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CNN Live At Daybreak

Rebuilding Afghanistan: Starting From Scratch

Aired January 21, 2002 - 05:32   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have told you this morning about the Afghan donor conference.

CNN's Michael Holmes reports from Kabul that rebuilding the war- ravaged nation is a daunting task that begins from the ground up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AHMAD FAWZI, U.N. SPOKESMAN: People are starving, some of them are living in caves, and the civil service hasn't been paid. They can't buy bread.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As other nations gather to decide this one's future, the needs and priorities of Afghanistan could not be more basic. The importance of those needs, difficult to rank.

HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN INTERIM GOVERNMENT CHAIRMAN: We cannot say this is priority No. 1, this is 2, this is 3. For example, priority No. 1 is to give the Afghan people security. Also priority No. 1 is to pay the salaries, and so on and to provide education for children and health. So we have things also under the same priority.

HOLMES (on camera): To get an idea of how much needs to be done here, start at street level. Walk out of your front door for a few meters. The roads here in Kabul are atrocious, literally all of them, and that's in the capital city. Go out of town a couple of miles, they get worse.

DR. ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, AFGHAN FOREIGN MINISTER: In one sentence I can say it is the job of rebuilding a country or a state from scratch.

HOLMES (voice-over): Two needs stand out here: security and cash.

ABDULLAH: That's the most urgent need. When I say urgent, I am not talking about months. I am talking about days and hours.

HOLMES: Nearly everything needs rebuilding or overhauling. Hospitals: overworked staff using obsolete equipment. In some parts of the country, one in four children do not reach the age of five.

Education: schools and universities are reopening, but they have little with which to teach. Electricity: power outages routine; the infrastructure, ancient and brittle. Communications in much of the country: nonexistent. The education minister doesn't have a phone.

Sanitation: none in many places. Where it does exist, it's crumbling. And food: plentiful on the streets of Kabul, but people in some parts of the country still go hungry. A blessing of sorts, entertainment is returning. Movies again running, there's music in the streets.

To this nation's fragile interim administration, there are two kinds of aid, for reconstruction, which they recognize takes time, and cash, which is urgent. They say the cost of that aid not arriving could be ruinous.

ABDULLAH: It could cost Afghanistan. It is not just the issue of the interim government, it is the survival of Afghanistan, which is at stake.

HOLMES: Michael Holmes, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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