Assessing the U.S.-Afghan Partnership

March 8, 2005

Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording

9:45 a.m.	Registration
10:00	Introduction:	Danielle Pletka, AEI
	Speaker:	Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan
11:30	Adjournment

Proceedings:
MS. PLETKA:  I'm Danielle Pletka.  I'm the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  I apologize for starting out a little bit late this morning, but we thought that we would allow a critical mass of people to arrive to hear Dr. Khalilzad, given the dreadful weather that he braved to get here.  We wanted him to feel absolutely like he was in the middle of winter in Kabul, and I think we've achieved that.  So I'm going to give a short introduction and then I think we'll move along fairly quickly and try and keep within our time schedule.

One of the amazing things about Afghanistan, despite the presence of NATO troops, of U.S. troops, the fact that we fought a war there and that it was the center of al Qaeda for some years, is that you read very, very little about it.  And you hear very, very little about warlords resurgent.  Yes, you hear occasionally about attacks from the Taliban, you hear about narcotics cultivation problems and the things that are being done to fight that problem, you hear that Afghanistan is indeed in a rough neighborhood, that Pakistan and Iran retain their unusual interest in their neighbor in an occasionally unhelpful way.  But at the end of the day, the main reason we don't hear about Afghanistan is because, all things considered, it is an extraordinary success story.

It is a country where one of their greatest concerns, according to Ambassador Khalilzad, is that we will leave, that we will abandon them, that we will not retain our commitment to their security, their future, and their well being.  I'm quite certain that that's not the case, but isn't that a heartwarming reflection, considering everything else going on, about our success in Afghanistan and our hope for their future.

A great deal of credit for this, of course, goes to Afghan President Karzai; in addition, of course, to our military, to our president for his leadership.  But at the end of the day, a great deal of credit also goes to Ambassador Khalilzad.  He has been ambassador E&P from the United States to Afghanistan since 2003.  Prior to that, he was the special presidential envoy to Afghanistan, and that's a title he retains to this day.  Previously, he was in the White House as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives at the NSC.  Prior to that, in a job that I remember all too well, he was ambassador at large for Free Iraqis.  He has an illustrious resume, and you will find that in your folder.  But without going into his entire career, I would like to turn to him, welcome him for his comments at AEI.

Thank you very much, Zal, for being here.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Thank you.

MS. PLETKA:  Go forth and conquer.

[Applause.]

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Thank you very much.  Thank you for the very kind comments.  I am pleased to be here today.  Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

My bottom line is that Afghanistan is succeeding and this success is opening up new opportunities.  This involves opportunities to accelerate progress further with respect to state-building and economic development in Afghanistan.  It also opens up new opportunities for progress on the defining challenge of our time, defeating Islamic terrorism and extremism.  A successful Afghanistan will show other countries that a path exists out of the chronic problems of undemocratic governance and social stagnation that plague the broader Muslim world.  A stable Afghanistan will also recreate the historic Afghan land bridge that will establish a single economic zone composed of Central Asia, South Asia, and Southwest Asia.

To take advantage of these opportunities, we need to work on two reinforcing tracks.  The first track is to complete and consolidate the success in Afghanistan.  The second track is to pursue a U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership and to promote the long-term economic integration of the broader region around Afghanistan, including Central Asia, Iran, India, and Pakistan.

During the past 20 months, we have seen a dramatic acceleration of progress in Afghanistan on three fronts.  First, the political front.

In Afghanistan, we have seen the validation of the proposition that the appeal of ideas of freedom and representative government is powerful in societies such as Afghanistan's.  Moreover, if mobilized through wise policies and careful political strategies that take into account local conditions, the appeal of these universal ideas represents perhaps the most powerful instrument for U.S. policy in the battle against extremism and terrorism.  This is evident in the fact that in Afghanistan 10 million citizens registered and 8 million voted in elections, despite the threat of violence by extremists and terrorists.  More than 40 percent of voters were women, in a country where women could not walk in the streets alone three years before.  And it's evident in the fact that the candidate who personified popular aspirations for a moderate and democratic state and society, President Karzai, won a majority of votes on the first ballot in a diverse field of 18 candidates.

As a result of the elections, Afghanistan has a legitimate government with a mandate from the people.  It can use this mandate to foster a virtuous cycle:  the mandate enables the government to promote further reforms, with the reforms and other steps then increasing the capacity of the state institutions to improve the lives of Afghan citizens, and these improvements in turn improve the quality of life, strengthening the government's mandate.

In Afghanistan we also saw the very process of democratic elections had positive political consequences.  For example, candidates who had a strong regional or ethnic appeal recognized that they could not win without reaching out to other regions and other groups.  In doing so, they began to look at the country's problems through the eyes of others and to factor those perspectives in the positions they took on key issues.  For a society that has seen regional powers engaged in warfare by proxies exploiting ethnic and regional differences to pit Afghans against Afghans, this is an important and heartening development.  We are seeing this again with respect to parliamentary elections.

Second, let me say a few words about the military front.  The building of a new political order based on the ideas of popular sovereignty has been one of the most effective weapons against the Taliban and other extremists.  The elections in October were a major operational defeat for the Taliban, which had promised to disrupt the balloting but which managed to conduct only a small-scale attack on election day.  Moreover, the overwhelming turnout and the broad support for moderate and democratic candidates, even in the areas that Taliban leaders had seen as their base of support, has undermined the insurgents.  While we should be cautious about interpreting the data, there has been a marked decline in security incidents since the elections, even in comparisons that control for seasonal shifts.  We have seen more Taliban fighters and commanders reaching out to the Afghan government and the coalition to offer to lay down their arms and accept the new Afghanistan.

If these trends continue and the Afghan government implements an accountability and reconciliation program to promote them, we could see the fragmentation of the Taliban insurgency.  And the principal blow to the Taliban will have turned out to be the holding of free and open elections.

Third, we have made progress in terms of governance.  It's fair to say that at this point the Afghan government has broken the back of the problem of warlordism.  Most customs revenues now flow to the national government, not to regional warlords.  More than 95 percent of heavy weapons nationwide which were under the control of warlords now are cantoned under the control of the national government.  The remainder will be cantoned in the next few months.  More than 70 percent of militia fighters have been disarmed and demobilized and have entered into reintegration programs.  The remainder of the so-called former, or official, militias, militias that were part of the Ministry of Defense, will be demobilized before the middle of 2005.

The Afghan government, with support from the international community, has initiated an effort to address the problem of informal militias, armed groups that operate outside the structure of the Ministry of Defense.  Every major warlord has seen his military power diminish dramatically and all have recognized that to have a future in the new Afghanistan, they must make a transition to new roles and conduct themselves in accordance with the rules of the new order.

Just as dramatic has been the progress made in building legitimate national institutions.  This has been especially true in the security sector, which has been the focal point of U.S. efforts during the past year.  The Afghan National Army has increased from 5,000 troops in late 2003 to more than 20,000 troops today.  In late 2003, we were training two battalions simultaneously.  Today, we are training five simultaneously and planning to move to six, which means that the ANA would then be growing at the rate of 20,000 per year.  Moreover, the ANA has effectively performed every mission that has been assigned to it, from presence patrols to stabilizing areas after incidents of warlord violence to combined combat operations with the coalition.  Also during the past year, more than 30,000 members of the Afghan National Police have gone through initial training and have been deployed nationwide.

As these institutions develop further, and as Afghanistan's government becomes increasingly able to field economic development programs nationwide, I'm confident that Afghans will start to turn the corner on the problem of narcotics production as well.  The drug problem is a governance problem.  The central drivers, in my view, have been the lack of effective government institutions to enforce the rule of law and the need for more robust rural development programs.  In short, you cannot expect to be able to increase the risk of illegal activity unless you have an increasingly effective police force.  And you can't expect to get farmers to plant only legal crops if the only source of credit is the local drug lord.

Working with the Afghans and the United Kingdom, which is the lead nation on the counter-narcotics effort, we are fielding a comprehensive counter-narcotics program that works along three lines of action.

First, the Afghan government will increase the risk to those involved in drug trade, through law enforcement, interdiction, and eradication.

Second, we will increase the opportunities to earn a living through legal means through an expanded economic development program.  As we do so, we should take the approach of increasing opportunities throughout the rural economy and be careful to avoid approaches that create unintended incentives to engage in poppy production by creating the impression that only those who grow poppies get better economic opportunities.

Third, Afghan leaders are seeking to change attitudes towards opium cultivation through an ambitious public information campaign.  There is some early encouraging evidence that we are making important progress in the current crop cycle.  Though we are working with the Afghans to create verification systems, some of our people who have gone to provinces such as Nangarhar and Laghman report dramatic reduction in poppy planting.  If this initial evidence holds up, it could be an early, positive sign that progress against the drug problem is possible and in fact is being made.

Taken as a whole, the last 20 months have seen significant progress on these three fronts of state-building.  Much work remains, however.  I often tell Afghans that if success in Afghanistan is a 10-mile journey, we have passed the fourth milestone and are working our way to the fifth.  It is to those remaining miles in the journey that I now wish to turn.

In terms of our assistance program, we are moving to a robust level of funding that is commensurate with the needs of state-building and economic development in Afghanistan.  If the supplemental request made to Congress is approved, the total support for Afghan reconstruction this year will reach almost $5 billion, which doubles last year's levels and enables further acceleration of all important political, security, and economic development programs.  Support at this level is vital to the continued advancement of our programs in Afghanistan.  To complement and reinforce this effort, it's time to work with the Afghan government to establish long-term U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnerships that serve the interests of both countries.

If we look at the historical sweep of U.S. efforts to create stability and progress in the world, we see that this is a natural and necessary next step in our effort both in Afghanistan and the wider region.  We achieved our strategic objective in World War II not just by winning the military conflict, but by helping democratic systems take root and by creating security relationships that prevented a new cycle of war.  The results were NATO, the European Union, and our bilateral security relationship with Japan and others in East Asia.  At the end of the cold war, we advanced our interest in Central and Eastern Europe, not just as a result of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, but also by supporting the newly independent states, promoting democratic governance and expanding NATO and developing the Partnership for Peace for those countries that wish to cooperate with NATO.

We were drawn into Afghanistan to address a major threat to the United States--in this case, the threat of terrorism.  Militarily, we achieved our objectives of destroying the Taliban-al Qaeda regime.  The Afghan leadership is now asking that we consolidate our operational success with a strategic partnership with the new democratically elected government of Afghanistan and that we pursue together a wide array of mutually beneficial initiatives.  We are engaging the Afghans on this issue.  As we go forward, we will tailor our approach to the unique circumstances of Afghanistan.

The U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership that the Afghans are seeking would signal a long-term U.S. commitment to Afghanistan and would involve security cooperation between the two countries.  Such a relationship would serve U.S. and Afghan interests in several ways.

First, it would discourage regional and Afghan players from hedging their bets in anticipation of a U.S. disengagement or departure.  Until the success of the new Afghanistan government is, and is perceived to be, irreversible, regional powers and potential proxies in Afghanistan might hedge their bets.  They might do so by seeking to maintain the capability to return to proxy warfare that took place in the 1990s.  However, once such powers see that the new Afghanistan does not threaten but actually serves their interests, we would likely see these powers abandon their hedging strategies.

Second, this partnership would discourage regional players from threatening Afghanistan.

Third, a strategic relationship with the United States will bolster Afghan security and enable Afghans to focus their resources on economic and social challenges vital to their country's success.

Fourth, a partnership with Afghanistan will facilitate U.S. access to a critical region, to a country where we are welcome by its people.

Fifth, a U.S.-Afghanistan partnership will contribute to the consolidation of our success in Afghanistan and help provide a model for what can be achieved in a society that cooperates with the United States and its partners.

As we develop this strategic partnership, it can serve as a key pillar of a set of initiatives to promote the needed political, geopolitical, and economic transformation of the wider region.  The stabilization of Afghanistan is recreating an historic region that stretches from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south and from Iran in the west to India in the east.  To much of history, this has been a single zone of economic, political, and social activity and exchange.  However, for much of the last 100 years, it has been fractured by the Soviet domination of Central Asia, the Indian-Pakistani conflict, and instability in Afghanistan.

This is now changing.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian states are building ties and relationships to the west, south, and east.  Progress in Indo-Pakistani relations hold out the prospect of greater economic exchange and cooperation.  Most important, the stabilization of Afghanistan will result in the restoration of the historic role as a land bridge providing vital lines of communication that serve all of the countries in this emerging region.  The completion of Afghanistan's primary road system, the ring road and its connecting spurs, will establish north-south links to Iranian and Pakistani ports.  It will also improve east-west links as well.  Transit trade across Afghanistan will be a major impetus for economic growth in Afghanistan, which in turn will support the continued efforts to build state institutions and enhance social and political stability.

In addition, as new patterns of trade develop and as volume increases, we can hope to see a shift in the pattern of political and geopolitical relationships in the region.  To date, advantage has flowed from the zero-sum game of rivalry and military competition.  As more and more people, firms, interest groups, and key powers come to rely on benefits from the win-win game of trade, we could see governments move away from geopolitical competition and towards cooperative efforts to achieve stability and predictability in economic relations, which are the needed foundations for expanding the economic pie through trade.

This wider regional perspective should inform the next phase of the reconstruction of Afghanistan's infrastructure.  At the same time, we can build on efforts to support the political or ideological transformation of the region.  The embrace of the democratic process by the Afghan people has shown yet again that democracy and respect for human rights are universal aspirations.  Going forward, Americans and Afghans can engage in joint public diplomacy to promote these ideas in the wider region.  Americans as well as Afghans have an abiding interest in seeing the region transformed in this way.

The Afghans are offering ideas for how we can work together to achieve this objective.  They will likely ask for Western support to launch a regional dialogue on trade and issues related to economic development, such as customs, transportation, and communication.  The United States position is to be supportive of such a proposal.  This dialogue then may expand to address other issues, such as energy, water resources, public health, and the other common challenges facing this region.  Over the longer term, we can promote the use of this dialogue and the constructive, problem-solving relationships it will develop to focus on security and other more difficult challenges.

These ideas are worthy of support by the United States and its partners.  Realizing these aspirations will take time, we can start by focusing on practical initiatives.

In closing, I would just add one thought.  To date, we have seen Afghanistan largely as a challenge.  We have made progress, but we cannot declare victory prematurely.  Too much work still remains to be done.  In this sense, the first priority should be to complete and consolidate the success in Afghanistan.  We need to resource the programs fully, and here the supplemental funding request is crucial.  And we need to remain fully engaged politically as well as stress to our European and Japanese partners the need to step up to the remaining work.  However, through the progress Afghans have made during the past three years, we should now see Afghanistan also as an opportunity.  Afghanistan has enormous upside potential--politically, as a model of a moderate and democratic state and society in the Muslim world; economically, as a renewed land bridge connecting a wider region; and geopolitically, as a cornerstone for an effort to help transform the pattern of regional relations.

There is an inadequate appreciation of how receptive the Afghan people are to the ideas of freedom, popular sovereignty, and other universal ideas that are the basis of the American system.  In Afghanistan there is an unquenchable demand for learning English, for American books, and for creating social and people-to-people links.  We should not be surprised if our ideas have a similar resonance in other countries, and we should work with the Afghans to project their perspectives on these universal ideals into the broader region.  A U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership is the needed first step in seizing the opportunity of Afghanistan's success to date.  The United States as well as the Afghanistan government is fully engaged on this issue.  And even as we proceed, we are looking to work with the Afghans on the broader and more ambitious task of a much-needed regional transformation.

Thank you very much.

[Applause.]

MS. PLETKA:  Ambassador Khalilzad has agreed to take a few questions.  I always exploit the fact that I have the microphone to ask the first, if I may.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Please.

MS. PLETKA:  I'm not going to do something unfair and ask you to compare Afghanistan and Iraq, but I wonder if you can use the analytical skills you have from so many years in a think tank--if I may promote the concept--to think a little bit about why the idea in Afghanistan of giving safe haven to terrorists, why the idea of insurgency has been so much less appealing than it has been in Iraq.  Why has the appeal of sovereignty of government, of freedom, and of engagement been so attractive there and yet elsewhere so difficult to promote?

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Thank you.  With regard to Afghanistan, I think the historical context is very important.  We went to Afghanistan after a long period of war, Soviet war, Afghan-on-Afghan war, extremism, a very backward form of extremism, and the occupation, if you like, of the country by terrorists.  And Afghans have become very wise through these experiences.  First, they have been exhausted.  They're exhausted, they want peace and normalcy.  And they've tried--all the terrible things that they could do to each other, they have tried that.  From those experiences has come a great deal of wisdom and pragmatism, that they need to respect each other, agree to the set of rules of the game in diversity and mutual tolerance, as reflected in the American experience as well as the experience of some other successful countries they want to emulate.  There is a yearning to be accepted to be a normal place.  They see the United States as providing that opportunity, and they want to seize it.  I think that's the formula--or the circumstances of Afghanistan.  We provided an opportunity at the time that they were looking for an opportunity because of what they had experienced before, and they have risen to the occasion to seize that opportunity.

With regard to others, of course, each situation is specific and one has to know more about the circumstances.  But my own view is that helping establish a legitimate government that reflects the will of the people is the first prerequisite of a successful effort at gaining acceptance.  And in Afghanistan from the very beginning our effort was focused on establishing a legitimate political order, a political order that reflected the wishes of the Afghan people.  And working with that government has been, I think, the single--other than the circumstances I described--the single most important element of our successful effort so far.

QUESTION:  I'm Dan Sagalyn from The NewsHour.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Hi, Dan.

QUESTION:  Could you tell me how cooperative have the Pakistanis been cutting off infiltration into Afghanistan?

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  In the aftermath of the destruction of the Taliban and al Qaeda hold on Afghanistan, some ran away and they went to the neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan, and sought sanctuary there, and from there carried out attacks against Afghanistan and against the coalition forces, killing Afghans and Americans and other coalition partners.  We've been working with Pakistan to end the sanctuary there and to improve relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  There has been significant progress that has been made in recent months against al Qaeda presence in Pakistan itself, both South and North Waziristan, but also on relations with Afghanistan.  Pakistan played a positive role in the presidential election.  I think the changes that have taken place in Afghanistan have encouraged and impressed Pakistan that this new order is here to stay and progress has been made.  I've been encouraged by the progress that we have achieved.

We also have a trilateral setting, where we meet together, the Afghans and Pakistanis, and work problems together.  That has been a helpful element of our approach and the positive changes that I have seen in recent months.

QUESTION:  --Kouma [ph] from Amnesty International.

Ambassador, you deserve a lot of credit for what Afghanistan is today.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  You're very kind.

QUESTION:  My question is, again, a follow-up question to the previous question about Pakistan.  Even though Taliban is almost finished, I mean militarily as well as culturally, they are well alive across the border in Pakistan--not totally Taliban, but the social values; MMA is there.  My question is two-part.  First is, how dangerous is it to allow MMA-type parties propagating the same social values across the border?  Because it could come back anytime.

Second is, how helpful is Pakistan handing all the former Taliban back?  How many people have they handed over back to Afghanistan?

Thank you.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  With regard to the second issue, as I said in my prepared remarks, there is a discussion going on inside the Afghan government about an accountability and reconciliation program vis-a-vis the Taliban.  And we have announced an interim program in coordination with the Afghan government on behalf of the coalition, that those talibs whose hands are not full of blood, who are prepared to lay down their arms and accept the legitimacy of the new order, that coming through their elders in their village or through government or contacting PRTs, the provincial reconstruction teams that we and others have in Afghanistan, they can live in their areas in peace.

But the broader program of accountability and reconciliation is evolving.  There will have to be a recognition of the people who need to be brought to justice, as well as those who could be on a list, that would be something of an in-between status to look at their background, at their behavior for a period of time, and those others who could go home as individuals--not as a talib movement, not as part of the government, but as individuals, to live in their neighborhoods.  As part of this effort, once those who are identified that they must be brought to justice, there will be an effort in terms of dialogue with Pakistan that those who are in Pakistan, who are on that list, need to be brought to justice, and Pakistan's cooperation will be sought.

The indication that I have is that Pakistan is signaling that they will cooperate with such an effort.  And as far as some individuals are concerned, there has been some positive move.  I don't know whether you remember a few months ago, some U.N. people were taken hostage and a gentleman who is a talib, by the name of Avah [sp], claimed credit for that effort.  He was arrested by Pakistan and was turned over to the Afghans.  But the broader problem that I discussed still needs to be addressed, and the Afghans, in cooperation with us, are working on developing an approach to that.

QUESTION:  Steve Myro [sp], Defense Department.

Mr. Ambassador, just revisiting for a moment the comparison and contrast between Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly in light of U.S. reconstruction efforts, are there any lessons learned from the great successes that we've made in Afghanistan that you think could be applicable to enhancing our reconstruction efforts in Iraq?  And specifically, you made a reference to the provincial reconstruction teams.  Is this an effort you would like to see replicated in Iraq?

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  I'm a bit reluctant to make recommendations or offer suggestions at this point with regard to Iraq.  I used to do Iraq, but it's been almost two years since I stopped doing Iraq.  My understanding of the circumstances in Iraq is not detailed enough at this point to offer specific recommendations.

But in a general way, I can say that the establishment of a legitimate political order and creating the belief that if one has not established it yet but one is committed to a process that will create a legitimate political order that is representative, is important.

Establishing security is important.  And that means--in Afghanistan it meant not only going after the Taliban and al Qaeda and Hizb-e Islami remnants, but also meant that you had to get rid of the infrastructure of a future civil war, because Afghans fear that equally.  It was civil war that facilitated the rise of Taliban.  And initially they were welcomed in many parts of Afghanistan, because when you are in a state of civil war, a war of all against all, security is all that you want.  And they saw Taliban as perhaps offering security, but then once they experienced Taliban rule, they quickly turned against them.

So it was important to create the belief and the reality that we were not taking Afghanistan back to a civil war environment by allowing these multiple militias to dominate regions indefinitely.  So we worked very hard, through this DDR process and cantonment, to deal with that problem, as well as building national institutions that over time could take care of Afghan security.  That was the definition of success on the security front.

And economic reconstruction is important.  People have to see lives improving and people having the opportunity to work, to support their families, to see their quality of life move forward.  And these things interact and reinforce each other.  Progress in one--for example, political legitimacy track--can help with security, can help with reconstruction.  Economic reconstruction can in turn help with political and security.  And security can facilitate, obviously--that's fundamental.  Without that, everything is at risk.

But, you know, how to balance these three things.  And there has to be balance between them.  An excessive focus on one without paying attention to the other two can be distorting.  So you need to have the right balance between these there.  And the use of force to be minimal, but if necessary has to be overwhelming.  So that is, I think, the mix in a general sense as we've tried to apply in Afghanistan.

But with Iraq, you'll have to look at the set of circumstances.  You know, you'll have to ask the question are the different elements in balance, is there a right emphasis on each of the elements.  Those are the sort of issues one would have to look at, but that you can only do when you have a detailed understanding of the situation, which I do not at this point.

QUESTION:  Mr. Ambassador, there was one point you made that seemed inconsistent with the rest of your presentation.  You said that on a scale of 1 to 10, or if progress in Afghanistan was measured by a 10-mile race, we are only at Mile 4.  I wonder if you might not consider that we might be at Mile 6.  I say that with regard to a related issue, and that's the question of foreign investment in Afghanistan.  Is it too early to think of that?  Is the government of Afghanistan thinking of foreign investment, and have they succeeded in any way?

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  There isn't enough yet, foreign investment, but there has been some significant foreign investment that has taken place.  We'd like to see more of that, and I'm sure the Afghan government would like to see more of that.  We've got several big investments by standards in Afghanistan.  For example, in the telecommunication, Afghanistan Wireless is an American investment, over $100 million.  Or there is Rochon, which is another telephone company, which is French--Alcatel involved.  There are other foreign investments in Afghanistan as well.

But ultimately I keep saying to the Afghans, both government and private, that prosperity will come not from American taxpayer investments in Afghanistan, though that can be helpful.  It will come from Afghans and foreigners putting at risk their resources in terms of investing in various ventures in Afghanistan.  And I tell to the investors not to only think about Afghanistan when you think about investigating in Afghanistan, but think of the broader regional possibilities that Afghanistan offers.  It's much friendlier to foreign presence and ideas and politically not afraid of democracy, of freedom, not afraid of foreigners dominating them.  There is no concern about those. If there is a fear, as I think Danielle mentioned, it's a fear of being forgotten by foreigners once again.  The same circumstances are not really present, let's say, in a place like Iran or some of the other places in the region.  But the government has to do more in Afghanistan in terms of it laws, although they've made progress.  There also has to be some more progress on basic infrastructure, to make it even more attractive for foreigners to come in.  And I think that there's not enough perhaps appreciation in the international investment community of the positive things that have been going on in Afghanistan and the potential that that has.

This region that I talked about, with the land bridge connecting Central Asia and South Asia with Afghanistan as the bridge, is a $4 trillion economy already, and it's growing rather rapidly.  and I think Afghanistan can benefit dramatically from the interconnection of these two regions--economically besides all the other benefits that I talked about.

QUESTION:  Ambassador, I'm Barry Jacobs from the American Jewish Committee.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Sure.

QUESTION:  Actually, we met many years ago.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Yes.

QUESTION:  What could be done to convince or to persuade the government of Afghanistan as it formulates its foreign policy?  You talked about the region, that a foreign policy that more closely resembles that of its neighbors in Central Asia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, as well as India--which is a polite way of saying full diplomatic relations with Israel would not only be a good in and of itself, but would produce a valuable lobby within the United States to effectively work with the Congress on behalf of Afghan interests.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Well, I think this is an issue that has not been engaged on.  There may be discussions that might be going on, but--I think I would not rule that out as a possibility in the case of Afghanistan as it broadens its contacts, as it becomes more self-assured in terms of its own security and its internal stability and the diminished risk of proxy warfare by forces that are hostile to the success of this new Afghanistan.  I would not rule that out.

QUESTION:  I'm Josh Kachare [ph] from Jane's Defence Weekly.

You talked a little bit about training the Afghan National Army.  But I also wanted to ask about equipping of the army.  I know that the Afghan minister of defense has high hopes for what the U.S. is going to be able to provide.  I wonder if there's any money in this supplemental you referred to for this, if you could kind of update us on the status of equipping the army and what you're doing to involve other countries in this process as well.

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Thank you.  You're right that the Afghans are interested in acquiring Western, U.S. equipment.  That's an issue that could be part of the discussions that they would raise, I anticipate they would raise as we talk about this strategic partnership that I mentioned that they're interested in.  Of course, one of the big issues with regard to U.S. equipment is cost.  You know, your equipment tends to be very expensive.  It has to be looked at pragmatically as to given the security needs of Afghanistan and the options available to it in terms of equipment, what's the best.  But also there has to be a question of sustainability.  We don't want to burden Afghanistan with defense establishment and equipment that at this stage or in the near term the economy cannot sustain.  We have to decide how much of that burden the United States taxpayers would be willing to share or shoulder.  These are issues that, as I said, will be, I anticipate, part of the discussions that are just beginning to start.

QUESTION:  Saul Hudson from Reuters.

Mr. Ambassador, next week the secretary of state goes to Asia.  And you've talked about the desire for the long-term strategic partnership.  What, in addition to the military-equipment theme, do you think the Afghani Sistani people want to hear on such a trip, and what should the Bush administration message be?

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Well, our message is clear, that we are proud of what has been achieved in Afghanistan, that we are committed to Afghanistan's success, that we see Afghanistan's success as our success, that we understand Afghan fears about abandonment, that we did make that mistake in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Soviet departure, and that we will not make that mistake again.  Afghans would like to hear that.  They hear it from me.  It would be good that these messages are heard from U.S. officials, senators and congressmen that come to Afghanistan.  We had a good delegation of senators a few days ago in Kabul that was led by Senator McCain, with senators Feingold and Clinton and Graham with him.  They made the same kind of statements that I just made.  The president of the United States has made those statements.  But there is this psychological, existential fear of abandonment, given what they had experienced in the 1990s, that needs to be attended to, and it's an approach, a formula that does that.  I think it will have a salutary effect in terms of the circumstances in Afghanistan as well as in the kind of calculations of the regional players.

QUESTION:  John Sawyer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Ambassador, is it normal or wise, in your view, that President Karzai is reaching out to a figure like General Dostum?  And more broadly, could you comment on the role that you see the former warlords playing as we move toward formation and political parties and the parliamentary elections?

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  I believe that President Karzai's decision to give a role to General Dostum, as he has given a role to other regional strongmen, is a wise policy to those who are willing to play by the rules and want to be part of the future, and that means to those who are willing to accept the legitimacy of the government, the constitution, those who are willing to give up their militias, that that's not the path to future success in this new Afghanistan, that you have to canton your heavy weapons, you have to subject your militia forces to the DDR process, that they become civilianized and reintegrated, that you believe and will cooperate with building national institutions such as the army, the police, the judiciary, that you recognize this new framework for how Afghanistan deals with its internal issues as well as external issues.  We have said when we have talked to regional people that in order to be part of the future, you need to do the kinds of things that I have described, and if you do, a government role at the center in Kabul or someplace else is a reasonable option for the government to consider for such people.

I think that's part of the approach that has minimized the use of force.  You can always threaten people and say, well, you do this in 24 hours or I'm going to come and bomb you if you don't.  You know, that is a different logic.  We've tried, to the maximum degree possible, to avoid that, to keep the use of force in the background but to talk to people about the wisdom of this new opportunity and being part of the future and taking advantage of it and living a decent, respected, good life without sort of, you know, relying on brute force to oppress and suppress the people of a particular region.

So I think that this co-optation in exchange for cooperation on critical issues is a reasonable option for the government to consider.

QUESTION:  [Off microphone, inaudible.]

AMBASSADOR KHALILZAD:  Well, if they meet the criteria that they have.  For example, General Dostum now will have to recuse himself and withdraw.  He was considering the formation of a political party of his own, and now that he's in the current position, he no longer can be a member of a political party.  He's a military figure.  But if you're an Afghan of a particular age and you've not been convicted in an Afghan court and you don't have a militia relationship, you can run for parliament.

There are some accusations with regard to past performance with regard to a number of people, and Afghans will have to find a way to deal with that.  That's an issue still that's coming.  The interim government and the transitional government were not legitimate enough.  They were legitimate, but not enough, strong enough in terms of the mandate of the Afghan people, to tackle this issue of accountability and reconciliation--how much reconciliation and how much accountability, how to balance these two imperatives that Afghanistan faces.  But that is something that is still ahead of Afghanistan, to deal with, given its very difficult recent past.

Well, thank you very much.

MS. PLETKA:  Thank you.

[Applause.]