Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Sunday
A Look at Afghanistan
Aired September 14, 2003 - 10:30 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.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: But when the new road is finished, it will only take five hours.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CO-ANCHOR: That new Afghan highway, Stephen just mentioned, is one postscript to the war against terrorism launched almost two years ago. Its main objective, destroying the terrorists in the country, and preventing terror groups from ever using Afghanistan as a base of future operations. Washington promised to help rebuild the nation and bring about a stable democracy. But two years after the conflict Afghanistan remains unstable.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on a nation's effort to start over.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just an hour north of Kabul, it's so rural, donkeys not trucks, carry rocks for the homes that villagers are busy trying to rebuild. Paul Barker's aid agency CARE helps, but it's slow going.
(on camera): So what are the donors doing? Are they meeting all the big promises they made?
PAUL BARKER, CARE INTERNATIONAL: Well, I think they're meeting by and large the promises they made. I'm not sure the promises were big in the sense of the actual construction needs of Afghanistan.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): After the U.S. toppled the Taliban two years ago, Saeed Mushtabar (ph) this man heard the world's promise to rebuild his country, and he rushed back to his village, with his wife and seven children to do his part.
We've been living like this for about a year, he says. We're hoping to finish our house as soon as possible. We hope that it will be built.
(on camera): Two years after the United States kicked the Taliban out of power; many of the villagers in Afghanistan still look like this one. Back then, the U.S. and the international community made big promises to rebuild this country. But so far, that seems more like rhetoric than reality. For instance, Afghanistan gets $75 per person per year in foreign aid, while countries such as Rwanda, Bosnia or Kosovo get more than double that amount.
BARKER: Those countries receive between 195 and $325 per person. So on that sort of ratio, we're getting short-changed in Afghanistan. It's not nearly enough.
AMANPOUR: President Bush promised A Marshal Plan, something like a Marshal Plan for this country. Do you see any evidence of that?
BARKER: I wouldn't call anything on the scale of what we are having now a Marshal Plan.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Remember, this is the country the U.S. promised to rebuild in order to deny terrorists ever again using it as a base.
Afghanistan's straight-talking finance minister.
ASHRAF GHANI, FINANCE MINISTER, AFGHANISTAN: I've made no bones about this. I'm going to be very direct about this. The national community has not been generous to us. It's actually been quite stingy; $4.5 billion is a drop in the bucket.
AMANPOUR: That was the initial sum pledged over five years. This is what the U.S.-backed Afghan president says he needs.
HAMID KARZAI, INTERIM PRESIDENT, AFGHANISTAN: Our estimate is between 15 to $20 billion.
AMANPOUR: What are the risks if the Afghan people don't get the kind of reconstruction that that kind of money can pay for?
KARZAI: The risks are that Afghanistan will go back into the hands of terrorists, into chaos, into despair. And we are not going to allow that. We must respond to the needs of the Afghan people.
AMANPOUR: In two years, some of those have been met. Four million children are now in school; 35 percent of those are girls, who were banned from school under the Taliban. Private construction is booming and laborers are now being paid $2 a day, up from $1 a last year. Kabul is full of small businesses. But large-scale reconstruction are desperately needed major infrastructure has barely begun. Kabul still has only intermittent electricity and clean running water. As for the roads, they are a shambles, as even U.S. soldiers will confirm.
MAJ. DEAN FREMLING, TENTH MOUNTAIN DIV.: And we have a saying here in the Sead (ph) community, we love our jobs, but the commute is hell.
AMANPOUR: Many here accuse the Bush administration of reneging on promises to rebuild, or at best, trying to do it on the cheap. Two years on, the Afghan people are getting frustrated. And that could backfire on President Karzai, especially during elections scheduled for next summer. In an effort to head off disaster, the Bush administration is now diverting $1 billion to Afghanistan.
DAVID SEDNEY, U.S. EMBASSY, KABUL: Certainly the Afghan people are looking for results. We're building schools and clinics in many areas of Afghanistan, but we need to do more. At the same time, our enemies, the Taliban, al Qaeda and others are trying to use the fact that in some areas of the country they haven't seen those benefits, as a weapon against the government and against the international community that supports it.
AMANPOUR: The most visible major project now under way, the important road from Kabul to Kandahar in the south. After two sluggish years, workers are now at it 24/7. President Bush himself has ordered the road finished by December.
Meantime, opium poppy production has skyrocketed, and this year, it's become Afghanistan's biggest export. Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan. British officials tasked with curbing production say that it could happen in 10 years, but not without more money from more countries.
The simple fact, as we heard from these village elders, is that farmers need incentives to produce corn or wheat since they get paid 100 times more for drugs. Afghanistan today stands at a critical turning point.
GHANI: We either descent to a vicious circle of drug production, violence, instability, or we go towards a virtuous circle, the prosperity rules of law, participation, women's rights and democratic processes.
AMANPOUR (on camera): Is another billion dollars enough? Is that going to do it?
GHANI: Another billion dollars is a good start. And no, it will not do it. We need again, as I've indicated, a minimum of $15 billion.
AMANPOUR: And that will help Afghanistan become a poor country. Right now it remains crippled and devastated and perhaps fertile ground again for terrorists looking for a safe haven.
Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 14, 2003 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: But when the new road is finished, it will only take five hours.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CO-ANCHOR: That new Afghan highway, Stephen just mentioned, is one postscript to the war against terrorism launched almost two years ago. Its main objective, destroying the terrorists in the country, and preventing terror groups from ever using Afghanistan as a base of future operations. Washington promised to help rebuild the nation and bring about a stable democracy. But two years after the conflict Afghanistan remains unstable.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on a nation's effort to start over.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just an hour north of Kabul, it's so rural, donkeys not trucks, carry rocks for the homes that villagers are busy trying to rebuild. Paul Barker's aid agency CARE helps, but it's slow going.
(on camera): So what are the donors doing? Are they meeting all the big promises they made?
PAUL BARKER, CARE INTERNATIONAL: Well, I think they're meeting by and large the promises they made. I'm not sure the promises were big in the sense of the actual construction needs of Afghanistan.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): After the U.S. toppled the Taliban two years ago, Saeed Mushtabar (ph) this man heard the world's promise to rebuild his country, and he rushed back to his village, with his wife and seven children to do his part.
We've been living like this for about a year, he says. We're hoping to finish our house as soon as possible. We hope that it will be built.
(on camera): Two years after the United States kicked the Taliban out of power; many of the villagers in Afghanistan still look like this one. Back then, the U.S. and the international community made big promises to rebuild this country. But so far, that seems more like rhetoric than reality. For instance, Afghanistan gets $75 per person per year in foreign aid, while countries such as Rwanda, Bosnia or Kosovo get more than double that amount.
BARKER: Those countries receive between 195 and $325 per person. So on that sort of ratio, we're getting short-changed in Afghanistan. It's not nearly enough.
AMANPOUR: President Bush promised A Marshal Plan, something like a Marshal Plan for this country. Do you see any evidence of that?
BARKER: I wouldn't call anything on the scale of what we are having now a Marshal Plan.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Remember, this is the country the U.S. promised to rebuild in order to deny terrorists ever again using it as a base.
Afghanistan's straight-talking finance minister.
ASHRAF GHANI, FINANCE MINISTER, AFGHANISTAN: I've made no bones about this. I'm going to be very direct about this. The national community has not been generous to us. It's actually been quite stingy; $4.5 billion is a drop in the bucket.
AMANPOUR: That was the initial sum pledged over five years. This is what the U.S.-backed Afghan president says he needs.
HAMID KARZAI, INTERIM PRESIDENT, AFGHANISTAN: Our estimate is between 15 to $20 billion.
AMANPOUR: What are the risks if the Afghan people don't get the kind of reconstruction that that kind of money can pay for?
KARZAI: The risks are that Afghanistan will go back into the hands of terrorists, into chaos, into despair. And we are not going to allow that. We must respond to the needs of the Afghan people.
AMANPOUR: In two years, some of those have been met. Four million children are now in school; 35 percent of those are girls, who were banned from school under the Taliban. Private construction is booming and laborers are now being paid $2 a day, up from $1 a last year. Kabul is full of small businesses. But large-scale reconstruction are desperately needed major infrastructure has barely begun. Kabul still has only intermittent electricity and clean running water. As for the roads, they are a shambles, as even U.S. soldiers will confirm.
MAJ. DEAN FREMLING, TENTH MOUNTAIN DIV.: And we have a saying here in the Sead (ph) community, we love our jobs, but the commute is hell.
AMANPOUR: Many here accuse the Bush administration of reneging on promises to rebuild, or at best, trying to do it on the cheap. Two years on, the Afghan people are getting frustrated. And that could backfire on President Karzai, especially during elections scheduled for next summer. In an effort to head off disaster, the Bush administration is now diverting $1 billion to Afghanistan.
DAVID SEDNEY, U.S. EMBASSY, KABUL: Certainly the Afghan people are looking for results. We're building schools and clinics in many areas of Afghanistan, but we need to do more. At the same time, our enemies, the Taliban, al Qaeda and others are trying to use the fact that in some areas of the country they haven't seen those benefits, as a weapon against the government and against the international community that supports it.
AMANPOUR: The most visible major project now under way, the important road from Kabul to Kandahar in the south. After two sluggish years, workers are now at it 24/7. President Bush himself has ordered the road finished by December.
Meantime, opium poppy production has skyrocketed, and this year, it's become Afghanistan's biggest export. Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan. British officials tasked with curbing production say that it could happen in 10 years, but not without more money from more countries.
The simple fact, as we heard from these village elders, is that farmers need incentives to produce corn or wheat since they get paid 100 times more for drugs. Afghanistan today stands at a critical turning point.
GHANI: We either descent to a vicious circle of drug production, violence, instability, or we go towards a virtuous circle, the prosperity rules of law, participation, women's rights and democratic processes.
AMANPOUR (on camera): Is another billion dollars enough? Is that going to do it?
GHANI: Another billion dollars is a good start. And no, it will not do it. We need again, as I've indicated, a minimum of $15 billion.
AMANPOUR: And that will help Afghanistan become a poor country. Right now it remains crippled and devastated and perhaps fertile ground again for terrorists looking for a safe haven.
Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
