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American Morning
How Do You Rebuild a Nation That Has Spent Two Decades Torn Apart by War?
Aired January 21, 2002 - 08:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How do you rebuild a nation that has spent two decades torn apart by war? Of course, we're talking about Afghanistan. Two dozen countries' representatives are sitting around the table in Tokyo talking about that today. The nations -- the United States among them -- promising hundreds of millions of dollars to the war-weary nation. But U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan says "The real test is not how quickly we pledge our help," -- this is a quote -- "but whether we make good on those pledges."
The United States has pledged $300 million to the cause, even though the Bush administration has some concerns about how this money will be used. CNN's Richard Roth joins us from Tokyo now, with a live report on the latest to come out of these meetings.
Richard, what can you tell us?
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jack, the donations have exceeded what the hopes were of the Afghan government on day one of this Afghanistan recovery conference. The U.S., as you said, pitching in with $300 million. Overall, at least for the first year, Afghanistan has promises now of $2.7 billion. A million here, a million there, Jack, and soon you're going to have a country. But there is still a long way to go. Right now, the focus is on getting high impact jobs, positions, roads, infrastructure, security in place with the first rush of money.
CAFFERTY: What is the Bush administration concerned about? I reported here in the intro that there is some reservations on how this money may be used. What are they worried about?
ROTH: The reservations from Washington and other governments is that the money will actually be received by the people that are supposed to get it, and that these projects will indeed start. To address some of those concerns, Hamid Karzai, the flashy interim government leader there in Afghanistan, said he was going to bring in international outside auditors, and that corruption was the number one goal to fight.
Now he didn't mention any oil companies in Texas, or any auditors of that sort, but I am told that one or two people around the table, they did pass notes mentioning one of those famous international accounting firms that are now in the news. This, indeed, did happen in the hole (ph). But it's a lot more serious than that, because when these countries start from scratch, there has been a lot of money wasted over the years.
The U.N. says it has learned some lessons from it. These countries are very hesitant. They want to see it and hear for sure what's going to happen before they really even commit more money.
CAFFERTY: How serious is the cash shortage?
ROTH: The cash shortage is so severe that the United Nations had to ship in -- over the weekend through locked boxes -- $6 million in cash for the first month of government salaries.
CAFFERTY: Wow. All right. Richard Roth, live in Tokyo, I appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you for that.
The Morning Buzz now, right?
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Time for the Buzz.
CAFFERTY: Yeah. We're (ph) buzzing more often than we...
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Lots of talk about Iraq.
COOPER: We'll just (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a nap (ph).
ZAHN: Apparently, there is a "Newsweek" story that's going to hit news stands today that the "New York -- which...
COOPER: "New York Post."
ZAHN: "New York Post" excerpted it. And the essence of this is -- according to these articles -- that the president's war cabinet is actually coming up with a secret plan to topple Saddam Hussein.
COOPER: Saddam Hussein.
ZAHN: Now this is not something we've heard for the first time. We've heard speculation about this for many, many months now.
CAFFERTY: Apparently, they're going to use opposition forces on the ground, much the same way that they employed the resistance in Afghanistan -- the Northern Alliance people -- and combine that with some sort of air power, I suppose.
COOPER: It's interesting, though, because in -- and, also, in this month's "Vanity Fair" there's an excerpt from a CIA officer, who we actually had on in the last hour, who basically was trying to do this very same thing in the mid 1990s, and really didn't come up with -- or didn't get the support of Washington. And so it will be interesting to see how much the plan, this time, differs from what we attempted to do back in the mid 1990s.
ZAHN: It also remains to be seen when and if this can happen.
COOPER: Right. Yeah, I mean, how viable are the forces -- how viable are the forces on the ground who could oppose Saddam Hussein? I think that's sort of the open question. CAFFERTY: Enron employees being fired, reportedly, in the "Times" for criticizing the company on the Internet.
ZAHN: Oh, come on.
CAFFERTY: Unbelievable. Yeah.
COOPER: Yeah, apparently, two -- at least two employees in the last two months got fired. They put up some critical things on a web site and got fired for it.
ZAHN: So you can imagine the young woman who wrote the memo that ended being front page news in every single newspaper last week. One wonders how volatile her job situation might be.
COOPER: Yeah.
CAFFERTY: I have a question.
ZAHN: Yeah?
CAFFERTY: What is a public intellectual?
ZAHN: I think it's based on -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) get on the Internet.
COOPER: Don't look at me. Don't ask me.
CAFFERTY: Somebody put together a list, right? The 100 top public intellectuals. It's topped by Henry Kissinger. Who, you could argue, I suppose, is -- but there is a lot of people...
(CROSS TALK)
COOPER: But now this is solely -- this is a list that came out. It was basically -- it was all based on how many hits these people got on the Internet.
CAFFERTY: Oh.
COOPER: On web sites about them on the Internet, or how many references there were in the media to them.
(CROSS TALK)
ZAHN: I really, really like him.
CAFFERTY: Judge Richard Posner (ph) compiled a list and, of course, he put himself on it. I guess if you're making the list, right...
COOPER: Sure.
CAFFERTY: ... you can put yourself on it.
ZAHN: Yeah, but he had to really count the number of references (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the Internet.
COOPER: I think writer Tom Wolfe is on the list. You know, it's pretty...
CAFFERTY: You don't suppose he fudged some numbers, do you? Did he fudge the numbers?
ZAHN: No, he better not have. Marshall McCluen (ph) was on that list. Ann Coulture (ph), who is a guest here, a constitutional lawyer...
COOPER: Yeah.
CAFFERTY: Right.
ZAHN: ... is on that list someplace.
CAFFERTY: Yeah. Is Al Roker on the list?
COOPER: Not yet. No, he was 101, I think. They didn't -- he's going to be on the expanded list.
We've got a lot of good headlines off the Internet this morning from around the country. "Houston Chronicle" has a really fascinating article on -- basically saying that the new SEC trading ruling may be the defense that a lot of the Enron insiders use in any upcoming court cases. It basically -- what may be their defense is that they were basically selling stock on program trading. And that it was allowed by a new SEC rule. So it's a possible defense for Enron insiders. That, of course, out of the "Houston Chronicle."
The "Oklahoman" has an interesting article. A terrorist ticketed last year on I-40 hadn't been reported before. About five months before the hijacking plane crashed into the -- five months before the plane crashed into the Pentagon, a man by the name of Nawalf al Hazami (ph) was ticketed in Western Oklahoma. Obviously, the policeman who pulled him over and ticketed him didn't, you know, know anything more about him. But just an interesting article.
It allowed the -- basically, it apparently allowed the FBI to kind of establish a timeline and trace this man's whereabouts.
ZAHN: And they don't have any idea why he was there?
COOPER: No, they don't. They still don't know yet.
And an interesting article in the "Chicago Tribune", just the era ends at Soldier's Field. It had a great picture -- has a great picture -- Soldier Field has a great picture of them removing the bleachers that were still beer-soaked. So...
