Speeches
Transcript of Ambassador Wood’s Press Conference at Ministry of Foreign Affairs
January 30, 2008
Ambassador Wood: Hello. Thank you very much. It is a great pleasure to be here.
I understand that there is simultaneous translation, that’s right? So I should just keep talking.
I would like to particularly thank Ambassador Sadiq, the Center for Strategic Studies, my colleagues at the Foreign Ministry of Afghanistan, the members of the press, and especially the members of the Parliament of Afghanistan for being here today.
As my biography was being read I had one overwhelming personal reaction, which is that I am old. I am very old. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. It is really the pinnacle of my career that I have been named by President Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate to act as the representative of the United States here in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
It is also, of course, the pinnacle of my career that I was received as Ambassador by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Because as you know, Ambassadors are not merely sent, they must be received. That is why in my biography they mentioned the day that President Karzai accepted my credentials as Ambassador, because you cannot serve as a bridge between two sovereign nations without being sent by one and without being received by the other. And as my colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs know, the job of a diplomat is to serve as a bridge, to operate between two sovereign governments with respect, with understanding, with energy, with commitment, to find solutions that are acceptable to both sovereign governments.
The U.S. approach to Afghanistan can be summarized in a few priorities. First, to destroy international terror cells and support bases. As you know, Afghanistan and the United States share a common enemy. That enemy is also the enemy of other peace-loving nations in the world. Al-Qaida, elements of the Taliban that support al-Qaida and operate internationally themselves, and those who support them.
Here in Afghanistan we are especially committed to helping Afghanistan defeat the Taliban insurgency which takes the form of both an insurgency and a terrorist organization and threatens on the one hand the national institutions of Afghanistan, and on the other hand the people of Afghanistan as individuals. That’s what terrorism does. It threatens people.
Our third goal here is to support institutional democracy and the rule of law in cooperation with the traditional leadership structure. We have no interest in making Afghanistan another United States, just as Afghanistan has no interest in becoming another United States. Afghanistan is Afghanistan, has been Afghanistan, and will be Afghanistan.
I have heard many speeches by the Minister of Defense, who refers to Afghanistan as “Afghanistan the Unconquerable.” The courage of Afghanistan and the determination of Afghanistan to be unconquerable, to be its own country, to be its own peoples, to organize its own life is a historical fact that cannot be denied. We support that fact. We respect that fact. We are here to help Afghans achieve their goals.
We have a special interest here that is reflective of the special character of the United States. The United States is a decentralized country. It was originally started as 13 independent states. That’s why we are the United States. Our Constitution says that all powers not explicitly granted to the central government belong to the states. In the United States the laws for marriage, the taxes, the laws for a driving license, all of those things change in every state.
So as one of the nations in the world with one of the most decentralized government structures in the world, we feel a special commitment to local government at the provincial and district level wherever we go, including in Afghanistan. And we are very proud to be working through the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, through our military bases with the Commanders’ Emergency Reconstruction Program, and similar structures, and working in close cooperation with Mr. Popal in the Office of Local and District Government to strengthen not simply the central government here but also governance in the provinces and the districts, where the people live.
There are some countries in the world, my first country of assignment, Uruguay, where more than 60 percent of the population lived in the capital city. That is not true in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the people live in the valleys, and the fields, and on the mountains of the provinces and in the districts. And government belongs to them too. We are proud to work with Mr. Popal and local government to help deliver services to this very diverse and disparate population.
On both the national and the local level we aim to support development and humanitarian advances, and we are very proud of the achievements that Afghanistan has made in the last few years. Since 2002 gross domestic income per capita has more than doubled, so every Afghan -- man, woman and child -- is twice as rich as he was in 2002.
There are more children in school today than have ever been in school in the history of Afghanistan. That is thanks to the extraordinary work of your Ministry of Education, supported by the United States and others of the international community.
Health care. More than 80 percent of Afghanistan has access to basic health care today. That is more than was ever true in the history of the country. That means that young families can count on health for the parents and health for the children. This is service and progress in the most basic human way. We are very proud to have helped.
One of our goals is to help Afghanistan fight drug production and drug trafficking. This is not so much for the United States, as in the case of many other consuming countries. We are a consuming country of drugs and a consuming country of heroin, in particular, the drug that comes from Afghanistan. But less than ten percent of the heroin in the United States comes from Afghanistan, in comparison to more than 90 percent in Western Europe and in other countries.
So for us, protection of our population is not the reason why we put so much emphasis on fighting the elicit drug trade.
General McNeil of ISAF, the ISAF Commander, once told me that when he flies over fields of poppy he looks down and he sees Kalashnikovs. He sees Kalashnikovs in the hands of the insurgents, Kalashnikovs in the hands of the terrorists, Kalashnikovs in the hands of others who are outside the rule of law and outside the authority of the national government. He sees fields of poppy that feed insurgency and terror every day.
My reaction is slightly different. When I fly over a field of poppy I look down and I see corruption. I see bribery. I see rival centers of power trying to challenge the government and the people of Afghanistan for their own corrupt purposes. I see, sadly, corrupt officials. I see, sadly, corrupt businessmen.
General McNeil sees threat, I see corruption. We are both right. Therefore, we are proud to be working with the government of Afghanistan to fight the illicit narcotics trade. Not because it threatens our population but because it threatens the goals of Afghanistan for Afghanistan, it threatens the religion of Afghanistan, because we are all agreed that drug cultivation and trafficking is contrary to the values of Islam, and because it foments violence and instability.
Lastly, of course, our goals here are to ensure security. We are by far the largest troop provider of foreign countries here in Afghanistan. The international community has more than 40,000 troops here in Afghanistan, young men and women separated from their families, undergoing conditions of danger and hardship in order to advance all the other goals that I mentioned.
The United States provides about half of those young men and women. I have to say I am very proud of their contribution.
There are problems. There are always problems. But I can tell you that the goals of these young men and women are precisely the goals that you would want them to have -- a sovereign, stable, free, peaceful, prosperous, institutional, unified Afghanistan.
They have asked me to speak for only 20 minutes, so that we can then answer questions. I will abide by that because, of course, during the 20 minutes I will talk about all of the things I want to talk about, and then during the question and answer period, we can talk about all of the things that you want to talk about and we can have a real conversation. But I just wanted to describe very briefly our program of assistance to Afghanistan because, as you know, although people spend a lot of time talking about ideas, where they put their money often best illustrates their priorities. So let me tell you where we put our money.
From 2002 to 2007 the United States provided more than $22 billion to Afghanistan. We have provided $12 billion, 2002 to 2006, and then in 2007 we almost equaled all of the assistance we had provided in the previous five years in one year.
For instance, in 2007 we provided more assistance to the Afghan Army than we had provided in the previous five years combined. In 2007 we provided more assistance to the Afghan National Police than we had provided in the previous five years combined.
Why? Because we want to make Afghanistan stronger. We want to make it more capable of defending itself. We want to make it more capable of confronting its own threats with its own forces.
In the same period, 2002 to 2007, we provided almost $8 billion for development and humanitarian assistance. To assist the government we have built courthouses and other buildings, district centers, things like that. Reconstruction. We have built roads, provided electricity, cleared irrigation canals, provided seeds, constructed and hosted agricultural fairs, built schools, built hospitals.
Alternative livelihood. To give those who are growing drugs an alternative, another choice. We’ve spent $500 million since 2002, by far the largest contribution to alternative development of any country, in order to give those farmers who don’t want to be part of the illicit drug industry an alternative.
In the same years we spent almost $150 million to support rule of law. Building prisons, but also training lawyers. Establishing with the Italian government the National Judicial Center, very close to the Parliament, at the university. Codifying the laws of the country so that lawyers can read them. Working with schools. Working with the international community to bring the law of Afghanistan to all Afghans. And I want to emphasize, to make sure that the new legal structures shake hands with the old legal structures. This is not a legal invasion. The solution to rule of law has to be an Afghan solution reflecting perhaps some Western ideas, but reflecting absolutely the traditional and tribal structures and priorities of Afghanistan.
Lastly, under this large development and humanitarian category has been humanitarian assistance to support, among other things, refugees, the sick, the hungry. I’m pleased to say that the United States is supporting President Karzai’s request for international assistance for grain and flour and bread, and that thousands of tons of food assistance is on a ship already on its way to Afghanistan.
The proportion of this assistance is also important. Of the more than $22 billion that we have spent in Afghanistan [since] 2002 roughly, and this is roughly, about 50 percent has gone to security assistance; roughly 40 percent, or almost the same amount, has gone to development and humanitarian assistance; and roughly ten percent has gone to counter-drug assistance. That is perhaps the best description of what we are trying to achieve here with the government of Afghanistan. To make the country safer for the people of Afghanistan, to make the country more prosperous for the people of Afghanistan, and to make the country more law-abiding and drug-free for the people of Afghanistan.
With those few words, I think it’s probably been about 20 minutes, I will stop talking and try to answer your questions.
But once again, I want to thank all of you for inviting me today and for the hospitality all of Afghanistan has shown me in my more than nine months here. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
Moderator: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador for your comprehensive overview of the U.S. strategic role here in Afghanistan. Now we will proceed with the questions.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: I’m not sure that I completely understood the question from the translation, but I understood there to be a question about lack of coordination in the regional situation and in the national situation, and then a related question related to reconstruction. Is that correct?
In the regional situation, Afghanistan’s position is a very complicated one. Afghanistan has always been an absolutely central country because it stands at the extreme west of the Himalayas. It is the gateway to Central Asia. If Pakistan or Afghanistan want to go to Central Asia, they have to go through Afghanistan.
The relationship between Afghanistan and Central Asia has been changing, and there is every day more cooperation between Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
In August we were proud to assist in the opening of a bridge to Tajikistan which we hope would give an opportunity for Afghan goods and Pakistani goods and Indian goods, and perhaps Burmese goods and others, to travel north into Central Asia.
There have been wonderful discussions about the purchase of energy between Afghanistan and its neighbors to the north. So that’s one component of the regional area that is getting, I think, steadily better.
The situation with Pakistan is an extraordinarily complicated one going back for many years. That is why the United States so strongly supported the idea of a bilateral peace jirga between Pakistan and Afghanistan and I must say I had the honor of attending the opening session, when President Karzai spoke, and the closing session when President Musharraf spoke, and talking to some of the participants afterwards. And I congratulate you all. It was an extraordinary success.
We want to see more success. We want to see more cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We believe it is crucial to both nations, which share so many values, which share so many people and so many families.
The case of Iran is more complicated still. It is not clear to me what Iran’s policy toward Afghanistan is. There are from time to time difficulties and certainly there is no question that elements of the insurgency have received weapons from Iran. It is also true, however, that Iran is providing assistance to Afghanistan. Whether that is meant to assist Afghanistan or influence Afghanistan I leave to you. I cannot answer that question. Lastly, in the course of the year 2007, if my numbers are correct, some 350,000 Afghans were forcibly repatriated from Iran to Afghanistan.
So whatever else you say, the relationship with Iran is a complicated one for Afghanistan. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, although we work with them in the United Nations and in other multilateral forums, and there have been some recent talks. I can’t really comment much more than that about Iran.
Between the United States and Afghanistan, as there are between any two adults who are friends, there is lots of cooperation. But like any two adults who are friends, we don’t always agree about everything. I can only say that the United States is absolutely committed to a relationship that is respectful and to a relationship that is supportive of a stronger government of Afghanistan.
Regarding reconstruction, well I think that you know that we have provided lots of reconstruction. I think you also know that some of the schools that we have helped build have been destroyed by the Taliban. I think you know that some of the teachers that we have helped train have been killed by the Taliban. I think you know that some of the students for whom we have provided textbooks and blackboards and desks have been killed by the Taliban. I think you know that we have cleared irrigation canals in Helmand, for instance, which are now being used to grow drugs.
What I'm saying is it would be wonderful if reconstruction were enough. Unfortunately, without security and without rule of law it cannot be enough.
The United States believes that security is first and foremost the job of Afghanistan, of the Afghan government and the Afghan people. All we can do is help. We can provide training and we can provide equipment and we can provide temporary support while the Afghan security capability grows and strengthens and matures. But we are not an occupying force. Afghanistan does not belong to us. Afghanistan must belong to itself. In order for that to happen, Afghanistan must take first responsibility for its own security.
I am proud to say that the Afghan National Army is growing rapidly and it is growing not just in size but in discipline and in professionalism and in capability and in the respect, I believe, not only of the people of Afghanistan but in the respect of the international community.
The police, similarly, are getting better every day, and we are proud to be able to help that.
Thank you.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: I’m sorry, I’m having trouble hearing.
Question: Do I have to speak in English?
I was simply indicating that if they will look at the second strategic partnership declaration, if they look at the content of that, it is clearly indicated, although it has not been signed between Dr. Spanta and Her Excellency Condoleezza Rice, the issue of reconstruction plays a pivotal role in the U.S. foreign policy here in Afghanistan.
Now we give the floor to Mr. Kakar.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: Thank you very much.
I consider that to be the most important question. The question of optimism, the question of hope. More than anything else I believe that the goal of the government of Afghanistan and our support for the government of Afghanistan is to give the people optimism and hope so that they have the strength to make the hard decisions today that will produce a better tomorrow and a better day after that.
Yes, I am optimistic, and yes, I have hope. I believe that we were all too optimistic in 2001 and 2002. With the ouster of the Taliban and the restoration of popular legitimate government in Afghanistan, we thought that the work was done. That is why for the period 2002 to 2004 almost all of U.S. assistance to Afghanistan was for development and humanitarian advances, not for security.
In those days the creation of the interim government, the convening of the constitutional loya jurga, the drafting and approval of the constitution, the installation of the new government and the new legislature, all of these seemed central, crucial steps forward, and they were. But they weren’t enough.
Now we are in the more difficult period, the period of governance. The period of hard decisions. When the problems that were not dealt with in 2002 and 2003 and 2004, the continued growth of warlordism, the continued growth of the narcotics trade, continued difficulties with Pakistan, the inability of Afghanistan to control its borders and perhaps most importantly, and most understandably, the fatigue, the weariness of the people of Afghanistan who had been through 25 difficult years, and just wanted to be left alone to have decent, happy, private lives with their children and their clans and their tribes.
I think we underestimated the threats during those periods and the enemies of peace and stability and good government and rule of law used that period to strengthen.
Now we have a clearer goal. It is a double goal. To strengthen Afghanistan so that it can rule and defend and produce and educate and care for its own people itself, and at the same time to defend Afghanistan against insurgency and terrorism and corruption and drugs and warlords, in order to create the secured space for those other things to happen.
2007 I believe was a good year. There was success on the battlefield, there was success in development, there was success in governance, there was success in humanitarian concerns. But no one would say 2007 was an easy year. And 2007 had some tragedies associated with it.
I don’t think that 2008 will be an easy year either, but I think it will also be a good year and a better year than 2007. And I believe that 2009 will be easier and better still. And at some point all the years will become easy. So I am optimistic.
Thank you.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: Thank you for your question.
I received this question from the United States Senate during my confirmation hearings and I will say to you what I said to them.
I believe that Afghanistan and Pakistan face a common threat. I believe that Pakistan could do more to address that threat and to help Afghanistan. I also believe that Afghanistan could do more to address that threat and to help Pakistan.
The thing that gives me great hope is that in the year since I made those statements to the United States Senate both Pakistan and Afghanistan have done more. Is it enough? I don’t know.
Certainly events in recent weeks and months have shown us that Pakistan is doing more. And certainly recent events in the recent weeks and months have shown us that it is not easy. That this is not simply a question of turning a light switch in Pakistan and suddenly finding that Pakistan is in complete control of all of the people who are to be found inside Pakistan.
Just as inside Afghanistan, it is not a question of flipping a light switch and suddenly discovering that the insurgents and the drug traffickers and the corruption and the warlords have gone away.
This is not so easy, and it’s not so easy for Pakistan and it’s not so easy for Afghanistan. What gives me the greatest hope is clear evidence, starting with the bilateral jirga but continuing with good meetings between President Karzai and President Musharraf, good meetings at other levels of the government between Afghanistan and Pakistan. What gives me hope is that there is a growing understanding that Pakistan and Afghanistan face the same enemies and need to confront them together. That was not always true.
From our perspective, from the United States, we believe that cooperation and closeness between Afghanistan and Pakistan are absolutely central to the security and the prosperity and the rule of law and the government of both countries. And those who attempt to divide the country, either by supporting unhelpful actions by one country against the other country, or those who try to blame, get one country to blame the other country, aren’t helpful. What is helpful is cooperation.
I know that in Afghanistan there are men and women of good will who want to find a way to cooperate with Pakistan. I know inside Pakistan there are men and women of good will who want to find a way to cooperate with Afghanistan. Those are the people we support.
Thank you.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: I have seen no evidence that Pakistan is attempting to destabilize Afghanistan. I’ve been here nine months and I’ve looked and I have not seen the evidence.
But let me talk more broadly. I am surprised by the amount of time that Afghans spend talking about Pakistan. It seems to me that there are many things inside of Afghanistan that Afghans should be talking about.
I believe that no matter what Pakistan did or what Iran did or what anyone else did, it could affect Afghanistan the Unconquerable if Afghanistan could come together -- could come together to cooperate, could come together to develop, could come together to support its government and the rule of law, and could come together to be a good neighbor to all.
I think this is what Afghanistan is trying to do. It is what we are trying to help Afghanistan do. But Afghanistan, more than any other nation that I can think of, has been in control of its entire history. It is strong and it is brave and it is insistent on being its own people and country. That is a mark of great honor, but it is also a mark of great responsibility.
The future of Afghanistan belongs to Afghanistan. If Afghans are united there is no force that can push them off the road to progress. But if Afghans are not united, if each Afghan is looking for what’s best for him at the cost of his neighbor, and if each community is looking for what’s best for it at the cost of its neighboring community, and if each tribe is looking for what’s best for it at the cost of the other tribes, and if each leader is looking for what he can get today and not what he can contribute today and tomorrow, then Afghanistan will be vulnerable. It is the unity of Afghanistan, it is the courage of Afghanistan, it is the determination of Afghanistan that is going to determine the future of Afghanistan. Not anything that Pakistan or Iran or the United States or anyone else does. That is perhaps the biggest lesson that I have learned in 30 years as a diplomat. Each country belongs to itself. Each country makes its own future. Even a powerful country like the United States cannot change that basic fact.
Thank you.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: First, I believe that I’ve given my best answer on the subject of Pakistan and the basis of support for the Taliban outside of Afghanistan.
One of the breakthroughs of the last year has been the admission by Pakistan that there are illegitimate insurgent and terrorist bases inside its country. This admission it seems to me is an important step forward, and I think it is important that Afghanistan accept that Pakistan is clearly moving in the right direction.
If I may say so, many of the questions I have received this afternoon have focused not so much on the acceptance and cooperation that we are seeing from Pakistan today, but rather accusations about what may or may not have happened in the past.
I understand that you can never escape the past, but you also cannot live in the past as though it were today, because if you do you will never reach tomorrow.
I am hopeful about the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are seeing signs of improved cooperation. I think all of us should devote our efforts to improving and deepening and accelerating that cooperation.
Regarding the PRTs, and did you say sir, that you were from Paktika? Paktika was the first province I visited after I arrived in Afghanistan. I try to travel at least once a week, although I haven’t been able to do that every week. But I’ve been to Sharana and Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, and Bamian and Chagcharan and Lashkar Gah and Musa Qala and Kandahar and Panjshir, and many places.
My visit to Sharana, because it was my first visit, was one of my most important visits. And I had a good conversation with Governor Khpulwak and I met with Dr. Waziri and the provincial council. They certainly had ideas about how our assistance could be provided in a better way, and I hope that we have acted on some of those suggestions. But they were also clear that the assistance was doing the job that it was meant to do. That there were roads so that the people could visit their families and they could bring their products to market. They wanted more roads. I think more roads have been built since I was there nine months ago. They were told that the schools and the clinics were good things, and I think there are more schools and clinics than there used to be when I was there.
We often try, we always try to use Afghan labor and Afghan managers for our projects. Sometimes that is complicated for reasons that you all know as well as I do. We are very pleased that Paktika is stronger than it used to be, and is getting stronger every day, and is getting to be a better place for its people every day. As is Laghman, as is Ghazni, as are the other provinces, as is Nangarhar.
In the case of Paktika, the United States provided about $15 million in assistance from 2002 to 2006. But this year in 2007, in one year, that amount has tripled. Now we haven’t seen all of the results of that assistance, because we’re still finding projects and trying to spend that money. But we are trying to do a good job in Paktika. We believe that the governor is a good partner. We believe that the provincial council is a good partner. We believe that the different tribes that are represented on the provincial council are also coming together in a way that is positive for the province. So we are very hopeful for Paktika.
I am sure that we are not doing everything perfectly because nothing human is ever done perfectly. But we are trying to do a good job and we believe that we have good partners in the people of Paktika.
Thank you.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: I believe that the United States is very interested in a peaceful solution. There was a peaceful solution because there was peace from 2002 to 2004, 2005. Then the Taliban resumed its aggression. That is why there is not peace today.
The United States has made clear our position on peaceful reconciliation. We support peaceful reconciliation with any elements of the Taliban who will accept the constitution of Afghanistan and the authority of the elected government. We do not support reconciliation with those who want an amnesty for their past sins so that they can commit those sins all over again. That is, reconciliation must reflect an agreement between the government to offer them reconciliation, and an agreement by the fighters that if they accept reconciliation they will stop fighting and they will obey the law. Because it would be foolish to reconcile with someone who did not want to obey the law.
So far we have not seen very many who wanted to obey the law. But just about two weeks ago I flew to Musa Qala and had chai, drank chai with the district administrator of Musa Qala, Mullah Salaam, who had been a Taliban commander and indeed at one time a provincial governor for the Taliban. I made to him exactly the point that I just made to you. That the United States supports his reconciliation provided he supports the constitution of the country and the legitimate authority of the elected government.
Thank you.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: Thank you very much for your question. I have certainly heard people talk about Ambassador Khalilzad as a possible President of Afghanistan. I have also heard that it has been discussed in the newspapers. It is a source I believe of enormous pride to my friend Ambassador Khalilzad that people would think of him for such a position, such a great honor. But Ambassador Khalilzad took the same oath that I took as Ambassador, and that is an oath of loyalty to the United States. All of your diplomats are loyal to Afghanistan. That is their country. Ambassador Khalilzad took an oath of loyalty to the United States. I cannot imagine that Ambassador Khalilzad could consider the post of President of Afghanistan while he is serving loyally another country, the country of the United States. And I believe that he himself has said that the reports that he is running for office are not true.
Certainly no Ambassador of the United States in Afghanistan, including me, is authorized by my government to be a political leader of another country, any other country. Even though nobody has asked me to run for President, even of my own country, never mind of another one.
The short answer is, it is not the policy of the United States that Ambassador Khalilzad run for office. Ambassador Khalilzad himself has said that he is not running for office. So I have to believe that he is not running for office.
And regarding the second question, I have during my travels heard many people talk about what they referred to as the peace penalty. The fact that the provinces that are not in conflict don’t receive quite as much assistance as the provinces that are. I understand the resentment. We are trying to balance more carefully.
Of course there are many criteria that one could apply. You could say the provinces that have the most people should receive the most assistance. So Kabul, which doesn’t receive very much assistance from the United States, would have to receive much, much more.
So I think these kind of rational criteria aren’t very good.
We try to put our assistance where it will be best used and where its greatest need is. Our biggest single assistance project, improvement of the great road, the Ring Road, was done not with any province in mind and not with any district in mind, but with the nation in mind, to try to connect the nation closer together, to bring families and clans and tribes together, and to allow people to bring their goods to a wider market inside the country and outside the country.
Our efforts in Kajaki Dam, for instance, are not meant to simply provide assistance for Helmand, but also to provide electricity to Kandahar.
The United States has special responsibility in the east of the country and as part of that special responsibility we provide more assistance in the east. Helmand, which is the most troubled province, has also received the most assistance from the United States. The north, which is comparatively peaceful, and in which the Germans and others have a special role, is receiving less assistance from the United States and more assistance from the Germans.
So this is a very complicated equation involving putting donors together, putting provinces together, combining a national vision with a local vision, and in the end, trying to help the people who most need it. Sadly, the people who need assistance most are found in the insecure provinces. They are frightened. They are prevented from living their lives the way they want to live them, which is why we do give more assistance to Helmand and Kandahar than any other provinces in the country. Those who live in peaceful provinces could always move to Helmand or Kandahar if they wanted to take advantage of our assistance. But in fact they don’t because more than anything they have the greatest gift, they have peace.
Moderator: I have gathered a couple of questions and I will pose it in a manner that would have three or four parts.
The first question that came from one of our colleagues is what has the U.S. done as it relates to the reconstruction or reestablishment of small and medium industries to support import substitution policy in Afghanistan and unemployment.
The second question, that comes from the International Advisor to the Ministry of Counternarcotics, deals with the issue of counternarcotics in Afghanistan, as far as what is the long term solution, and he wants you to give him your perspective about aerial spraying.
The other question is a very philosophical question that comes from a former diplomat that used to work here at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Bari, which relates to the issue of the ten year gap, there was ten years of gap. Why was it that the U.S. forgot Afghanistan?
I think that should accommodate all of your questions and that would take at least 15 minutes, and then we will end this session. Thank you.
Ambassador Wood: Taking the questions in order. The United States is working very hard to strengthen small and medium enterprises. We have training programs. We are working on things like more open borders. You could say that building the bridge to Tajikistan was an effort to assist small and medium enterprise because it opened up new markets.
We’re working very closely with the Ministry of Treasury, Ministry of Finance, with the Central Bank, with the IMF and the World Bank to create a stronger banking system that makes loans to small and medium enterprises.
We are working with the Community Development Councils of the National Solidarity Plan and the Provincial Development Councils and the ministries here in Kabul to assist small and medium enterprises. We are trying to bring energy and make it more widely available because without electricity production, the opportunities for production and profits are limited.
So I think we’re doing a lot for small and medium enterprises. We’re certainly working closely with the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce and others to do what we can to create opportunity for people.
You mentioned import substitution. If I may say so, import substitution as a goal in itself I don’t believe is the road to development. We’re in favor of import substitution. I am very unhappy, for instance, that when I have breakfast in the morning I’m eating eggs that were imported from somewhere else. There should be a poultry industry in Afghanistan. There used to be a poultry industry in Afghanistan. There is no reason why there cannot be a poultry industry in Afghanistan again. We are working on it. We’re providing 10,000 chickens to Afghanistan this year. That’s not many chickens, really. In that sense, import substitution is a good thing.
But I think that the experience of the world in the last 10 or 15 years has been that economic development comes from trade, from open borders, and from every country doing what it does best and from one other thing, and that is education. The countries that have developed the fastest are the ones that have open borders and have provided education to their children.
My friend from the Ministry of Counternarcotics is trying to get me in trouble by asking me about aerial eradication. Our position is very simple. Illicit narcotics are a threat to Afghanistan and it requires a comprehensive solution to the problem.
Most of our assistance to Afghanistan for counternarcotics has gone to alternative development to assist producers to find another way.
The second most assistance has gone to law enforcement to train police to go after drug traffickers and drug shipments and drug laboratories and drug precursors.
The third largest part of our counter drug assistance has gone toward eradication. That has been mechanical eradication on the ground. There are essentially three kinds of eradication. Mechanical eradication, that uses tractors and tow bars and attempts to pull up the plant; there is ground-based spraying which still takes place on the ground but it uses the chemical glyphosate, a completely safe chemical which has been around 40 years. I use it in my garden at home. And there’s aerial spraying.
Aerial spraying in purely technical terms is the most efficient form of eradication for two reasons. First, it can cover a larger area; and second, it does not require police and army to protect the eradicators on the ground. Last year 16 eradicators were killed. Two eradicators have already been killed this year. There are not so many army and so many police that you can afford to divert those forces to protect eradicators.
So in a purely technical sense, aerial spraying is the safest and the most efficient. But we’re not dealing with a purely technical situation here. This is not a laboratory. This is Afghanistan. What the people of Afghanistan want has to be the ruling consideration. The people of Afghanistan do not want the most efficient and safest form of eradication and we completely respect that decision. But the people of Afghanistan also don’t want illicit narcotics trafficking. And so far the people of Afghanistan have not gotten what they wanted in that regard. So at some point the people of Afghanistan need to decide what is most important to them. We will follow their lead.
Finally, why did the U.S. forget Afghanistan. I don’t believe we did, but it is certainly true that we have never been involved in Afghanistan to the degree we have been involved in Afghanistan since 2001. By the way, since 2001 other countries have complained to us that we have forgotten them because we are paying so much attention to Afghanistan.
You yourselves have complained to us that even when our involvement in Afghanistan was higher than it had ever been we had forgotten Afghanistan because we were paying too much attention to Iraq. We want to help where our help can do the most good. We will not waste resources where those resources don’t seem to be having any effect. That is why we so value the progress that the people and government of Afghanistan have made in the last five or six years, because it is that progress that justifies our involvement and our commitment to Afghanistan.
Thank you very much.
Moderator: Mr. Ambassador, there are two outstanding issues. One, we have not permitted the media to basically pose their questions. We have two members of the media from the BBC and also from Tomorrow Television. If you would permit me so we would provide them the opportunity to pose their questions to you, and then we will have one last question for Mr. [inaudible], a member of the Parliament. He also has a question. Would that be okay with you? Then we will end.
Ambassador Wood: It’s okay with me. I have to say that my mother didn’t ask me this many questions when I was growing up. [Laughter].
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: Let me try to answer the questions that I heard, and you can tell me how I’m doing.
Regarding Mr. Khalilzad, if I understood the question correctly, first it is impossible for any Ambassador to force President Karzai or any President of Afghanistan to do anything.
Second, the United States supported the nomination of Mr. Ashdown. We had understood that the government of Afghanistan supported the nomination too, and apparently that was wrong.
But I can say that Ambassador Khalilzad, as a professional diplomat, as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and as a loyal citizen of the United States, followed the line of the United States which was to support the nomination of [Lord Ashdown.]
Regarding the second question, Musa Qala. I found many good things and some bad things. I went down to the bazaar and I found that the bazaar was open and that the people of Musa Qala were buying and selling their goods, just as in any town. I saw that there was very little damage to the shops and to the houses of Musa Qala.
I saw that the foundation for a new mosque was being laid, and that the school had been painted and the desks and blackboards and books were on the way to Musa Qala. I saw that a new clinic was being constructed. I saw that the people were walking around normally.
I saw that there were representatives of the Afghan government there, and I saw that there were representatives of the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army there to protect the citizens of Musa Qala.
Sadly, I did not see any teachers. The school is being built but the teachers had not returned. I understand they now are returning. I did not see any elders. The elders had not returned, but I understand that they now are returning.
There was a shortage of electricity because the insurgents had destroyed some electrical towers connecting Musa Qala to the Kajaki Dam. I understand those towers have now been rebuilt but there is still not enough electricity. We are working to get some generators for Musa Qala now.
Most, I saw hope but uncertainty on the faces of the people of Musa Qala. They’ve been through a lot. They deserve support. I believe they are prepared to be good citizens if they receive the support they need from the government and the international community. Speaking for the United States, we are prepared to provide that support.
The third question, which I understand was a question about the budget of Afghanistan, for assistance to Afghanistan and the budget for assistance to Iraq.
The ways of the United States Congress are determined by the United States Congress. Just as the Meshrano Jirga and the Wolesi Jirga determine their ways. I am a member of the executive branch so I don’t really have a good way to control our Congress. Certainly the executive branch consults with the Congress and between the two, they decide what the best way is to submit the budget. So far that best way has been to include Iraq and Afghanistan as normal when we submit normal budgets as we do every year, and then to combine them when we submit what we refer to as supplemental budgets. That is also what we have done.
This is a part of, I’m actually not in charge of getting the money from Congress, so that’s not the part I am most expert on. I am in charge of spending the money that we get from Congress to make in a way that serves the people of Afghanistan, the government of Afghanistan, and the goal of the United States to serve the people and government of Afghanistan in the best possible way. So I think that question really would be better asked back in Washington.
Thank you all very much.
Question: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Wood: Thank you very much.
I think, I agree with you. It is always better to help Afghanistan be more self sufficient and stronger so that it can meet its own needs. The problem is time. The large projects you were talking about take many years, so we reached a conclusion that we would begin work on the large projects but also do smaller projects with a quicker impact so that the people received the benefits more quickly.
Some large projects have already been completed or are almost completed. The paving of the great Ring Road was a major project and that was done fairly quickly but that was because although very large in size, it was technically very simple. It was just building a road.
We have been working with the Asian Development Bank and some other institutions to develop the gas reserves at Sheberghan and Jowzjan because we believe that natural gas that is produced inside of Afghanistan is going to be cheaper for Afghanistan than electricity purchased from outside of Afghanistan, or electricity produced by a generator that itself requires fuel coming from somewhere else.
There are reports of large coal deposits in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, they are in insurgent dominated areas, which means we can’t get to them to develop them. As you know we have cooperated in refurbishing other medium sized dams. For instance, over the last month the electricity provided to Kabul has increased. That is in part because two of the three dams that provide electricity to Kabul have been repaired, at least partly.
We do not reject the big projects, as the Ring Road shows, as the Kajaki Dam shows. Often the big projects are made more difficult because of insecurity, because the insurgents will not allow us to work on them.
For instance, we have not been able to complete repairs on the Kajaki Dam because of insecurity in the road between Gureshk and Kajaki. We can’t get equipment there. We want to. We have tried to. We tried as recently as a week ago. A truck traveled from Gureshk and almost got to Kajaki. On that road, people from local towns dug up more than five landmines from that road to allow the truck to pass. In the last few kilometers, the townspeople, who are perhaps more frightened of the insurgents, would not dig up the landmines so the truck couldn’t go any farther.
So first, we are trying to provide both big projects and small projects. The big projects because they’re best. The small projects because they’re faster.
I’m not aware that Afghanistan is selling its natural gas to Russia at this time. I could be wrong. Certainly our goal is to increase production of natural gas for use inside Afghanistan.
Lastly, I heard your comments about the effectiveness and success of our projects in education and health and other areas. In that I hope you’re wrong. I believe that our money has been going to good causes and has been spent well. It is very hard in Afghanistan. For every project a certain amount of the money has to go to security because the insurgents will attack it.
We face corruption problems. Sometimes the money doesn’t go where it was supposed to go and that slows things down on both ends. It makes us slower to approve projects and it makes projects slower to be completed.
We would like to do better. It is not because we don’t want to do better that there are problems. The only thing I can do is ask for all of your help, to help us do better for Afghanistan.
Thank you.