and 

military will be the first ring. We have the ISAF with a battalion 

from Spain, a battalion from Italy, a company of ours, which will 

be a second ring with a battalion in reserve. Third, we have our 

general coalition forces out there. 

As the Chairman indicated in his opening remarks, 4,800 is a lot 

of polling places to try to protect, but they don’t all have to be protected, because they are not all in areas that are heavily infested 

or infected. 

Finally, if I may——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me ask you——

Mr. ARMITAGE [continuing]. I think all of us expects the Taliban 

to try to ratchet things up to disrupt this election. I do. I think 

most observers do. But they have not been able to do it. There are 

a number of incidents that have averaged two to three per day over 

the past several weeks and last night we had three with no U.S. 

wounded. They want it and——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Have we been pressuring candidates to get out 

of the race? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Have we been addressing candidates? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Pressuring. Pressuring candidates to get out of 

the race. Warlords, et cetera. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. When asked questions by President Karzai, we 

have made our opinion known, particularly about those who are 

known throughout Afghanistan to be heavily involved in the drug 

trade. Beyond that, I know of no pressuring. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me ask a different question. While you were 

in Europe a couple of weeks ago, the press reports that you had 

stated, and I am paraphrasing it, that terrorists were trying to affect the United States elections to the disadvantage of President 

Bush. Is that correct? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Yes, it is correct. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Why would you call most of the democratically 

elected leadership, prime ministers and Presidents of our European 

allies terrorists? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. If I may, I had been asked that question at 

about six different press conferences and I had always answered it 

the six previous times that the Iraqi insurgents are trying to disrupt our elections. 

Leaving the Warsaw press conference, a guy asked me something, and I carelessly answered. It is one of those I wish I had 

back. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Was that just your personal opinion, a flippant 

opinion or——

Mr. ARMITAGE. About disrupting our elections? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. No. If it wasn’t your personal opinion or flippant, 

it is part of an Administration or Department belief? What evidence do you have that they are trying to disrupt our elections? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. There is plenty of intelligence that shows that 

they want to ratchet up violence before our elections. 

16

Mr. ACKERMAN. No. Please understand this very, very specific 

and pointed question, because we have heard it in briefings before 

by people who then have not reported back and other people who 

had to back away from it and say actually there is no evidence of 

it. 

The statement you made was not to disrupt our elections, but the 

statement you made was that they favor John Kerry, basically, and 

not President Bush. The terrorists are friends of the Democrats 

and the Republicans are the enemy of the terrorists. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. You are incorrect in what I said. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. It is Ralph Nader they want to see President? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. You are incorrect in what I said. What I said was, 

and it was a careless remark, they are trying to influence the election of George Bush. They asked then, Do you think that they are 

with John Kerry? And I said, Of course not. 

As I said to you, I had answered the same question about six 

times and I was careless. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. But you are not answering the question. 

You said that they were trying to influence it. The quote that is 

in the papers, ‘‘are trying to influence the election against President Bush.’’

Mr. ARMITAGE. I answered the question. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If there are only two other candidates——

Mr. ARMITAGE. It was a careless comment. 

Mr. ACKERMAN [continuing]. That I know about, then maybe it 

is Ralph Nader or maybe it is not. What evidence is there that they 

are trying to influence the election on behalf of a particular candidate or is this part of some kind of strategy within the Administration to make it took like terrorists are Democrats and favor 

John Kerry, and the Administration is just the American patriots 

trying to protect the American people? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. As I said, I know——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Is this a lot of hokum or is there evidence as to 

this? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I will try to answer, Mr. Ackerman. I don’t know 

of any evidence about that. I said it was a careless remark that I 

made, and I have explained it. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. So there is no evidence to that effect? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. There is evidence that they are trying to disrupt our elections. Period. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. But not——

Mr. ARMITAGE. Period. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. But not to favor a particular candidate? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Not in favor of either. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Armitage, thank you for your leadership on so many 

issues. One of the issues I know you are very deeply, personally 

committed to, and I did read your submitted statement——

Mr. ARMITAGE. I put it in there for you, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. It is excellent. You do make the 

point, and I think it is very important to emphasize, that drug trafVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ficking was not the only criminal enterprise that flourished in the 

absence of the rule of law in Afghanistan. A lucrative trade in 

women and children also developed, as you know—you were there 

at the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) office when it was inaugurated. 

You have been a great supporter of every effort to mitigate and end 

this modern day slavery and for that I personally, and I know on 

behalf of my colleagues, we are deeply grateful. 

Afghanistan is a tier II country. It does lack resources. The TIP 

report on Afghanistan makes it very clear that they don’t have the 

resources. You point out that they are making some strides toward 

protecting the victims and doing some very good things there and 

I am very happy to hear that. One thing I asked Robert Charles 

the other day, and you might want to amplify on it as well, in the 

police training and in the military training, we have trained 25,000 

national police and 11,800 members of the Afghan National Army. 

Are we integrating a policy and a program of training there, visa-vis trafficking? 

General Leon LaPorte, Commander of U.S. forces in Korea, has 

done an extraordinary job there. We had him testify before a joint 

hearing of the OSCE, the Helsinki Commission, which I chair, and 

Duncan Hunter’s Armed Service’s Committee. The information he 

has conveyed, and the work that the Department of Defense has 

done in trying to train our military as part of George Bush’s zero 

tolerance policy, with regards to trafficking, gets no notice. I look 

over at the press table and I have yet to really see anybody focus 

on this extraordinary policy. It is 2 years now that the President 

decreed, through a Presidential Directive, that there is a zero tolerance policy in our military when it comes to trafficking and we are 

leading the world. 

NATO now has followed, as you know. Nicholas Burns has done 

a good job as our Ambassador to NATO to get us there, and the 

Norwegians have co-sponsored an effort at NATO. NATO now has 

a zero tolerance policy. The U.N. is working in that direction as 

well so that military deployments, wherever they are, are less likely to be engaged in that nefarious enterprise and that horrific exploitation of women. 

But about the trainers—Mr. Charles did indicate that there was 

some training going on. You might want to amplify on it. 

Again, I gave General LaPorte’s training manual to the Attorney 

General of Uganda the other day. He also heads up the military 

side and he went through the manual. It is something that is applicable to all military. Again, we are leading the effort in this area 

and certainly training the Afghan military and police. 

Secondly, very briefly, the OSCE observation mission is not going 

to happen, it is my understanding. There will be a smaller mission 

of 25 to 30 because of security concerns. If you could comment on 

whether or not the OSCE is right or wrong in not deploying a larger election observer force. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I added that to my statement, specifically for you, and I reviewed the hearing record of my 

colleagues who were up here last week. 

Since you and I cut the ribbon on the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP) at the State Department, we 

have come a long way. So much so, that it is kind of part and parVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
18

cel of what we do day-in and day-out in the Bureau. There is still 

some reluctance in some areas to name names, but I think we are 

past that pretty much. 

Specifically about training of police; the answer is yes. What 

Bobby Charles told you last week was correct. It is a difficult issue 

in Afghanistan, because of the literacy rate. It is a lot easier in 

using and training in Iraq for police. By the way, we do also train 

in Iraq to look for trafficking, though we don’t have any data to 

show about Iraq yet. Because of the literacy rate, we sometimes 

have to use almost talking books to teach about everything from respect for human beings to respect for human rights. In particular, 

how to recognize the victims, particularly children. 

I think it is that training—and the International Organization 

for Migration (IOM) helps us a lot in this—that has allowed the police to stop over 1,000, at least the figures we have, 1,000 children 

who were going to be trafficked to Iran. They are able to recognize 

potential victims. 

This is a cultural problem that we work hard on. The old saying 

in Afghanistan was, ‘‘It is better to be a mule than a woman in Afghanistan.’’ That takes a little time to work through, and we are 

working through it. I think the fact that almost 42 percent of the 

women in Afghanistan have registered to vote has said—at least as 

far as they are concerned—they are not interested in that saying 

being applicable anymore. 

The most interesting thing, finally, is that those women who are 

registering to vote are registering at higher percentages in the 

countryside, rather than in the cities of Kabul and Kandahar. This 

was much to my surprise. But they clearly have said, We can’t take 

it anymore. 

On the question of OSCE, I thought the numbers were going to 

be about 50. It is insufficient. We and others are going to have to 

make up the difference, and we will do it. We are also training several thousand Afghanistan monitors to look for irregularities. 

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I appreciate that. Thank you very 

much for your fine service. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. Menendez. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, on page two of your written testimony, that you 

chose not to give orally, it says,

‘‘Certainly we know that the Taliban and other insurgents will 

continue to try to disrupt the process, perhaps even by attempting a large scale attack on election day itself.’’

Could you describe for the Committee, and you mentioned in response to another question that the Taliban is performing two or 

three incidents a day, could you describe the nature of the incidents to the Committee? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I can be very specific. As of last night, there was 

one rocket attack, one rocket propelled grenade (RPG) and one 

sniper attack against U.S. forces who are out patrolling all over, to 

no effect I might add. This morning I also had the occasion to be 

on a secure conference call with General Abizaid, who reported to 

the President and others just what I said. 

19

We expect an uptick of violence, but thus far they haven’t been 

able to get it together. One of the reasons, according to General 

Abizaid and certainly from my experience, is that the Pakistanis 

have been so muscular in Waziristan that we are even seeing signs 

that al-Qaeda families are starting to leave. 

I hope I am correct in this. I am not making a prediction, but 

I think temporarily they are on the back foot, and we need to keep 

them there. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. I see. You also mention on page three about the 

countries that are continuing to fight against the Taliban, al-Qaeda 

and other insurgent elements. 

When you mention insurgent elements on page two, is al-Qaeda 

one of them? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. It is. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. Yes. What I fail to understand, based upon your 

testimony, is how the President of the United States this week 

could, in Ohio, say, ‘‘And the Taliban, I guess, just didn’t believe 

me. And as a result of the United States’ military, Taliban no 

longer is in existence’’? 

Did you fail to give the President a briefing that the Taliban——

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. I think that is——

Mr. MENENDEZ [continuing]. Is still in existence and still very 

much active in Afghanistan? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. The President is acutely aware of the activities 

of the Taliban. He is also acutely aware that 28 million people have 

been freed. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. So did he mislead that audience in Ohio when 

he said the Taliban is no longer in existence? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I wasn’t there, but I am sure the audience in 

Ohio——

Mr. MENENDEZ. This is from——

Mr. ARMITAGE. I wasn’t there. I am sure the audience certainly 

understood that what he meant is the Taliban is not shackling 28 

million people. 

Mr. MENENDEZ. This is directly from the President’s Web site 

and it says and I quote: ‘‘And as a result of the United States’ military, the Taliban is no longer in existence.’’ Clearly from your testimony the Taliban is very much in existence. It is very much seeking to disrupt the elections in Afghanistan. It is very much seeking 

to affect the stability of that country. It is very much seeking to 

intimidate women. 

I think we have to stop sugarcoating the realities of what is happening in Afghanistan and in our other conflicts and be honest 

with the American people. In that regard, I ask you as we look at 

this election, it seems to me that again we get a very sugarcoated 

presentation. On the eve of the elections, the fear of violence keeps 

candidates from the campaign trail. President Karzai had to cancel 

a planned campaign rally 2 weeks ago, because a rocket or rocket 

propelled grenade was fired at his helicopter. He survived an assassination attempt on September 5. 

Some Afghans have been intimidated by the Taliban, including 

women. That is the Taliban that no longer exists, according to the 

President. Given the security situation and what President Karzai 

himself has said in the context of suggesting that there are many 

20

cases of double registration, is this a set of circumstances in which 

we want an election at any cost or where we want an election that 

is secure, that is free and fair and is transparent? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I will answer that question, but you might have 

also gone on to say that the Taliban is very much running from 

hidey hole to hidey hole. That they are very much on their back 

foot. 

Specifically on the question of the elections, it seems to me we 

want an election that is judged free and fair by the Afghan people. 

That is what we desire. President Karzai has said, of course, that 

there are some double registrations, and that is why we have training at the polls and the method of having people present either an 

ID card or their fingerprints—both are applicable. Some of the 

women didn’t want their picture on an ID card, and they are allowed to do this with the fingerprint. There will be indelible ink 

used on people’s hands. All the normal things that are used in elections, particularly in initial elections, in countries which have been 

troubled. 

We are going to apply all of those, but I think the important 

thing is not what I think, but what the Afghan people think. If 

they judge it to be free and fair, then we are a lot farther ahead 

than we might have been. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Let me just note that 

nitpicking the President of the United States’ words is not really 

constructive in this type of situation. No. I will finish my statement. Thank you. 

Let me note that the President may or may not have been precise in his wording about the Taliban, but this President—under 

his leadership and with the courage and dedication of our own military and our alliance with moderate Muslim forces in Afghanistan—has driven the Taliban from power, as compared to the 

President’s Democratic predecessor, when, during the Democratic 

Administration that preceded this Administration, there was covert 

support for the Taliban for years. That is not nitpicking at wording. 

That is talking about solid policy and I will stick with the President of the United States that drove the Taliban from power rather 

than supported them covertly. Thank you. I am sorry that I haven’t 

had time to sugarcoat my words this morning so that it would 

please everyone. 

About the President and about how we have driven the Taliban 

from power: We drove the Taliban from power with the help of various people like Ismael Khan and General Dostum and others. 

Could we have been successful without their help? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. It would have been a lot harder, is the best I can 

say. I think once we embarked on a course, we were not going to 

finish until we were successful. There is no question that Ata and 

Dostum and Ismael Khan were helpful at the time. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. They played a major role in driving 

out the Taliban. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Some more than others. Yes, sir. 

21

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Why are we so intent now? I mean you said 

that gratitude doesn’t travel. In politics, sometimes we say that the 

fastest drying liquid known to man are tears of gratitude. 

Why is it now that we have embarked so heavily on trying to, 

let us say, ‘‘weaken’’ those people who are so responsible for helping us win the victory, when the Taliban are still a factor in terms 

of the national security of Afghanistan? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Mr. Rohrabacher, I think that particularly the 

warlords to which you refer have more or less willingly come along 

with DDR. Dostum, as I indicated, much more. Ismael Khan, much 

less. But over the year and a half or so that we have been getting 

to the point we are now, Ismael Khan had every opportunity to 

provide more revenues to the central Government. He was doing 

quite well. Only after urging by Karzai’s Government and the 

United States did he begin to put some of the revenues gained by 

customs into the central Government for the benefit of all Afghans. 

He had the opportunity to participate in the DDR process, and 

he chose not to. Now the new Governor is indeed participating in 

the DDR process, and I will note there hasn’t been any violence 

since the initial violence weeks ago. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let us hope that the strategy works. I would 

suggest that a recognition that there are various ethnic groups in 

various regions of Afghanistan who would indicate that we should 

have the Federal system there in which people are elected, rather 

than appointed, might be the path to go down, but we will wait and 

see. 

One of the biggest problems we face in Afghanistan, or have not 

faced in Afghanistan, I should say, is the production of opium and 

heroin. There are apparently 540 tons of heroin being produced in 

Afghanistan this year, which is almost double what it was when 

the Taliban were driven from power. 

Do you expect that next year we are going to have something 

better to say? Better to present on this issue? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think the best way I can answer that, Mr. Rohrabacher, is if we don’t have something better to say about it, we 

might be in the position where the operation was successful, but 

the patient is not doing very well. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. You can’t continue on this path. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Correct. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. That is the burden of——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What is the total budget that we provide 

Karzai and the Afghan government? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Total from the U.S.? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. From the beginning, $4.5 billion approximately, 

sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. $4.5 billion? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. From the beginning of our involvement. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How much per year do we give them? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Sir? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How much per year? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. It is different every year. I can give it to you——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. About 500 million? 

22

Mr. ARMITAGE. It is almost a billion in 2005. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Do they have about a $500 million budget for 

their Government? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. Their budget for the Government, sir, is 

about 4.7 billion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. 4.7. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Their Afghan budget. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. $4.7 billion? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Sir? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How much? What is their budget? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Theirs was $4.7 billion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Per year? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is not just what we are giving them, but 

that is their whole budget? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Our money is not always used for budget support. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Other countries give budget support. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Are you including the military assistance in 

that? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No. I am going to make two points. Their own 

budget—and they pay their salaries and they pay their military 

and all—is $4.7 billion, according to the information I have. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Our total aid up to now, not including the 2005 

bill which you are debating now, has been about 4.5, 4.6 billion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What do you think the value of 540 tons of 

heroin is? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I can’t even do the math. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is in the billions, right? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I would surely——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What we have done, by not focusing on this 

heroin issue, is we have provided a tremendous resource, perhaps 

almost as equal to the budget that the Afghan Government has 

itself, to those people who oppose everything that we are trying to 

do there, is there correct? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think it is even greater than that. It also has 

even exposed people that aren’t directly funding Talibs or terrorists, who are using it to corrupt the society for their own aims. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentlelady from Nevada. Ms. Berkley. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Secretary Armitage. I have to mention something 

that Mr. Ackerman said. I also was astounded when I heard somebody of your stature say something like that and frankly, your clarification has not gotten quite the same coverage as your statement. 

It was astounding to me, I think you are held in such high regard 

that what you say matters and——

Mr. ARMITAGE. I wish I had it back myself. 

Ms. BERKLEY. It would be nice if perhaps you clarified it. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I appreciate the opportunity——

Ms. BERKLEY. That would be good. 

There are a couple of things that—I have to admit to my level 

of frustration being somewhat high—from the information I reVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
23

ceive, what I have seen on television and what I see in reports, it 

seems that the Taliban has reemerged in Afghanistan. Weapons 

can be purchased for next to nothing and everybody has one. Poppy 

trade, as Mr. Dana Rohrabacher has spoken of, is astronomical. 

You can’t even put a figure on it. The warlords are controlling most 

of Afghanistan. President Karzai is known as the Mayor of Kabul. 

He can’t leave his compound after dark. But we have Administration official after Administration official sitting right where you are 

painting, what I consider, a very rosy picture. It has reached a 

point where I don’t know whether to believe you or my lying eyes. 

Somewhere there is a disconnect and I just wanted to discuss 

some of these disconnects with you. I mean when you say that men 

and women are voting separately, because the women want it that 

way, to me that is nonsense. The reality is the men aren’t going 

to vote side-by-side with the women and I think that is something 

we ought to acknowledge. I mean, that is the culture that we are 

dealing with. 

When we talk about troop strength, we know we have got the 

election October 9. President Karzai has asked for 1,100 more 

troops to assist in security operations from the United States. He 

has requested 5,300 NATO troops, or at least that is the information I have, to help provide security. Only 1,800 NATO troops have 

been promised or pledged and even less than that have actually 

showed up. 

There is a tremendous need for security. It seems that we are 

doing this bass ackwards. Wouldn’t it be better if we made a determination of exactly how much security was needed and allocate 

among the nation states that have a stake in this, how much their 

share should be? 

When we say that there is a difference of opinion with the Afghan Government whether or not Egypt should be supplying troops 

or Turkey should be supplying troops, frankly it is very hard for 

me to go to a constituent whose child or husband is in Afghanistan 

providing security and say, ‘‘You know he should be there side-byside with the Egyptians and the Turks, but there is a slight difference of opinion, because the Afghani Government doesn’t want 

them there.’’ I would say that is somewhat irrelevant to our mission and we need to be insisting that they contribute and that they 

carry their fair share load. And if they are not going to provide 

troops, then the least they could do is provide money, of which they 

are not doing either. I find it absolutely astounding that we are not 

insisting that they do that. 

I joined Mr. Lantos when we tried to shift the money that we 

give to the Egyptians. The Administration fought us tooth and nail, 

saying how cooperative they are being, particularly in the Gaza, destroying the tunnels that the weapons are coming in for the Palestinians and that they are going to provide security training for 

the Palestinians to take over. 

The reality is, they haven’t done either and now they are also not 

helping us in Afghanistan. They are certainly not in Iraq. 

I am wondering what, in your opinion, is adequate troop 

strength? How are we going to enable, or how are we going to convince our allies that they need to be a part of this? The same thing 

when it comes to donor money. 

24

We had Assistant Secretary Robert Charles here testifying in 

front of this Committee talking about two things. I will have you 

comment on all of this if I may. The key problems in Afghanistan 

is lack of infrastructure to support any type of legal or judicial system. The country doesn’t have laws, courts, prisons, judges, basic 

things you need in order to be able to establish an orderly society. 

What are we doing to furnish this infrastructure? 

He also said that a number of nations have pledged to support 

us financially. This is his quote:

‘‘Let me start by saying we have had donor conferences, in 

which people have pledged to support us financially. Even if 

they don’t have the infrastructure or force structure to provide 

added people, they can provide the money.’’

Chairman HYDE. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Who are the people and how much money are they 

pledging and do we have it and what are we using it for? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you, ma’am. I was under the strong impression that the reason we are having separate voting booths was 

responding to women in Afghanistan, who say they want to be able 

to do it free of intimidation. That was the point I was trying to 

make. Maybe I am misinformed. I don’t think so. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Isn’t it bizarre that we are holding a democratic 

election and women in Afghanistan, who are probably a majority 

of the population, are worried about intimidation? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Yes. It is also bizarre that women are only literate to the tune of 21 percent. This is the type of thing we are 

trying to fix. I think it is not bizarre to note that, as I indicated, 

the second most popular political figure by polls is a woman, which 

I think is a good sign. That a certain number by their own constitution—27 percent of the lower house and 17 percent of the upper 

house seats—have been set aside for women. 

We are not where we want to be and not where we are going to 

be, but we are on a journey with some pretty brave people. 

On the question of who is giving what, I could go down by pledge 

and disbursements. I could put it in the record. I could do whatever 

you want. By country, who does what, and who has done what so 

far in 2001 and 2002. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Do you think it is adequate? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. That is a different question. No. I don’t think it 

is adequate. I would like them to step up like we do, but I want 

to tell you what I am going to be providing for the record to see 

if it satisfies your need. 

For instance, Japan has pledged since 2001, $900 million. They 

have grants disbursed to almost $500 million, $495 million and 

change. They pledged another $200 million in 2004. I have that for 

all the donor countries, if you are interested. 

Chairman HYDE. Without objection, the exhibit will be made a 

part of the record. 

Mr. McCotter. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Can I have my questions answered in writing? All 

the other questions. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Do you want them now? 

Ms. BERKLEY. No. In writing. 

25

Mr. ARMITAGE. Sure. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Since we don’t have time right now. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Sure. 

Ms. BERKLEY. I would like to get an idea of exactly how much 

troop strength we need, how much money——

Chairman HYDE. If the gentlelady would put her questions in 

writing, I am sure the Secretary will answer them in writing. 

Ms. BERKLEY. I would be delighted. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Now Mr. McCotter. 

Mr. MCCOTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Two footnotes and a conundrum. First, on the issue of the terrorist intentions in disrupting the elections. I can understand the 

minority party’s concerns about that, but the reality is that that 

doesn’t necessarily mean that when we ascribe intentions to terrorists, it is somehow a reflection upon a Presidential candidate. If the 

terrorist’s intent is to disrupt the election, theoretically to get rid 

of President Bush, that does not mean they are correct in their assumption that what will follow will be better from their point of 

view. They may have just reached the point where, as many people 

have, anybody—but somebody else. And whoever follows can’t be 

worse. Because if the election is running on safer versus non-safer, 

a terrorist disruption of the Presidential election—I can’t perceive 

a reason they would do that, other than to just prove the former 

point rather than the latter. But it must be clear that while ascribing to their intentions and motivations, that doesn’t mean it is a 

reflection of Senator Kerry. 

As for Mr. Lantos’ remarks, I thought they were the most eloquent remarks I have heard in quite some time about the nature 

of the European alliances. I am from Wayne County. I would have 

used different words. 

I think the lesson that we learned in the Cold War was that they 

believe we are going to do it for them and that if America doesn’t 

do it, nobody else will and what part can we play? You see some 

nations on the European continent playing European Union politics, in short for the bragging rights to be the world’s tallest midget. I don’t think we can expect a whole lot from them. 

Finally, my conundrum. We have heard that Iraq is an incubator 

for terrorists. That foreign terrorists are flooding into Iraq to fight 

the United States. 

My question is: Why haven’t we heard so much about that in Afghanistan? Why haven’t we seen at least reports of the scale of 

that happening in Afghanistan? 

My reason is, which is why it is a conundrum for me, Iraq was 

a secular Baathist regime that was hated and we will hear this 

every now and then. It was hated by the al-Qaeda and the rest. 

Meanwhile, they were right at home with the Taliban. The Taliban 

was the type of government they liked. It was a type of government 

that housed them. They were quite comfortable with them. If anything, why was not the deposing of an extremist religious government in Afghanistan the tipping point for an incubator for terrorism, for foreign terrorists flocking to that country? 

I don’t understand why the former action in Afghanistan did not 

have that effect, because logically it would follow that if you were 

26

inclined to be a terrorist, that if you were inclined to worry about 

United States intervention into a spot in the world, that that would 

have been a much greater concern to you. That that would have 

been a larger spark to create new terrorists and to attract them to 

fight U.S. troops there rather than getting rid of Saddam Hussein, 

who was a secular regime. 

I say that and I don’t think that they cared that some people 

liked Afghanistan more than others in the international community, because my personal belief is they don’t care. They will kill 

any Westerner infidel they can find. I am just assuming, for the 

sake of argument, that that is not the case. But can you explain 

that to me? Because I do not understand it. I think this is critical 

to our assessment of policy in the Middle East. 

If there is a differentiation between Iraq and our deposition of 

Saddam Hussein there, deposing of him, if that creates more terror 

than deposing the fundamentalist radical Taliban, which was housing al-Qaeda in the first place, then we need to proceed from that 

point. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I am not sure I can answer, but I am going to 

give it a go. I think that the difference right now between Iraq and 

Afghanistan is twofold. 

First, in Iraq we don’t have neighbors, except for Turkey, who 

aren’t intent on trying to control the border. Hence, there are several or multiple entry points for foreign terrorists. This was the 

case in Afghanistan, but only from one border. The Iranians 

weren’t allowing people to flood into Afghanistan. The Turkmenistan Government was not allowing it. The Tajik Government wasn’t 

allowing it. The Pakistan Government was aiding it at one time. 

That was the single focal point. The Government, under President 

Musharraf’s direction, has changed that policy. Hence, it is a lot 

more difficult for foreign terrorists to flood in. 

Second, if I may and very briefly, I think what we did in Afghanistan surprised them in large measure. There was no surprise 

about the invasion of Iraq. We really, as I said in an answer to a 

previous question, put them on their back feet in Afghanistan. 

Mr. MCCOTTER. Can you address the creation aspect of it, that 

we are creating new terrorists in Iraq—whereas we have not heard 

that about Afghanistan—when we deposed Saddam Hussein there? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think there is a national character that was 

formed in Afghanistan as a result of war for 20-some years and the 

Taliban for 5, that made sort of anybody but Talib, anybody but 

war. 

In Iraq, I think, there was a rough and very cruel equilibrium 

in Saddam Hussein for some people and those are the ones who are 

still fighting us. They have had their equilibrium upset and I am 

referring in this case, sir, primarily to Sunnis. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Chandler. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here today. I am going to try 

to be rather brief. A little bit briefer than some of the other folks 

have been. 

Did I understand you to say that we had spent $4.6 billion in Afghanistan? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. That is right. 

27

Mr. CHANDLER. Is that since 9/11? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Yes, it is, sir. 

Mr. CHANDLER. How does that compare with what we have spent 

in Iraq? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I don’t know what the military costs are, but we 

have had two reconstruction funds. One for roughly $2 billion and 

the other for $18.4 billion. Both were voted through the Congress. 

The $2 billion from the initial appropriations has been disbursed. 

We have disbursed about $1.2 billion of the $18.4 billion in the second supplemental for Iraq. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Would it be rather safe to say that we have spent 

a pittance on Afghanistan in comparison to what we have spent on 

Iraq? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Actually, we have spent much more on Afghanistan, but Congress has voted a great deal more for Iraq than Afghanistan, but it is not obligated yet. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Now you are saying we have spent more on Afghanistan to date than we have spent on Iraq? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. That is correct. We have actually disbursed more. 

Mr. CHANDLER. But is it true that we have not finished the job? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Nowhere near it. 

Mr. CHANDLER. I mean in Afghanistan. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Nowhere near it. 

Mr. CHANDLER. The Taliban is still active, still operative and still 

apparently a danger? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think they are. 

Mr. CHANDLER. What sort of resources do we have on the ground, 

just generally, in Afghanistan? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I don’t know how many——

Mr. CHANDLER. Military resources. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think we have about 17,000 U.S. forces. We 

have about 9,000 ISAF, foreign contributions, of which 7,700 are 

from NATO countries and then we have 11,720 Afghan army 

trained to date. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Does our Government still believe that Osama 

bin Laden is in Afghanistan, or do we have any idea where he is? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I don’t think we know. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Is the general belief that he is in Afghanistan? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. The general belief is that he is in the Pakistan/

Afghanistan area, in the mountainous region, but I don’t think anybody knows. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Why aren’t we spending more resources trying to 

capture him? It has been my understanding, unless I have missed 

something, that he was responsible mainly for the 9/11 attack. 

Shouldn’t we be putting more resources into the effort to capture 

him in Afghanistan than we are presently doing? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. The fellows who are patrolling up there every single day are certainly putting in a big effort. I can’t give you, sir, 

the number of troops. It is a sizable number, and they are aided 

and assisted by the Pakistanis on the other side of the border, with 

whom we are liaising. I can’t give you the level——

Mr. CHANDLER. It would be your belief that we are doing enough 

to try to capture him? 

28

Mr. ARMITAGE. I am not going to be happy until we catch him, 

but it is my belief that the military commanders think they have 

what they need to catch him, and that they will eventually get him. 

Mr. CHANDLER. It is safe to say that we are putting much more 

militarily into Iraq than we are into the capture of Osama bin 

Laden? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. In terms of troops, sure. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Weller. 

Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, good to see you this morning. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you. 

Mr. WELLER. Thank you for taking the time to be before the 

Committee. It is always good to see you. 

I want to follow up on the questions of Ms. Davis and Mr. Rohrabacher and their focus on the issue of narcotrafficking and particularly opium production. 

Can you walk us through—so we can just get a greater understanding of how particularly the Taliban and al-Qaeda utilized 

narcotrafficking for their purposes—what roles they use for 

narcotrafficking? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. My understanding, sir, is that the Taliban cynically manipulated the market by actually storing crops, temporarily driving up the market price and then using it to move 

through Tajikistan and up into Russia. They were using this very 

much as a budget support for their activities and manipulating the 

market just like someone could manipulate an oil market. 

At present, the people who were involved in narcotrafficking, 

some warlords, some minor warlords, certainly some of this money 

we believe gets to the Talibs, are engaged in what they think is a 

land office business. Hence the number of hectares under cultivation has grown. 

Mr. WELLER. What about al-Qaeda? What is their role in 

narcotrafficking and how do they use it? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. My understanding is the funds that they obtained 

were through the Talibs, but I am not an expert on this. I would 

be more comfortable if I could provide that for the record. 

Mr. WELLER. It is your understanding that most of the 

narcotrafficking financing, the money that comes through from 

narcotrafficking that is used for terrorism, actually comes through 

the Taliban before it would get to al-Qaeda or——

Mr. ARMITAGE. Not now. Much of it now comes through warlords 

and others, and, I think, as it did before. The trafficking is partially controlled by the Talibs, partially by different warlords. All 

of the area in which poppy is grown was not under Talib control. 

Some of the northern alliance had territory where they had hectares under cultivation. It is a more mixed picture. 

Mr. WELLER. The production of the Taliban, for example, are 

they directly involved in the production or do they have other people doing that for them? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I am not expert enough to say. My impression is 

that they are involved in siphoning off some of the proceeds. They 

are not out there actually cultivating it, but I would have to defer 

to Bobby Charles on that. 

29

Mr. WELLER. Is that the same with processing and actual distribution? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Yes. 

Mr. WELLER. What is the role of neighboring nations? Our 

friends. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Iran actually——

Mr. WELLER. What is the role that they are taking in addressing 

the trafficking? You mentioned the route. You gave an example 

earlier of a route of where the opium was leaving Afghanistan. Can 

you walk us through each of the neighboring countries and the role 

that each of them are taking in encountering the trafficking in narcotics? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Iran has probably been the best in this for cultural and moral governmental reasons. They are standing up, as 

well as for religious reasons, very strongly against trafficking. 

They have had a pretty strict border control regime. Tajikistan 

previously had Russian border guards doing the guarding of the 

borders. I think most of us felt that this lent itself to a certain 

amount of corruption. The border guards received zip for pay each 

month and, of course, one run of a mule could put them well for 

a year. 

We thought it was ripe for some corruption. The Tajiks have 

taken over these border posts from the Russians. The Russians left 

them there, and I can’t say other than they are willing to play the 

role, that they are being able to be very strict. 

There is also a drug problem through Pakistan, but it is one that 

Members of the Congress have helped the Pakistanis to address by 

providing some helicopters to their DEA equivalent. We are about 

to sell them some more. Not military, but against the narcotics. 

Years ago, when U.S. Navy ships used to pull into port in Pakistan, 

literally when the lines would be thrown over, so would opium be 

thrown over on the deck for sailors as it came down from Afghanistan through Karachi. 

The Pakistanis have been standing up in the last year and a lot 

of your colleagues, like Mr. Pitts, have been very much involved in 

trying to help the Pakistanis help us. 

Mr. WELLER. The majority of opium that is produced, does that 

go to Europe? Is that where most of it is? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. The majority is produced in Afghanistan. 

Mr. WELLER. Yes. If you were to ask the Europeans to do one 

more thing, above what they are currently doing to help address 

the trafficking in opium which ends up in the hands of their citizens, what would you ask? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I would ask that our Italian friends get—this 

may surprise you—actually get more robust. They are the lead nation in the rule of law. We are not going to be successful in just 

eradicating the opium if we can’t get a rule of law and people actually get punished when they traffick in these things. 

I would ask more than the Brits to get involved in helping us 

prosecute this with everything from air spray to manual spray. I 

might say the irony of this is the majority of this product goes right 

into Moscow and our Russian friends are absolutely ripped about 

this. They are willing to be helpful in this matter. Of course they 

30

have some priors in Afghanistan and they don’t have quite the freedom of action. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentlelady from California. 

Mr. WELLER. Thank you. 

Chairman HYDE. Ms. Lee. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. A couple of things I 

would like to say. First of all, we have recently experienced flawed 

elections in our own country. Of course more recently the election 

of 2000, where we had thousands of votes which were either not 

counted or thrown out and we have a situation in America where 

the Supreme Court selected or appointed the President. 

I guess I would ask you, with regard to Afghanistan, you mentioned it is up to the Afghan people to determine what is free and 

fair in terms of their own elections. 

I think given the difficulties we have had here, we need to be 

clear with regard to the role of international observers and monitors. I think not only have we requested them, I have requested 

them with some of my colleagues, for the elections this time, but 

I think that the State Department, USAID, should do that. Should 

fund monitors and observers. 

I believe you have in the past, in terms of transition elections. 

I would just like to ask you about that. What are the plans for the 

security of counting ballots? Because of course we know what has 

happened in our own country. 

How are we going to make sure that in Afghanistan ballots are 

counted? That they are secure? That they are not thrown out? How 

do we allow for the democratic process to move forward, understanding what some of the basic problems are, given what we know 

about our own country? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you, Mrs. Lee. My understanding is that 

there are going to be ballots that are actually marked individually. 

No chads. None of that. Just dropped in a box, which is then 

sealed. They go to eight different centers. They are escorted from 

the 4,800 polling places, which lead to an average, if everyone 

showed up who is registered, of about 2,000 a day. 

Just a bit about the procedures. The polls are open from 8 to 5 

and anyone in line at 1600, or 4 o’clock, will be allowed to vote. 

Those are the rules set up for this. There will be observers, either 

international- or locally-trained observers at all the posts. The 

international observers will be United States, Afghanistan, U.N., 

Asian Network for Free Elections, OSCE; but, as Mr. Smith pointed out, they are not coming in such great numbers. 

Once the ballots are collected at the eight polling places, it will 

take a couple of days to count them and the results will start being 

made known when 15 percent of the vote has been counted. The 

possibilities for fraud always exist. The way they are going to try 

to handle it is by either photograph or fingerprint. For people who 

can’t write or don’t want to be photographed, identification in indelible ink on someone’s hands when they vote. Is it perfect? No. 

Ms. LEE. Okay. It may not be perfect, but I guess given the 

United States’ commitment to these elections we would probably 

have to do everything we can do to make sure that it is close to 

perfect, which means making sure that the ballots are clear. 

31

I personally have observed elections once in Nigeria with Secretary Powell, another time in South Africa, and the types of measures that have been put in place to ensure fair and free elections—

transparency also—I was amazed at in terms of the development 

of their process. 

I am wondering here in Afghanistan, one, you mentioned the 

international observers. Who are they? Where are they going to 

come from? Do we have the Carter Center? IRI? You know all of 

the traditional organizations monitoring? Do we have congressional 

monitors? How much money are we spending on that and what will 

their roles be? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I think the money is the easiest one for me to answer. We are at about $94 million. We have provided over 45 percent of the money involved in the elections. Though I don’t have 

the numbers of observers, Ms. Lee, I think there are several thousand we are training: U.N., Free Elections, Asian Network for Free 

Elections, OSCE. My excellent staff here has the whole thing here. 

NDI is training up to 1,500 domestic observers. I will be glad to 

provide this to you. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. I am glad to hear that. I think 

we need to look at that also in terms of our upcoming elections and 

see what organizations have kicked in, because it is going to be 

very important that ballot tampering be prevented. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Right. 

Ms. LEE. Have you seen the ballots? How clear are they? Are 

they ballots that people, given what you said about the literacy 

rates, are they ballots with pictures? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. You know I haven’t seen them, but why don’t I 

try to get one if I can and provide it to you? I haven’t seen it. 

Ms. LEE. Okay. That would be very important to see, in terms 

of our understanding of how——

Mr. ARMITAGE. I am interested as well. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Faleomavaega. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to 

thank you and our Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, for calling this 

important hearing this afternoon. 

I would like to offer, also, my personal welcome to Secretary 

Armitage, here before our Committee. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Secretary, I have always held your opinions very highly and respected very much your forthrightness and 

being up front with some of the issues that come before the Members of this Committee. 

I want to commend you also for your efforts, recently, in bringing 

a better public understanding of what Pakistan had done with our 

friend Mr. Khan in selling nuclear secrets to countries like North 

Korea, Iran and Libya. I appreciate that you were very forthcoming 

in letting Congress know this was, by no means, just a public or 

media aberration, if you will. 

The fact, Mr. Secretary, that the person most responsible for the 

9/11 attack, Mr. Osama bin Laden, is still at large somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan makes democratic reforms, in my 

humble opinion, for Afghanistan even more difficult. I was wanting 

32

to know, due to the fact that Osama bin Laden is still alive, Do you 

think that this will definitely have a serious impact on the democratic reforms that we are trying to make for Afghanistan? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. My opinion is the death—which is to be ardently 

hoped for; or the capture, which is the second option for Osama bin 

Laden—though a great thing, is not going to stop the Jihadists, 

and it is not going to stop the Talibs. 

I think the fact of the matter is, although he, the titular head 

still and certainly, as far as we are concerned, responsible for the 

horror of 9/11, has found it a lot more difficult to be in charge if 

he is having to hide from hole-to-hole, which we believe he is. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Secretary, it is my understanding that 

President Karzai has made it known to the leaders of our country 

and perhaps to the world that democracy, as he sees it, must have 

the heart and soul of the Afghan people, especially with him having 

to work with the warlords and they have to have some sense of active participation from these leaders. 

What I am simply saying here is that through the imposition of 

our will or our ways or our methods, it took us over 200 years to 

define and refine our form of democracy. And to expect that these 

people are going to be practicing democracy overnight, don’t you 

think you are being somewhat unrealistic? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I don’t want to be insulting to anyone, but I noted 

in the hearing last week, sir, when we were talking about democracy in Iraq, that it is a first-time thing, that until the early part 

of the 20th century, women didn’t vote in our democracy, and Mr. 

Payne would not have been voting until 1965. We were pretty slow 

about developing our own democracy, and we have to keep that in 

the back of our minds. Having said that, I don’t think other countries have the ‘‘luxury’’ of time to wait for 165 years to develop it. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I consider myself a slow reader and a slow 

learner, but recently I got through reading the book written by Mr. 

Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, and I want to commend you for 

some very choice statements of which you are quoted in the book 

by Mr. Woodward and most——

Mr. ARMITAGE. My mother would put soap in my mouth, and I 

heard from my family about this. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. The most striking point, Mr. Secretary, that 

I got, after reading this well respected journalist’s timeless efforts 

to interview and to do everything leading up to our President’s efforts to committing war in Iraq, was the fact that we shifted our 

resources from Afghanistan to Iraq. One of the things that really 

struck me the most in reading the book was the fact that, among 

all the senior members of the President’s cabinet—and, of course, 

this is the President’s prerogative and his right and his privilege 

to choose whoever he wants to ask for opinions—but if I read the 

book correctly, Mr. Secretary, it was that among all the senior 

members of the President’s cabinet, he never asked Secretary Powell for his opinion as to whether or not we should attack Iraq. 

I make the presumption that he may have asked Secretary Powell about our involvement in Afghanistan, but is it correct that the 

President never asked Secretary Powell? 

Here is a man, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

has been in combat, knows more about war than just about anyVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
33

body in the President’s cabinet, and he was never asked his opinion 

as to whether or not we should conduct war against Iraq or Saddam Hussein? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Sir, I think that same book makes the point that 

the President knew very well Secretary Powell’s opinion that the 

Secretary, as well as I, in many cases, were fully involved in the 

deliberations, but the advice to the President, which we gave, I will 

remain silent about. 

There was no doubt on where everybody stood and I think that 

point was made by the President. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. The point that the President made to Secretary Powell was, Are you with me or against me? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. We had a full hearing of all of our views. We 

made it, and the President made his decision and the Secretary 

said he was with him. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

Sorry that I missed your testimony, but I, too, kind of like to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague, Mr. 

Faleomavaega. 

I too was one that was outraged. From where I live—on a hill 

in New Jersey—the World Trade Center was very, very clear. It 

was so imposing that you could almost feel like you could touch it 

and, for months, as I would come out of my little one-way block to 

the top of the hill, it was as if something was wrong. Because the 

World Trade Centers were right in front and it just seemed so different, and I couldn’t avoid looking over there and riding up the 

turnpike—just continually looking from Newark Airport—and they 

were not there. 

So many of us in the New York/New Jersey region were traumatized, but it was just so personal because it was something we saw 

everyday. I am totally outraged that our Government did not go 

after the perpetrators, go after those people that came and violated 

our sovereignty, that did such a dastardly act. Secretary Rumsfeld 

said, ‘‘there were no good targets in Afghanistan.’’ Baghdad was a 

good target. 

The fact that we misled Americans, and it wasn’t difficult because many people have a difficult time getting the details straight. 

We knew it was some people that didn’t like us. We don’t know 

those countries too well. Iran sounds like Iraq. Afghanistan doesn’t 

sound like either one, but it was, ‘‘Let us get somebody.’’ And so 

we went and got a bad guy and we say, ‘‘Aren’t we better off that 

Saddam is in jail? Sure.’’

We could take a lot of people and say we would be better off if 

they were in prison somewhere. Very simplistic conclusion. But if 

we had put all of the energy and effort into Afghanistan and left 

Saddam Hussein and Iraq there, since they had the no-fly zone, we 

knew every piece of radar they had because we took it out. They 

couldn’t get anything in. They couldn’t get anything out. A few people would be happy to walk over from Syria, but we had the Predator. We had the U2s. We knew everything. We knew where they 

had lunch. We knew where they had dinner. We decided, though, 

34

to let Afghanistan go and put all of our energies into Iraq when the 

inspectors were still there. Saddam knew he didn’t have anything. 

We heard the change from weapons of mass destruction. We don’t 

even hear about weapons of mass destruction. 

It was that we went there because of regime change. I have 

never seen history revisited. It wasn’t regime change. It was weapons of mass destruction. That is what they had, they said. Biological and chemical weapons. That is why we are going there. You 

don’t hear that anymore. Now it is regime change. We wanted to 

change the President. Lies that are perpetrated on people is wrong, 

because Osama bin Laden is still around. Iraq is a rallying call 

where Saddam Hussein didn’t even like or vice versa, neither one 

liked each other. Never met each other. Osama bin Laden called 

Saddam Hussein an infidel, just like us. I have never seen such a 

misuse of our power where we could have brought down Osama bin 

Laden and the Taliban, who were not even welcomed in Iraq and 

now they are running around there asking everyone to come on in. 

This Jihad is here. 

It is wrong that we are there. I just came back 2 weeks ago. I 

went to that big military hospital in Ramstein up in Germany. I 

am looking at our wonderful young men and women, limbs blown 

off, burns, deaf, blind—and that is what happens in war and we 

have to do war. But I think that it was wrong that we did not go 

after our real enemy, because Saddam Hussein would still be a 

good target. They still would not have had an Air Force. They still 

wouldn’t have had any target. They would still be in the no-fly zone 

and they still wouldn’t have any weapons of mass destruction, like 

they don’t have now. I don’t have any questions. 

Chairman HYDE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Do you wish to comment? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. No, sir. I think Mr. Payne didn’t have a question. 

Chairman HYDE. I will yield myself 5 minutes, because I usually 

don’t ask questions at these hearings, but this has been so provocative. 

There seems to be a deep sensitivity about criticizing the critics 

of the war. The notion that you can call the Commander-in-Chief, 

in a time of war, a liar and call him that repeatedly, the notion 

that that doesn’t help the other side—I am staying away from the 

word ‘‘enemy’’—is, to use a word that Mr. Payne used, simplistic. 

To think that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was unimportant or 

negligible surprises me. To say that this is the wrong war at the 

wrong time and the wrong place, to say that doesn’t help the other 

side, I have trouble understanding that. That is a disconnect. 

To think that they are not trying to influence the election is willful ignorance. To think that what they did in Spain didn’t affect 

that election when the first thing the new socialist prime minister 

said was, he is taking his troops out of Iraq. To think that didn’t 

help the other side is naive. 

The criticisms—and I know it is the political season and the election is coming—but if we prize candor, we ought to understand 

that calling the Commander-in-Chief a liar every hour on the hour, 

as we have just heard him called here, it seems to me that it does 

help the other side. I don’t know why we are so sensitive about 

that, because that is what is going on. It is wrong that we are 

35

there. I am sure that is what they think, but we were victimized 

by September 11 and we wanted to prevent any further victimization of this country. 

The previous Administration had the identical opinions about 

weapons of mass destruction that every intelligence service in the 

Nation and in the world had and yet we say the President misled 

us into war. The President exercised leadership and responded to 

one of the worst atrocities in recorded history: September 11. You 

are either on one side or you are on the other and those are my 

personal feelings. I don’t attribute them to anybody. 

You are doing a fine job, Mr. Armitage, and we admire you for 

it and keep it up. Is that Mr. Engel? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I respond to your comments? 

Chairman HYDE. I was responding to your comments. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. On the point of personal privilege. 

Chairman HYDE. We are even in the response time. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Point of personal privilege. 

Chairman HYDE. I didn’t mention you, Mr. Ackerman, but I——

Mr. ACKERMAN. You referred to something I said and called it 

willful ignorance. 

Chairman HYDE. Yes, I will. I think you were hypersensitive 

about being criticized. Of course you are doing the criticism about 

the President, but go ahead. What is on your mind? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. What is on my mind, Mr. Chairman, is I—and 

a lot of us—are sick and tired of those people who would question 

our patriotism, when we exercise our rights and responsibilities as 

Americans and Members of Congress and——

Chairman HYDE. Nobody questions your patriotism. It is your 

judgment that is under question. Your patriotism——

Mr. ACKERMAN. You said——

Chairman HYDE [continuing]. Is——

Mr. ACKERMAN. You said that we are favoring——

Chairman HYDE. Red, white and blue. 

Mr. ACKERMAN [continuing]. The other side. 

Chairman HYDE. Red, white and blue. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. You said it is helpful to the other side. 

Chairman HYDE. I think that is obvious. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. What is obvious, Mr. Chairman, is that you are 

a rather vicious partisan, if you are questioning the patriotism of 

Members of Congress who are——

Chairman HYDE. Now you are really getting personal. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I think that willful ignorance is kind of personal 

also, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. Just remember, ignorance is salvageable but 

stupid is forever. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I know that, Mr. Chairman and I am glad that 

you have memorized that. The real point is that we have a right 

as Members of this Committee to question policies without having 

our motives or patriotism or loyalty to the United States referred 

to as loyalty and being helpful to the other side—of people with 

whom we are at war. 

36

We consider ourselves—those of us who want to be helpful—supportive, and most of us on this side in this Committee were very 

supportive of the President going in. We have a right to be critical 

of what we have seen since then and what we have been presented 

with, both in this Committee and in this room and other rooms 

under other conditions, by people who have misled and deceived us 

and deceived the American people as to the reasons of this war. If 

the gentleman from New Jersey appropriately expresses his concerns, to have his patriotism questioned and demeaned by the 

Chairman of the Committee, I believe is an abuse of the authority 

that you have. 

Chairman HYDE. Mr. Ackerman——

Mr. ACKERMAN. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but 

not to demean Members of this Committee. I will not tolerate that. 

Chairman HYDE. I don’t demean anybody on this Committee, 

least of all you, Mr. Ackerman. But you have to stand up to the 

consequences of what you are saying and doing. Calling the Commander-in-Chief a liar is not, in my judgment, helpful to our side. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I didn’t call the Commander-inChief a liar. 

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, would you yield for a moment? 

Chairman HYDE. I would like, Mr. Engel——

Mr. ACKERMAN. If you would like the record read back on that, 

I would be happy to sit here through all that I have said. I have 

never called the Commander-in-Chief a liar, Mr. Chairman, and 

please don’t ascribe that to me. I didn’t——

Chairman HYDE. Do any responsible people in your party call 

him a liar? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I don’t follow around every responsible person in 

my party. There are quite a number of us. As a matter of fact, we 

represent the majority of America. 

Chairman HYDE. I think we can forego providing entertainment 

for the room and terminate this hearing. 

Mr. Engel, do you want some time? 

Mr. ENGEL. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Engel, would you give me 20 seconds? That is 

all. 

Chairman HYDE. Surely. 

Mr. ENGEL. I yield to Mr. Payne 20 seconds. 

Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make it clear that I felt 

that we could handle one major operation at a time, and if we had 

put the assets into Afghanistan to go over and get Osama bin 

Laden, who said, ‘‘I did 9/11,’’ that is what we, up in the northeast, 

feel. Let us go after the enemy and then we can go and get the 

other guy. There may be six other bad people sitting in capitals, 

but Osama bin Laden said, ‘‘I did 9/11. I am sitting here in Afghanistan.’’

I give credit to the great Republican former Governor of New Jersey who said there was absolutely no connection between 9/11 and 

Saddam Hussein. And for you to sit there and even switch my 

words around a bit, where I said that we should have gone after 

Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and then when we completed 

that we could go get anyone else that we want, I think that we 

have put our energies into the wrong place, because Osama bin 

37

Laden is still around. He is still making tapes. He is still roaming 

around caves somewhere and if we had put that 250- or 300,000 

troops into Afghanistan, he wouldn’t even be existing anymore. 

And we could have sat around as the inspectors and Hans Blix 

were roaming around Iraq since they said, ‘‘You can go anywhere 

you want to go,’’ but we said, ‘‘No, you come out, because we are 

going in.’’

That is all I said. That we had a wrong priority, because Saddam 

Hussein would have still been sitting in Baghdad and we could 

have finished the job in Afghanistan and saved thousands of American and coalition forces lives. 

Chairman HYDE. Thank you. 

Mr. ENGEL. I am wondering if I could reclaim my time. I have 

a question——

Mr. PAYNE. I think you yielded to me so you have your 5 minutes 

I believe. 

Mr. ENGEL. I just want to say, and then I have a question for 

Mr. Armitage, that obviously Members of Congress have different 

opinions on this and what we are hearing today is a lot of frustration. 

I just want to say that we, as elected Members of Congress and, 

indeed, as American citizens, have the right to express our opinion 

without really being accused of helping the other side. I think that 

that is not something that we ought to be accused of. I remember 

that during the Vietnam War, that was the same thing leveled at 

critics of the Vietnam War. That somehow we were being unpatriotic or helping the other side. 

That shouldn’t be leveled at people who are critical of what the 

Administration is doing and has done in Iraq. I have tried to be 

helpful. I think that each one of us has to search our own souls, 

but I think that we don’t have to be rocket scientists to understand 

that things have gone terribly wrong in Iraq, and that the rosy pictures that the Administration is trying to project are not really fact 

at all. Things are going badly and that it is diverting from the war 

against terror, which I think some of my colleagues have been saying. The war against Osama bin Laden and the war against terror 

is being hurt by the fact that we are bogged down in Iraq. I think 

that is the frustration that we are hearing. 

Mr. Armitage, I would like to ask you, I am told—or we are told, 

that in many regions of Afghanistan, the daily life has reverted 

back to the ways that it had been under the Taliban. That there 

are warlords and they are supposedly our allies, but that they have 

intimidated journalists and democracy activists and aid workers 

and Afghan civilians. They still restrict the freedom of women. 

Is it possible for there to be long-term democracy and stability 

and respect for human rights in Afghanistan, if the current local 

and regional warlords retain their present political and military 

power? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. If the warlords stayed, as they were today, I 

think the short answer would be no, Mr. Engel. However, the warlords are not in static positions. They have steadily come down in 

numbers. 

Over 17,000 of the soldiers have taken part in the Afghan New 

Beginning Program. About half the heavy weapons have been 

38

cantoned. That is on a good path and it has picked up recently with 

the Japanese and the United Nations putting extra effort into the 

DDR project. 

The question of respect for women’s rights and all of that is 

something that is not going to be solved immediately. I made the 

point that it took 150 years in our country before we finally gave 

women a right to vote. But we are in a situation now where at 

least women, by their registering to vote, seem to be saying that 

they have had enough of the old way. They want to try the new 

way, and I think our job, the international community’s job, is to 

give them the opportunity to try the new way. 

Mr. ENGEL. But the fact that we have a lack of troops in Afghanistan, I mean isn’t it really true, once you get out of Kabul, that 

things pretty much in most of the country are the way they were 

under the Taliban? Isn’t that really a result of the fact that we are 

not able to put full effort into Afghanistan because we are so 

bogged down in Iraq? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. I made a comment to Mr. Ackerman earlier. He 

derided it. I said we have some opinion polls that are not State Department opinion polls that show that 85 percent of the Afghan 

people think that things are going in the right direction, and that 

life is better now. 

So that would leave 15 percent who might be in the category that 

you described, if this poll was correct. But the data we are getting 

is that there is much more hope in the countryside that things will 

change after 20 years of war and 5 years of Talib rule. 

Mr. ENGEL. What is Iran doing in Afghanistan? What kind of 

mischief are they up to? 

Mr. ARMITAGE. They are up to less mischief than you might 

imagine. They signed a good neighbor agreement with the Afghan 

Government. They are very rigorous on the prosecution of drugs. 

Where they are not as helpful, is that they have been involved in 

some anti-American feeling in Herat. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HYDE. The time has expired happily and Mr. 

Armitage, we thank you for your usual excellent presentation and 

the Committee stands adjourned. 

Mr. ARMITAGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(39)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NICK SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

I would like to thank Chairman Hyde for holding this hearing today on security 

for the Afghan elections. I would also like to thank our distinguished witness for 

joining us. 

Last week, Iraq’s Prime Minister Ayad Allawi spoke to a Joint Session of Congress and the United Nations, and several months ago Afghan President Hamid 

Karzai spoke to us. We all have concerns about the future of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

But we should remember that these countries have taken dramatic steps forward. 

For the people of Afghanistan, October 9th will be another historic day. They will 

elect their President. Their collective choices will determine the direction of their 

country for years to come. So far 10.5 million people have registered to vote, approximately half the population. Forty-percent of the registered voters are women. 

While the future of Afghanistan is still uncertain, the symbolic and real importance 

of these elections cannot be overstated. 

However, there are genuine reasons for concern. As usual, some security and political danger comes from warlords, especially those with links to Taliban remnants 

and al-Qaeda. They know that as the central government in Kabul increases its legitimacy, they lose power. If the people in their provinces express support in large 

numbers for President Karzai, as they are likely to do, it will strengthen Karzai’s 

hand in dealing with them. This is both Karzai’s strategy and describes how he can 

be defeated. While it is true that Karzai will likely win this election due to his own 

popularity, this election is setting the stage for the parliamentary elections in February, which could be more contentious and subject to interference for political reasons. 

It would seem Karzai must maintain a balance between giving the warlords 

enough power to encourage them to invest in the political process and retaining 

enough power to be able to expand the reach of the central government. However, 

warlords associated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda constantly undermine this balance. Furthermore, these warlords involved in the narcotics trade understand that 

the central government will be obliged to oppose and limit the narcotics trade. 

Altogether, these problems probably do not pose a fatal threat to the Presidential 

election. If President Karzai does not achieve a majority on the first ballot, it is extremely likely that he will in the runoff. The results will probably not be effected. 

Instead, the greatest risk is how the legislative elections will be impacted. If these 

issues are not addressed soon, they can be insurmountable for the legislative elections. The legislature will write laws and have budgetary controls. The laws and 

spending will have an impact on the distribution of money and power. If those elections are pre-determined by Taliban and al-Qaeda allied and poppy-funded warlords, then the elections would begin the practice of codifying a status quo that 

could prevent further progress. This is the real danger in this election. 

Mr. Chairman, again thank you for holding this hearing. I look forward to hearing 

from Deputy Secretary Armitage. Afghanistan has made great progress. I congratulate Deputy Secretary Armitage and Secretary Powell for their contributions to the 

achievements in Afghanistan so far and for their efforts for a successful future. This 

election and the subsequent legislative election will consolidate this progress and set 

the stage for all future progress. That is why it is so important to get these elections 

right. 

40

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANDREW S. NATSIOS, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to 

present testimony on the subject, ‘‘U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan on the Eve of National Elections’’. 

In December 2003, a gathering of Afghan, American and international officials 

commemorated the just completed paving of the 300-km highway that overcame 

rugged terrain, 600-km supply lines, minefields, and repeated attacks by Taliban 

remnants. 

At one level, the Kabul to Kandahar highway was a generous development contribution by the governments of the United States, Japan and Saudi Arabia to one 

of the world’s most desperately poor places. The newly paved roadway will allow impoverished farmers to access new markets, spare sick children and pregnant women 

from a bone-crunching, hours-long trip to health clinics, and facilitate school construction in isolated regions. 

Yet, at another level, the highway was a precision weapon in the war on terror; 

perhaps not as lethal as air strikes, but every bit as threatening to the terrorist enemies of President Karzai’s post-Taliban government, as evidenced by their repeated 

attempts to disrupt its construction. Perceived as a threat to terrorist operations, 

the highway was carefully and routinely targeted: the roadway slashes through the 

heart of the former Taliban strongholds in southeastern Afghanistan and bolsters 

the central government’s ability both to link the nation’s two largest cities and to 

extend services to ethnic Pashtun regions. The reconstruction process in war-ravaged Afghanistan combines two bodies of theory and practice that are not usually 

analytically linked: international humanitarianism and the global war on terror. 

For the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Afghanistan provides unique challenges, even after fifty five years 

of experience in rebuilding fractured societies and more than a dozen post-conflict 

interventions in the post-Cold War period alone. Afghanistan provides the purest 

case of the U.S. government and allies marshalling humanitarian and war-fighting 

assets on the same ‘‘battlefield.’’ What makes Afghanistan so dramatically different 

from Somalia, East Timor, Ethiopia, Bosnia, and other humanitarian crises of the 

past several decades is the recognition that the U.S. national interest stakes are 

even higher. Post-9/11 high-level recognition of the direct links between what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with events in rural Afghanistan elevated humanitarian and reconstruction programs to the stature of geo-politics, and drove national security down to the level of building schools in isolated villages. 

Understanding the interplay between humanitarian and anti-terrorist programs is 

likely to be critical to effective U.S. foreign policy in the war against terrorism. The 

United States and its allies will continue to encounter amalgams of poverty and fanaticism, illiteracy and alienation, suffering and militancy as the war on terrorism 

continues. It is clear, as President Bush points out in his National Security Strategy: 

2004, that poverty and human suffering do not, in and of themselves, spawn terrorism; the September 11 hijackers, most of whom came from middle class families, 

many with college degrees, were hardly the ‘‘poorest of the poor.’’ But, it is equally 

clear that impoverished and oppressed societies provide fertile ground for recruiting 

the foot soldiers that would follow the educated, but fanatical, leadership of terrorist 

networks. Humanitarianism, reconstruction projects, and counter-terrorism programs are likely to be co-joined frequently in the coming decade; the challenge is 

how to make the mixture effective. 

In this brief testimony, we argue that the U.S. government reconstruction program in Afghanistan—in its humanitarian, security, political, and economic aspects—is both appropriate to the needs of the Afghan people and the complex realities of their long-suffering country, and an effective weapon against terrorism. 

This testimony summarizes the U.S. government reconstruction strategy in Afghanistan, highlighting how elements of that strategy fit together and reinforce one 

another. More importantly, my testimony provides examples of the complex interplay between humanitarian and counter-terrorism activities in Afghanistan and answers some of the common criticisms of our reconstruction strategy. 

U.S. GOVERNMENT RECONSTRUCTION STRATEGY

By almost any measurement, Afghanistan was one of the poorest places on the 

face of the earth, even before the Soviet incursion provoked decades of conflict. Per 

capita income was, and remains, among the lowest in the world, and illiteracy 

rates—estimated by UNICEF to be 71 %—among the highest. Nearly one in four 

Afghan children will not survive disease to reach his or her fifth birthday. AfghaniVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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stan has recorded some of the highest maternal mortality rates in modern public 

health history. In the several years before 9/11 Afghans held the world record for 

the lowest per capita caloric intake in the world, perhaps with the exception of 

North Korea. The conflict against the Soviets, and subsequent internal power struggles culminating in the Taliban regime, lasted twenty-three years. Those years of 

warfare devastated Afghanistan, destroying roads, bridges, schools, and telecommunications facilities, while leaving much of the nation’s farmland and byways 

laced with anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines. 

This massive destruction of Afghanistan’s infrastructure was matched by destruction of the nation’s institutions as well. Afghanistan virtually ceased to exist as a 

nation-state, with no functioning army, police, border controls, civil service or viable 

ministries to support the state. Long-standing ethnic and regional tensions erupted 

into communal violence, punctuated with widespread human rights violations and 

atrocities. More than six million Afghans fled to the relative safety of bordering 

countries, and the Taliban enforced medieval restrictions on those who remained 

within the country. 

Four economies provided wealth and jobs in the country: a) the warlord economy 

(of weapons trade, kidnapping, and looting); b) the international aid economy; c) the 

drug economy, and d) traditional agricultural economy. 

In short, U.S. and other international relief officials entering Afghanistan in early 

2002, after the defeat of the Taliban, encountered a substantial humanitarian, 

human rights, and reconstruction crisis. These officials rapidly organized assessment missions, composed of representatives of organizations like the World Bank, 

United Nations operational agencies, donor nation development agencies, and 

NGOs, in order to prioritize the international response. 

In the spring of 2002, USAID commissioned and funded a national survey of 1600 

people conducted by the Feinstein Famine Center at Tufts University to determine 

what the Afghan people needed from the reconstruction effort, what survival challenges they faced in their families, how they coped, and what effect the years of terrible hardship had had on the social order. From these initial assessments, and ongoing contacts with representatives of the then-newly installed Afghan Transitional 

Authority and Afghan organizations, flowed an integrated U.S. government reconstruction strategy with the following elements: 

1. Prevention of a major humanitarian catastrophe: Six months before the 9/11 

attacks on the United States, USAID and NGO staff began seeing the appearance 

of pre-famine indicators brought on by five years of drought, collapse of the agricultural system, massive economic decline caused by Taliban mismanagement, and the 

destruction of the remaining Afghan coping mechanisms. USG teams were sent to 

Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 to organize a relief effort to prevent a famine. 

USAID’s Food for Peace Office, working through the World Food Programme and 

international NGOs, rushed 400,000 metric tons of food into Afghanistan, while the 

Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance opened emergency transport routes, provided shelter materials, and began delivering medical supplies. USAID provided 

grants to UNICEF and NGOs for a nationwide immunization campaign against 

measles and polio, which vaccinated 4.2 million children, which prevented an estimated 20,000 deaths. Overall, these interventions and a relatively mild 2001–2002 

winter combined to prevent what could have been a catastrophic humanitarian disaster. 

2. Support for displaced person resettlement and refugee repatriation: Refugee 

and internally displaced camps, while sometimes necessary because the alternatives 

are so unacceptable, can mutate over time as they did in the case of the Afghan 

camps into breeding grounds for hopelessness, bases of operations for terrorist and 

criminal networks, and the destruction of traditional culture. The return of people 

to their home villages in Afghanistan was essential to restore some semblance of 

normalcy, allowing people to support themselves, plant their crops, and reconstitute 

their animal herds, instead of relying on international relief. The removal of the 

Taliban and prospects for progress in Afghanistan encouraged a massive return of 

Afghan refugees, primarily from Pakistan and Iran, all this supported by U.S. government contributions in excess of $330 million. 

3. Establishment of a peace and reconciliation process: A conference of Afghans 

held in Bonn in November 2001 produced a coalition government, based not only 

on the Northern Alliance factions that had held out against the Taliban advance, 

but also included Pashtun tribes and other representatives of the Afghan populace. 

This ‘‘Bonn Agreement’’ specified a number of discrete steps to rebuild a political 

consensus in Afghanistan, including a carefully sequenced series of loya jirgas, or 

grand councils, and a constitutional drafting process, all leading to elections by late 

2004. The Agreement also specified the creation of a Human Rights Commission, 

Judicial Commission, and other confidence-building institutions targeted at national 

42

reconciliation and institutional reform. These Bonn-generated processes provided 

the international community and U.S. reconstruction planners with a third set of 

tasks, which demanded sensitive negotiations; a tight, specific timeline; and 

daunting logistics challenges sometimes requiring the transport of thousands of delegates in Afghanistan’s rudimentary transportation system. 

The flagship component of this peace and reconciliation process was the drafting 

of the national constitution, which demanded enormous commitment from Afghan 

leaders and support from donors, including the U.S. government. As the national 

embodiment of political consensus, the new Afghan constitution represents a very 

substantial step forward in knitting back together the frayed body politic after decades of deep-rooted conflict. 

4. Restoration of basic government institutions and ministries: Without a functioning national government providing public services to the population, capable of 

restoring law and order, and seen by the Afghans as helpful instead of corrupt, incompetent, tyrannical, or predatory, the centrifugal forces pulling at the country 

would grow dangerously strong. This required a deliberate strategy of government 

institution-building, the rebuilding of physical infrastructure that ties the country 

together, and the provision of centrally-supported public services that improve life 

for the people even in most remote areas, in order to re-kindle a competent central 

government in Afghanistan. 

A year and a half ago at the request of the Afghan government, USAID hired, 

jointly with government ministers, 1000 new staff to serve in their ministries (with 

ministers supervising them, but paid for by USAID): 879 professional Afghans 

(many from the Afghan diaspora) and 128 expatriates who bring technical and managerial expertise that is allowing the ministers to introduce higher professional 

standards for public services, reform management structures and processes, and 

root out corruption. 

With colleagues from other international organizations, U.S. government agencies 

contributed to the resuscitation of key ministries and government facilities. Since 

2001, USAID has helped rebuild 18 ministries, contributed to the UN Development 

Programme’s initiative to restart the salary payment system for government employees, established a telecommunications system linking Kabul ministries to the 

provinces, and even constructed day care centers at public buildings to allow women 

employees to return to their jobs. Other donors have invested and taken the lead 

in developing the judicial institutions of Afghanistan, without which there can be 

no rule of law or protection of human rights. 

5. Re-creation of vital security institutions: As has been widely reported, Afghanistan’s security institutions—the national army, the police system, the intelligence 

services, the border and customs enforcement mechanisms, the Ministry of Defense, 

and the Ministry of the Interior—had largely evaporated since the late 1970s, replaced either by ethnic and regional forces or, for a period, by the fanatical fundamentalism of the Taliban. Without a national army, for example, the ability to 

launch military operations would continue to reside with regional militias and regional military commanders, often collectively referred to as ‘‘warlords.’’ And without a professional police force, trained in human rights responsibilities and modern 

policing methods, human rights guarantees embedded in a new national constitution 

will have little practical meaning for most Afghans. Substantial progress has been 

made in the security field. A new national army has been formed with several battalions trained, equipped and deployed. Police training, under the leadership of the 

German government, has commenced with many more police officers now ‘‘on the 

beat.’’ And, among other reforms, the Ministry of Defense has adopted a reorganization plan to guarantee civilian control over the military establishment, multiethnic 

leadership, and sound management and budgetary controls. 

6. Creation of a national economy and the stimulation of sustained economic 

growth, especially in agriculture: Long a commercial and transportation center for 

Central Asia, and a nation with the capacity to produce its own food needs, Afghanistan deteriorated economically during warfare and Taliban mismanagement to become, by the late 1990s, substantially dependent on international largesse to feed 

the population of 26 million. During the 1990s the U.S. government provided nearly 

a billion dollars in humanitarian aid to keep people alive, but no more. A critical 

component of reconstruction of Afghanistan, it followed, had to be the reestablishment of a functioning economy and the ability of average Afghans to earn a living. 

Since an estimated 85% of the population is engaged in one form or another in 

agriculture (as farmers, processors or transporters of agricultural products, and as 

suppliers to the agricultural sector), the U.S. government targeted the restoration 

of agriculture and rural markets as the best short-term prospect to increase production and income. Agricultural recovery itself is a daunting task, requiring substantial direct investment in de-mining in order to restore fertile land to production, inVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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vestment in rebuilding market centers destroyed by fighting (USAID has built 119 

such centers), investment in farm-to-market roads (USAID is constructing 1000 kilometers), and investment in the vast irrigation networks on which so much Afghan 

agriculture depends. USAID, State INL and USDA are working together now in Afghanistan to provide alternative livelihoods, not just in agriculture, to small scale 

poppy farmers in Helmand and Kandahar, and hope to expand this effort to additional provinces next year. 

In addition, economic recovery required reforms away from the farm in order to 

stimulate growth and investment. Such reforms include a stable national currency, 

development of internal sources of revenue to support the national government and 

public services, investment laws that promote rather than discourage private investment (indigenous investment and investment from abroad), and a functioning banking system, which had ceased to exist in Afghanistan. With technical assistance 

from donor governments and the World Bank, the Ministry of Finance has made 

dramatic progress in accomplishing these tasks. 

According to data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, production 

of wheat (the staple grain in Afghanistan) increased by 82% in one peaceful growing 

season in 2003, an almost unprecedented advance in such a short period, and a tribute to the industry of Afghan farmers, improved wheat seed variety-drought resistant and high yielding—provided by donor nations, and the fortunate arrival of good 

rains. While many problems remain on the path to economic recovery, a new Afghan 

national currency has been put in place, private banks are opening in Afghanistan, 

and a new investment law has been written to encourage private investment. Road 

reconstruction has begun on a substantial scale. USAID is rebuilding with smaller 

contributions from the Saudi and Japanese governments the famous 648-mile ‘‘ring’’ 

highway from Kabul to Herat (half of which is now complete). The EU and the IDBs 

are reconstructing the northern half of the ring road. 

The results have been impressive the Afghan economy grew 30% in 2003 and will 

grow an estimated 25% this year, with good prospects for a sustained rate of national growth of 15% over the next few years. 

Critical to the creation of a nation state is the sharing of common values, world 

view, and the creation of a national civic culture. Radio is one of the major sources 

of entertainment and news for Afghans: Afghanistan is a radio culture. USAID invested in a chain of 19 independent, commercially viable, radio stations, which have 

succeeded—through popular programming—in building a national audience. This 

has allowed the new government to communicate with its people, to encourage the 

emergence of a national culture above tribe and sect, to give voice to emerging civil 

society, to hold factions, ethnic groups, religious and political leaders accountable to 

the public for their behavior, and to tie the country together commercially and intellectually. The network is being used to provide distance learning to train teachers 

and health messages to women, and provide national coverage of the presidential 

and constitutional loya jirgas and elections, as well as international news. 

7. Restoration of health, education and other public services. Unless the reconstruction effort transparently and directly improved the lives of the average person, 

the public would not see that the new Karzai government and its alliance with the 

United States and our allies made any appreciable difference in their predicament. 

U.S. government reconstruction assistance has been heavily invested in basic primary education and the restoration of health facilities, with an emphasis on small 

rural clinics. In the health field, working with the Afghan Ministry of Health, 

USAID has established the goal of opening and staffing a functioning health clinic 

within four-hours travel of every part of Afghanistan’s scattered and often-isolated 

rural population. Over three years, USAID, working with the Ministry of Education, 

is building 502 schools, training 50,000 teachers, and printing and distributing 30 

million textbooks to create a functional ministry of education and an improved 

school system. 

In recognition of the particularly difficult challenges faced by Afghan women, U.S. 

government reconstruction efforts have directly supported the newly established 

Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the establishment of a ‘‘women’s center’’ in each of the 

nation’s 33 provinces, and accelerated educational programs for girls denied schooling during the Taliban period. 

8. Close cooperation between Operation Enduring Freedom military operations 

and the civilian reconstruction effort: Simultaneously with the reconstruction of 

roads, bridges, ministries and schools by civilian agencies of donor governments, the 

U.S.-led Coalition, allied forces and, increasingly, the revitalized Afghan National 

Army have been conducting both offensive military operations against Taliban remnants and ‘‘stability operations’’ to bring calm to all regions of Afghanistan. To a 

greater degree than in many previous environments, civilian reconstruction projects 

and military operations have been strategically linked in Afghanistan. In the most 

44

remote border areas, where the possibility of attack from Taliban remnants remains, 

USAID reconstruction experts and State Department colleagues share housing and 

assessment duties with Coalition military forces, forming civil-military ‘‘Provincial 

Reconstruction Teams’’ (PRTs). In other cases, military personnel provide air and 

ground security to major reconstruction projects, like the Kabul-Kandahar-Herat 

highway, or even initiate smaller reconstruction projects themselves. 

In many ways the Afghanistan reconstruction experience serves as a model for future post-conflict interventions in the post-9/11 world, and taking lessons from it 

and a dozen other reconstruction efforts the State Department and USAID have 

been involved in over the past 50 years since the Marshall Plan, is useful. It has 

not been without criticism, however: criticism that now requires some examination. 

CRITIQUES OF AFGHAN RECONSTRUCTION

Among the most common of these are:

• The U.S. government has been too slow to respond or has invested insufficient resources in Afghanistan

• The U.S. government has relied too much on a bilateral approach in its reconstruction effort;

• The U.S. government has invested too much in regional leaders, and insufficiently in the central government of President Hamid Karzai; and,

• The U.S. government has relied too heavily on military forces in the reconstruction effort, or has employed those military forces inappropriately in the 

reconstruction process.

To address these criticisms, we would like to respond with some general observations about the reconstruction effort. 

First, though the international effort to bring progress to Afghanistan is commonly characterized as a ‘‘reconstruction’’ program, it is in fact a ‘‘construction’’ program. As noted above, low levels of socio-economic progress in Afghanistan are not 

simply a reflection of war-time destruction. Afghanistan ranked as one of the poorest nations in the world before Soviet troop formations arrived in the late 1970s. 

What was required in Afghanistan—and what has been undertaken by the United 

States and other donors—is a reconstruction program that provides short-term results, but also builds the foundation for long-term economic, social, and institutional 

progress. Donor nations must meet pressing immediate needs in Afghanistan while 

simultaneously building Afghan capacity for long-term progress. And while this twopronged approach, with heavy investment in long-term development, takes longer 

to yield results—and is more subject to criticism that the reconstruction program 

has been slow to respond—such a strategy is precisely what is required in Afghanistan. 

Nations are not constructed in one or two years. The damage of 23 years of chaos 

and war can not be repaired quickly; this effort, if it is to be permanent, stable, and 

successful, is a slow and difficult process under even the best of circumstances, 

which Afghanistan, clearly does not enjoy. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are still alive, 

even if contained geographically, with a reduced leadership, and operating ability. 

The war is not over. 

While in 2002 the more modest funding levels for Afghanistan were focused on 

preventing famine and refugee and IDP resettlement, President Bush’s aggressive 

effort to accelerate the reconstruction process led to USG contributions in nearly $1 

billion in FY 03, climbing in FY04 to over $2.3 billion, not counting the cost of Coalition military operations. The reconstruction program in Afghanistan is the largest 

in dollar terms, the most comprehensive, and the most complex in which USG has 

been involved since the Marshall Plan, with the single exception of Iraq. 

Second, Afghanistan’s history of regionalism and ethnicity must shape the reconstruction response. A recurring theme advanced by scholars of Afghanistan’s history 

is the fluctuating balance between centralism and regionalism, between the struggle 

to create a viable nation state within the national territory, and the struggle to respect regional diversity. A desire for regional and ethnic balance contributed to the 

large and complex cabinet structure created during the Bonn peace process. 

These complex issues of ethnicity and regionalism continue to shape the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan today, as the United States and other international 

donors analyze the impact of their programs. The continued relative stability of the 

Afghan government and President Karzai’s administration stand as a testament to 

the importance of balancing regional and ethnic interests as reconstruction proceeds. The high politics of national reconstruction is not an exact science; it is a series of prudently designed, carefully executed programs, which gradually knits back 

together the tattered social fabric at the community level; builds what will become 

45

in time a vibrant civil society; creates the national economic, legal and physical infrastructure needed to encourage private investment and a private market economy; 

restores essential public services; and strengthens the carefully balanced coalition 

of political, ethnic and regional forces needed to sustain the peace and complete reconstruction. 

Looked at from a different perspective, the reconstruction effort is part of a twofront struggle, one front against radical fundamentalists; and the other against the 

centrifugal forces pulling the country apart. As has been noted by many observers 

of Afghanistan’s recent history, there are two primary internal threats to Afghanistan’s economic and political viability. The first of these threats is a resurgence of 

the Taliban or another radical fundamentalist group that would undercut the nation’s steps toward democratic capitalism. The second is that tribal elders, regional 

commanders and regional forces would remain strong, slowing the drive toward national cohesion. 

International reconstruction efforts—especially, although not solely, those in the 

security arena, including efforts to rebuild the national army, police, and intelligence services—must balance these competing threats. Reconstruction programs 

must be designed to create a viable nation state in Afghanistan, and to overcome 

irregular authorities in the countryside. But, simultaneously, local ethnic/tribal 

leaders, which often provide a measure of regional stability, must not be dismantled 

before Afghan national institutions are fully functioning, thereby opening the door 

for a fundamentalist resurgence. This real-world requirement to balance the dual 

threats posed by regionalism and fundamentalism adds to the perception that the 

U.S. and international reconstruction program has been slow, and to the unfounded 

assertion that international aid has been too generous to, or insufficiently aggressive toward regional commanders/‘‘warlords.’’

Yet, we would argue, the pace and balance of the current reconstruction effort has 

successfully moved us to a point in the rebuilding of Afghanistan that many would 

not dared dream of just two years ago: a functioning central government that is 

steadily extending its writ across the national territory; high rates of economic 

growth; the restoration of food security; the absence of any serious regional challenges to the Karzai administration; and, weakened fundamentalist forces capable 

of launching only the occasional terrorist strike. 

Third, the reconstruction effort is shaped by the nature of Coalition operations. 

As former participants in international reconstruction programs organized under a 

Security Council mandate, in which the military forces on the ground were UNmandated peacekeeping troops, we continue to be astonished at the number of critics of the U.S. reconstruction efforts who fail to grasp the essentials of coalition operations. This failing directly drives criticism that the United States displays a ‘‘goit-alone’’ approach, or has relied too heavily on military forces in the reconstruction 

effort. 

Simply put, Afghanistan is not Bosnia or El Salvador. The reconstruction program 

in Afghanistan takes place in an environment where sworn enemies of the United 

States and Western society remain actively arrayed in the field; it is not an environment where the international community has arrived to nurture the peace on which 

formerly competing factions have agreed. 

U.S. military forces, with Coalition allies, continue to be engaged in active combat 

operations in Afghanistan, in order to ensure that those Taliban and Al-Qaeda 

forces that planned the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings are not in a 

position to launch similar attacks in the future. U.S. assets, both diplomatic and foreign aid, deployed to Afghanistan are also engaged in this battle against those who 

fundamentally oppose the creation of civil society, the protection of human rights 

and the building of democratic governance. To pretend otherwise, and to criticize 

U.S. reconstruction efforts for not matching those in, for example, Bosnia seriously 

misconstrues the nature of coalition operations on an anti-terrorist battlefield. 

Fourth, despite the extensive critiques of military involvement in reconstruction 

activities in Afghanistan, the international reconstruction effort remains substantially civilian. Appearances can be deceiving. When US or international military 

forces undertake a campaign their equipment, their weapons, their flags, and uniforms make them extraordinarily visible, easily identified with their nation state or 

the UN. When they rebuild a school, their presence is visible and obvious for the 

same reason. 

The international reconstruction institutions, such as USAID, the World Bank, 

UNICEF, or NGOs do not have uniforms, do much of their work through local staff 

and community groups, and government ministries. When they undertake a project 

their visible presence is light, sometimes invisible, deliberately so that Afghans can 

begin to take leadership. Of the total USG non-security sector reconstruction spendVerDate Mar 21 2002 11:19 Jan 13, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\FULL\092904\96173.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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ing (approximately$3 billion underway or planned), about 2% is being directed by 

U.S. military forces, and 98% by U.S. civilian institutions. 

Some in the humanitarian community argue the operational and philosophical 

wall they want to maintain between coalition military presence and aid agencies has 

been breached with regularity, endangering the theoretical neutrality of aid workers. While Western aid agencies may see themselves as neutral in the war against 

terrorism, they are not seen as such by Al Qaeda or the Taliban: Western NGOs 

and UN agencies preach equality between men and women, the full participation 

by women in the life of the community, the protection of human rights, the rule of 

law, and democratic institution building, clearly not the cultural values of the fundamentalist zealots. 

Because of this clash, the remnants of the Taliban have increasingly targeted aid 

workers, a circumstance which has led to widespread criticism of donor governments 

not providing more security for the reconstruction effort. Our response has been the 

Provincial Reconstruction Team concept, which combines military security with 

State Department and USAID staff in the field working on reconstruction in an integrated fashion. The traditional neutrality principles advanced by international organizations in peacekeeping environments simply face a new reality in post-9/11 Afghanistan: we either provide security through military forces for the reconstruction 

effort or the Taliban will drive aid agencies and workers out of the regions of the 

country in which they maintain some strength. 

The forces of civilization will not defeat terrorists on the cheap or with quick fixes: 

only a sustained effort over many years will yield victory. Our soldiers, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have shown they can defeat armed terrorists in the short-term. 

But eliminating the conditions that feed terrorism is a long-term struggle, requiring 

a different category of weapons. To win the war in places like Afghanistan, we have 

to be willing to fight the war by providing better schooling, better health care, better 

long-term economic prospects, and more hope to those who now have virtually none. 

The West won the Cold War because of staying power; we need the same persistence 

in the war on terrorism. 

It may indeed be true, as the much-quoted saying has it, that it is ‘‘hard to drain 

the swamp while up to your knees in alligators.’’ In fact, the hunt for ‘‘alligators,’’ 

in the form of Taliban remnants, continues, even as the swamp draining—in the 

form of a new constitution, a new investment code, new currency, a new school curriculum, and a hundred other efforts—proceeds. Much progress has been made on 

the military front, and a good start has been made on the full reconstruction agenda. The efforts underway, while incomplete, have been informed by sound assessment and U.S. government reconstruction experience in dozens of other post-conflict 

situations, and address the broad range of security and structural improvements 

needed in Afghanistan in an integrated, holistic fashion. 

Thank you. 

RESPONSES FROM THE HONORABLE RICHARD L. ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE SHELLEY BERKLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF

NEVADA

Question: 

President Karzai has asked for 5,300 NATO troops, only 1,800 of which have been 

provided. What is the adequate troop strength in Afghanistan? 

Response: 

Over 8,500 troops currently are participating in ISAF. Military planners must determine what the adequate troop strength is for the mission at a given time. For 

example, based on the advice of its military planners, NATO increased the force levels available during the presidential elections. A Spanish battalion was deployed to 

serve as a quick response force; an Italian battalion, a component of the NATO Response Force, was deployed to serve as a strategic reserve force; and the United 

States made available to ISAF a company in Kabul. The commanders of ISAF PRTs 

made individualized decisions to augment their forces for the elections based on 

local conditions. 

Question: 

There is clearly a tremendous need for security in Afghanistan. President Karzai’s 

requests for American assistance are indicative of that. However, it seems as if some 

of our approaches are backwards. Has a determination been made of exactly how 

47

many security forces are needed? If so, what was this determination? How has this 

number been allocated among the international community? 

Response: 

The number of security forces needed in Afghanistan depends on several variables—the region where the forces are to be stationed, the type of security forces 

needed, and how many Afghan National Army (ANA) troops and Afghan police have 

been trained and fielded. The force size for international troops also fluctuates with 

political developments in Afghanistan, for example, 1,000 additional ISAF troops 

were deployed to support Afghan forces in advance of the October presidential elections. Though Afghan forces have an increasing role in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), counter-narcotics operations, and general police work, the International 

Community continues to work closely with Afghan government officials to evaluate 

security sector needs. 

Currently, there are over 8,500 troops participating in ISAF, and over 17,000 

troops participating in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). A total of 43 nations 

have contributed troops to these two operations. About 13,000 ANA troops have 

been trained and fielded, as have around 30,000 Afghan National Police. 

Nineteen Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) enhance security, extend the 

reach of the national government and facilitate reconstruction. While the US is responsible for 13 PRTs, five PRTs are operated by ISAF, under the command of the 

United Kingdom (2), Germany (2), and the Netherlands (1). To support OEF, New 

Zealand has set up a nineteenth PRT in the Bamiyan province. Several other nations, including Canada, Italy, and Norway, are considering either forming new 

PRTs or taking over leadership of PRTs that already exist. 

Question: 

One of the key problems in Afghanistan is a lack of infrastructure to support any 

type of legal or judicial system. The country doesn’t have laws, courts, prisons, or 

judges—basic things you need in order to be able to establish an orderly society. 

What are we doing to furnish this infrastructure? What are other nations doing? 

What is the anticipated timeframe? 

Response: 

Italy has assumed responsibility as the lead nation for reconstruction of the Afghan judicial sector, and has placed a newly appointed justice sector coordinator in 

Kabul. Several other nations have volunteered to head individual justice sector programs. The United States is working alongside Germany, which has the lead for police training. We and the United Kingdom are building or rehabilitating provincial 

and district courthouses. The UK is the lead nation on fighting narcotics cultivation 

and trafficking, and the US is actively supporting the counter-narcotics program. 

Canada is providing support for a legal training program, and is working with Italy 

and the U.S. to train judges, prosecutors, court administrators, and public defenders. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is working to build law 

schools, a National Legal Training Center, while the United Nations Office on Drugs 

and Crime is coordinating with several nations to modernize or construct correctional facilities. 

The Department of State has developed a rule of law plan for Afghanistan, centered around six pillars: courts, laws, legal professionals, law enforcement, corrections and public awareness. The plan focuses on empowering Afghan citizens with 

a functioning judicial infrastructure as well as giving them a thorough understanding of the judicial system and the rights each citizen is guaranteed under the 

new Afghan constitution. 

Various components of our judicial-reform plan are scheduled for completion at 

different times. Training of police, for example, is targeted for completion by late 

2005, while a system of provincial and district courthouses will be constructed by 

late 2006. Ongoing construction of correctional facilities is set to last until early 

2008; training of judges and prosecutors—also ongoing—is set to continue until mid2010. In light of the many challenges the Government of Afghanistan and the International Community face, it will take many years for a sustainable and effective judicial sector to take root in Afghanistan. 

Question: 

Assistant Secretary Robert Charles testified before the International Relations committee, and commented that a number of nations have pledged to support us financially. This is his quote, ‘‘Let me start by saying we have had donor conferences in 

which people have pledged to support us financially. Even if they don’t have the infrastructure or force structure to provide added people, they can provide the money.’’ 

48

Who are these people and how much money are they pledging and do we have it? 

And what are we using the finances provided by the international community for? 

Response: 

Based on information provided to State/INL by the international community and 

by the British government (the lead nation on Afghan counternarcotics efforts), the 

following is an overview of currently available information on the amounts of funding pledged, budgeted or appropriated by country toward counternarcotics efforts in 

Afghanistan. Amounts are in U.S. dollars (unless stated otherwise), and purposes 

of funding are indicated. Some of these contributions are for multi-year projects that 

require continued international support and donations. 

LAW ENFORCEMENT SECTOR CONTRIBUTIONS—FROM 2002 TO EARLY 2004

Australia: $1,460,000 for border and airport security 

Austria: $333,000 for justice sector; $236,500 for border security 

Belgium: $678,000 for police salaries 

Canada: $1,319,000 for justice sector; $6,553,000 for police sector 

China: $4.5 million for police sector 

Denmark: $100,000 for police salaries 

European Union: $3,750,000 for justice sector; $88,850,000 for police sector 

Germany: $19,200,000 for police sector; $435,000 for justice sector employees 

Iran: $1,600,000 for police border security posts 

Ireland: $735,715 for police salaries 

Italy: (the lead on justice sector reform) $13,120,000 and an unspecified amount to 

train 44 police officers in criminal procedure law and capacity building training 

Japan: (the lead for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) $12,110,000 for 

police sector 

Liechtenstein: $35,475 for police salaries 

The Netherlands: $9,450,000 for police sector 

Norway: $4,814,100 for police sector 

Pakistan: train 1200 police recruits and senior police officers: unspecified amount 

Qatar: hosted international conference in Doha, May 2004

Russia: between $3 and $5 million for police equipment, vehicles & training 

Sweden: $250,000 for justice sector 

Switzerland: $379,564 for a senior administrative police advisor and $250,000 for 

police salaries 

UK: $6,252,000 for justice sector and $897,877,150 for police sector 

G–8 NUMBERS UP TO MARCH/APRIL 2004

ANTI-CORRUPTION:

Canada: $6,553,000

UK: $2,786,000

MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT:

UK: $3,344,000

PREVENTION AND REDUCTION OF DRUG ABUSE:

UK: $3,715,000

Germany: unspecified amount for vocational training 

Canada: $139,000

Italy: $1.4 million 

Russia: in-kind contribution for hospital

POLICY SUPPORT, LEGISLATION, AND ADVOCACY:

UK: $20,431,000 +

Canada: $56,731,000

Japan: $3,291,983 for equipment; $50 million + for DDR

COUNTERNARCOTICS ENFORCEMENT:

UK: $72,598,000

Canada: $67,243 (not including contributions through UNODC) 

Germany: $1,428,072

Japan: $500,000

France: $1,302,564

Russia: $740,000

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LETTER AND ENCLOSURES FROM THE HONORABLE PAUL V. KELLY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, TO THE HONORABLE

HENRY J. HYDE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, 

AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS


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ENCLOSURE #1: VOTER EDUCATION PLANNING SURVEY; AFGHANISTAN 2004 NATIONAL

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ENCLOSURE #4: SAMPLE BALLOT TO BE USED IN THE AFGHANISTAN ELECTIONS, 

OCTOBER 9TH


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OCTOBER 9TH [CONTINUED]

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