Donor Assistance to Afghanistan

MR. DENIG:  We are delighted to have you with us this afternoon for a briefing with Ambassador William Taylor, who is currently the Special Representative for Donor Assistance to Afghanistan.  He has a great deal of experience in coordinating assistance.  For some time now, he has been working especially in the Balkan area as Coordinator of US Assistance to Europe and Eurasia and has dealt with governments and agencies throughout the region of Europe and Eurasia and was asked, I guess it was the beginning of October, by Deputy Secretary Armitage to take on this additional and very important role for Afghanistan, which is a country you know we've been focusing on a great deal, trying to assist both in the humanitarian area and in reconstructing the whole country.

So, with that, I'll give it to Ambassador Taylor, who will have a brief opening statement and then we'll welcome your questions.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I will, indeed.  I'll look forward to your questions.

I've been asked by government to go to Kabul, spend six or eight months there.  I've been there for a couple months now.  I'm just back for consultations in the Department and around Washington.  My observations of Afghanistan are that the situation there is better than is reported in the press.

QUESTION:  That's always the case, right?  (Laughter.)

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I'm sure that's true.  I'm sure that's exactly right. That's not to say that things are just fine.  This place, if any of you have been -- I'm sure our Pakistani and maybe Indian colleagues have been there, but anybody else actually have been in -- has visited Afghanistan?

QUESTION:  In '94.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  In '94.

QUESTION:  I would appreciate arranging a recent visit, if you really want good coverage.  (Laughter.)

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Actually, I'm sure we can work on this.

QUESTION:  Oh, really?  I'm serious.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Well, I'm serious, too.  There is a -- for any of you -- I don't know how many people that are actually doing this, but they are planning -- the US Government is planning a press trip to Afghanistan in December.

QUESTION:  US press or foreign?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  No, no, I think actually more emphasis on foreign press.

MR. DENIG:  It is for foreign press.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Do you know about this, Paul?

MR. DENIG:  Yes.  However, I should say --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  There are some constraints, I bet.

MR. DENIG:  -- "don't call us, we'll call you."  (Laughter.)  Unfortunately, it's extremely limited.  We'd love, of course, to take --

QUESTION:  And don't call us until you're paying.  (Laughter.)

MR. DENIG:  Fair enough.  We will be taking care of the cost -- that's not a concern -- but, unfortunately, there's only a small number we can accommodate.

QUESTION:  Will it be rather early December or late, because there's a conference in Bonn.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  The middle.  It won't conflict with the Bonn conference. It will be in the middle.  And it won't conflict with Christmas, either.  So they've thought about this.

MR. DENIG:  So does that help you, between Bonn and Christmas?

QUESTION:  Yes, very well.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  But for those -- well, in the '90s, as an example, the reason I say that everything's not great there is that a lot of the place was destroyed, and you probably saw that Kabul is still, in parts of it, in the western part of it in particular, is still in ruins and rubble.  It looks like parts of Germany after World War II.

On the other hand, there is a lot of activity just in the past year, really in the past couple of months.  There is economic activity that you can see. There is a lot of rebuilding going on.  Shops are opening up.  Restaurants, beauty parlors.  This is really surprising that there's enough demand -- surprising and encouraging that there's enough demand from Afghan women, who were never let out of the house during Taliban times, to support the number of beauty parlors.  I observed this the other day.

There are kites in the sky.  Again, no kites were allowed during Taliban times.  I mean, the restaurants, the sidewalks are being laid, along the sides of the streets you see drainage ditches being constructed and reconstructed.  And not just in Kabul; I mean, this is also in Mazer-e-Sharif as well, a northern city.

So there is clearly economic progress going on.  I would also say that there is progress in governance and governing.  This administration in Kabul under President Karzai is eager to govern.  It's eager to provide services to its people.  It's eager to reestablish schools, reestablish hospitals.  And again, let me be clear.  There's a lot to do.  The schools were destroyed.
Of course, the young girls were not even allowed to go to school so the reconstruction and rebuilding and building new schools is a high priority for the international community.

Security, as I say, is better than reported.  There are problems, but they are problems of bandits, of crime, much more than problems of organized attacks by al-Qaida or by remnants of the Taliban.  Those organized, if you will, problems, threats to security, are much fewer, much smaller, ones and twos rather than tens and twenties, as it used to be.  And even this is
concentrated mostly in the part of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

So, in most of the country, the security situation is actually pretty good. And I hear this not only from our military but I also hear it from nongovernmental organizations, from NGOs that are out providing humanitarian services to the people, and they report the same thing on security being better.

Again, there are incidents.  There are incidents between warlords and militias, usually isolated and usually over small, almost personal issues, as opposed to battles between warlords.  So clearly compared to last year, but even compared to three months ago, one can see progress.

The other thing you can see progress in -- I think this is real important for the Afghan people -- is in international assistance.  The international team there, represented by many of your countries in this room, is providing a lot of assistance starting off on humanitarian assistance but now shifting pretty significantly, pretty dramatically, into reconstruction assistance.

And this assistance is being channeled, is being focused by the government, by the Government of Afghanistan, so that the Government of Afghanistan, again, as I mentioned earlier, is in the driver's seat.  It wants to be the coordinator.  It doesn't want the international community to coordinate the assistance.  It doesn't want the nongovernmental organizations, the NGOs, to do the assistance independently of the government, as they used to do in Taliban times.  It wants to be the organizing principal.  It wants to be the entity that is focusing the assistance, and it's beginning.  The assistance is beginning to show.

The most dramatic example, not the only one but the most concrete example, is the road.  I say "the road" because there is a ring road planned all the way around --

QUESTION:  Concrete, in a couple senses of the word.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Concrete in both senses.  Exactly right.  Thank you.

There is a plan to build a road in the next three years or so starting in Kabul, going south to Kandahar, going then back up to the western part of the country through Herat, on around to the northern city that I mentioned already, Mazer-e-Sharif, and back down to Kabul.  So this big ring will have major economic effects by connecting the parts of the country.  It will have
major political effects in that it will allow people to see that the international community, together with the government, is actually teaming up to provide a big service, a big understandable, concrete, visible service to the people of Afghanistan.  And there has been -- I will also be frank and say there have been grumblings from some parts of the population saying,
"I remember the big Tokyo conference where, a year ago, the international community committed, promised, pledged 5 billion dollars, nearly 5 billion." Actually, now the number is a little over 5 billion in pledges.  And so they're starting to grumble,  "I haven't seen any of it.  Where has it gone? Where is it going?"

And now, the international community has taken the months in the interim to get organized and the international community is beginning to deliver.  And the first, as I say, the first big example of that is the road.  So that's the kind of political benefits of this. The road has international trade and regional trade benefits, as well.  To the north of Afghanistan, of course, are Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan.  The ports that these Central Asian countries use are on the Baltic Sea.  They're in the Baltic countries. So, in order to get to Central Asia, you have to come all the way across Russia and through Kazakhstan into the Central Asian countries.  If this road is connected -- when this road is completed, they will be able to have access to the Indian Ocean.  Also through Iran.  So this road, and its feeders, and its connecters into Pakistan, into Iran, into Central Asia,
will facilitate regional trade, which will be good for Afghanistan, but also be good for the region.  So it will have those  benefits.

As in the United States, where we built our interstate system on national security grounds, this road will help Afghan national security as well. Internally, they will be able to move military forces around.  This will help, as well.

So there are many benefits of this road, but I would say probably the best is a demonstration to the people of Afghanistan that their government and the international community are working.

I should mention that different donors have signed up for, and are working on, different parts of this big ring road.  The part of the road from Kabul to Kandahar up to Herat is a team effort, is a joint effort with the Japanese and the Saudis and the Americans.  And we have been meeting regularly in Kabul to coordinate that work with the Japanese and Saudis and the Americans, working with the Government of Afghanistan in terms of their Ministry of Public Works.  So, again, it is a real team effort.

There are other donors who are looking at other parts of that road, the northern part.  And there are yet other donors, Europeans for example, who are working on the connection from Kabul down through Jalalabad into Peshawar, on into Pakistan.  So there are different pieces that are being done by different parts of the international community, and it's being well coordinated.

That's probably -- why don't I stop here, and if there's anything else that I should go into, I will be glad to respond to questions.  As I say, I've been there a couple of months and I'll be there another six or so.  But I am hoping to be able to give you more -- next time I'm back, I will give you more to talk about.

But what questions can I answer?

QUESTION:  The Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah was here last month.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yes.

QUESTION:  And he was one of those that you were talking about who were complaining a lot.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yes.

QUESTION:  Promises, promises.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yep.

QUESTION:  But, the money has not been coming in.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  So I just wanted to ask you to respond to that.  Also, I guess my other colleagues will probably be asking similar questions.  What role is Italy playing?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Okay, very good.

QUESTION:  Those are my two questions.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Very good.  Good.  On the first, it is true, as I mentioned, that the international assistance has taken a while to get organized and to be able to deliver big projects.  One doesn't immediately start working on a road, just as an example.  It takes time, both to identify the funding, to put together the team, like the Japanese, Americans and Saudis, as an example, and the World Bank is doing another piece, and the Asian Development Bank is doing yet another piece.  So it takes some time to do that, but it also takes time to do the surveys and the design of the road.

Part of the road has existed in the past, but a lot of it hasn't.  A lot of that ring road is going to be new.  So there needs to be design work.  This is also true on other large kinds of visible projects.  But the other point, the second point that I would make, is there is a lot of work that has already gone on.  There's a lot of international assistance that has gone on in smaller projects.

Since I've gotten there, I've been asking the government to help me pull together some of the statistics on these smaller projects.  And just as a couple of examples, there have been over a thousand kilometers of rural roads that have been repaired or constructed.  These are kind of the farm-to-market kinds of roads.  These are not the big roads like I just
described, these are smaller roads.  So a thousand kilometers of those. There has also been a thousand kilometers of irrigation systems that have been repaired that, again, are not major projects, these are smaller projects that help individual farms and farmers.

We expected 1.5 million school children to come back to school.  It turns out that 3 million came back, so double what was expected; 1.5 million were expected and 3 million actually turned up.  We expect next year, starting next March, to have 4.5 million students in school.

In support of that need, there have been 685 schools repaired, there have been 40,000 teachers recruited and trained, 1,787,000 children have gotten textbooks and materials.  So there are these kinds of smaller, more distributed, more scattered activities that have taken place.  Not the big ones.  The big ones have taken longer to organize, so the foreign minister is right that the big ones have been slow in coming, but they now are coming.

Now the groundbreaking for this big road from Kabul to Kandahar that I had mentioned was only November 11th.  So he was, you know, he was --

QUESTION:  It was before that.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  This was before that.  Exactly.  So a lot of projects have happened that are small, that people don't understand.  But once you hear that 9 million children have been vaccinated against measles, 5 million children have been vaccinated against polio -- polio was almost wiped out in Afghanistan -- and that is a major effort that the international community, with the government ministry of public health is working on.

You know, these kinds of things don't get reported very much.  They are smaller things, but they are significant.  They are significant for the people.  And this will start becoming known to folks, I think.

So that is, I think, the answer to your first question.  Some validity, but there are a number of smaller things that are actually going on that are helping people that we need to start getting out.

QUESTION:  I guess it's a matter of whether the glass is half full or half empty.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  And I will always argue that it's half full.

QUESTION:  You mentioned how many million children got the schoolbooks and he was telling us how many million have no schoolbooks.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.  And there are a lot of those.  That's exactly right.  There are a lot of those.  And I could tell you stories, as well, about schoolchildren who don't have schools.  I mentioned 685 schools. Well, there's a lot of schools that haven't been rebuilt and there are a lot of schoolchildren who are sitting on dirt, on packed dirt floors -- I've seen some of them -- but I've also seen schools that have been rebuilt.

Paul and I were just talking earlier, that I visited Mazer-e-Sharif and I went to a building that had received a direct hit by an American bomber with a precision-guided bomb that went and knocked and destroyed one half of this building.  It is now a girls' school --

QUESTION:  And it used to be --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I was going to say -- it is now a girls' school.  It wasn't a girls' school when we bombed it, I will be quick to say, because there were no girls' schools when we bombed it.   The Taliban didn't allow girls' schools when we bombed it.  It was the Taliban headquarters when we bombed it, but we have rebuilt it and it is now this school for 5,000 girls in Mazer-e-Sharif.

Again, your point is still valid.  There are probably another 5,000 in the next town who don't have that school.  But little by little -- I guess that's my message -- little by little we are -- we, the Government of Afghanistan, and we, the international community, together, are taking steps and making things better for people.  That is, you know, what we need to do. We need to keep that up.  We need to maintain that progress.  And, you know, we will get there.  We will convince the foreign minister and we will convince the people that we are taking concrete steps, that we're going to do this.

Italy has a major responsibility, as do other countries.  I will mention a couple of them, but Italy has a major responsibility.  It has volunteered for and has executed a major responsibility in the rule of law area.

QUESTION:  (Laughter.)

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yes.  Yes.  It's true.  This is true.  Let me just put this in context.  The Germans have made a major effort and have taken responsibility for the police -- exactly right.  And the Japanese --

QUESTION:  But nobody's laughing this time around.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  No, that's right.  That's right.  The Japanese have focused on what we call DDR, which is demobilization, demilitarization and reintegration.  The Americans have focused on rebuilding the new Afghan army.  The British -- not represented here today -- have done a lot in counternarcotics.

But coming back to your question on the Italians, they have focused on rule of law and developing the judiciary, training judges.  I think they are also going to be working closely on a major project to write a new constitution for Afghanistan, which needs to happen in the next year, because in the next 18 months -- 18 months from now -- June of 2004, according to the Bonn process and to the Bonn agreement, there will be an election.  And in order for there to be an election --

QUESTION:  When will that be?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  June, 2004.  And in order for their election to take place, there's a lot of things that have to happen, first of which is a constitution has to be adopted, probably another Loya Jirga like the one that happened last June, another Loya Jirga to adopt a constitution, the constitution being written now.  I'm sure the Italians and others, but particularly on the rule of law area, the Italians will be instrumental --

QUESTION:  No, but my question was of, going back to Abdullah Abdullah, of the money that was pledged, is Italy one of the countries who has paid up or not?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I don't have that here so I can't tell you.  Many donors have exceeded their pledge.  But some donors pledged -- and this is actually an important point that often gets lost --- a lot of this $5 billion, actually it was $4.5 billion pledged in Tokyo, but since then there's been another $.5 billion that has been pledged, so we're now talking about over $5 billion in pledges.

Some of that $4.5 billion that was pledged last January in Tokyo, was a six-year pledge.  So it was not expected to be paid out right away.  And some countries were able to make five and four and six-year pledges. Americans, on the other hand, we could only commit one year.  We committed $297 million, we pledged that, and we have overfulfilled that pledge in the
first year.

Other countries have also overfilled their pledges.  And it's been gratifying to see that this has been that kind of response.  But sometimes the criticism is, "oh, you know, the $5 billion didn't come."  Well, the $5 billion was a six-year number, so we ought to take a look after 4, 5, or 6 years and see how that's coming.  And I would imagine that there will be more pledged.  I know the Americans are getting ready to pledge more in March when there will be the next big donors conference, this time in Kabul, this time run by the Government of Afghanistan with support from the World Bank and all the donors. Probably all the countries represented around this table will be there to make new pledges of additional assistance.  So, for example, those countries like the United States who pledged for one year will come ready to make another pledge for a subsequent year, a second year.

And so I would imagine that, again, that the foreign minister will be pleased with yet more pledges coming from the international community.  And there will be evidence by that time of major work going on.  This is what we are trying to demonstrate to the Afghan people.

QUESTION:  May I?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Please.

QUESTION:  My name is Nayyar Zaidi.  I work for  Daily Jang in Pakistan, which is the largest newspaper in Pakistan.  One suggestion, I think, for writing the constitution, you could get help from Pakistan.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yes.

QUESTION:  They'll sooner than anybody else.  My question is regarding security.  There was a piece, I think, yesterday or day before yesterday in The Washington Post, you might have seen, again complaining about what is being said about Afghanistan and what is being done.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  And I think there is a real problem that they were saying that there are people working for police that have not been paid and so, you know, knowing Afghan people, which I do, they'll go get it, you know,  however they have to.  And there were reports previously, even during the war, that people didn't have shoes, people didn't have warm clothes.

So I think that security is a very big underlying problem.  You cannot build a road, you can't do anything, unless you have peace and quiet.  So is anybody focusing on this that people who are in police, or so-called army, at least are paid something so they can take care of basic needs and they don't have to rob people to get food?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.  It's a very good point.  I guess two points. One is, on the pay of the army, just as an example, and I will come back to the police, I mentioned that the Americans have taken responsibility for training the army and we have also taken responsibility to pay the people that we've trained.  So we are providing that pay -- working with the Afghan Government and the Afghan military, we are paying the recruits and the trainees and the soldiers that have been trained.  And the recruits and the trainees get one level, and once they've graduated they get a higher level of pay.

The arrears -- I'm not an expert on this, but there had been, of course, great arrears when, during times when no pay was being doled out, the pay was not coming, and now I'm even told most of the arrears in payment for government employees have been paid.

There are still incidences, there are still incidences where, in particular in the regions, people don't get their pay on time.  Part of the problem is the lack of a banking system there.  And so, in order to pay people in the regions, the finance minister has to send couriers out with bags of money -- of cash.  This is a problem.  It's not only an efficiency problem, but it's a, you know, an invitation to corruption, an invitation to be skimmed off.

QUESTION:  And dangerous.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.  Exactly.  This is a potential problem.  So the finance minister is working on a way to fix this by trying to work out a scheme like they have in Pakistan, I'm told, where payment is made through post office accounts.  Is this right?

QUESTION:  Yeah, post office do play a great role and, like, 40 years ago, nobody had -- not many people used banking accounts, so postal was a very important part of this.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right, right.  So using an example, I understand in Japan there is a similar kind of thing.  I understand in Great Britain there's a similar kind of thing.  And in Pakistan, maybe others --

QUESTION:  Singapore has got --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Singapore?

QUESTION:  -- savings bank --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Post office --

QUESTION:  And a good example here is Western Union.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Western Union is a good example of the kind of company, kind of private sector firm, which the finance minister hopes will bid on a tender to provide this service in Afghanistan to deal with this problem of paying the police, of paying teachers, healthcare workers, military.  So they are giving a lot of thought to this and looking at good examples from around the world of what works.

Please.

QUESTION:  Ambassador, my question, you said that the Afghan Government wants to play the lead coordinating role in reconstruction.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  How much is this a problem in turning off people who want to contribute money?  That's number one.  Number two, I have witnessed when I -- an earlier posting in Southeast Asia -- a lot of talk and action as far as reconstruction of Cambodia was concerned, you know, the '91, post-'91 frame.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  I mean, what are some of the lessons that have been learned or unlearned, you know, from this whole reconstruction?  Because somehow that didn't quite, you know, go down the way the donor nations wanted it to go
down.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  And over a period of time, people started losing interest.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yeah, yeah.  Two good questions.

The Government of Afghanistan is trying to encourage donors.  In particular it recognizes that donors are not going to be willing to make contributions to the budget or even to trust funds that they've set up through World Bank that would, in turn, provide pay for police, in some cases, military as well, unless donors can be assured that it's a transparent, accountable process.  So, for example, the finance ministry has hired KPMG, a U.S. accounting firm, as well as U.K. British Crown Agents, another private firm in Great Britain, and one other U.K. firm to do the financial systems, to do the audits, and to do the procurement.

So, for example, Crown Agents, the U.K. Crown Agents, is doing all the procurement for the Government of Afghanistan using donor funds.  And this is an attempt to reassure donors that this money is not going to be ripped off, this is a transparent process, it is accountable because we have this well-respected British company which is actually doing the procurement; they
are actually buying things with the money donated by the international community.

Similarly, KPMG, a U.S. accounting company, has been hired by the government to come in and do the audits, do the financial audits of the books.

QUESTION:  Strange that they should pick an American accounting firm.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Well, I led off with the British one.  So, you know, the British ones are hired to do the procurement.  There is an American one, it's true, it's true.  Not so strange, though.  But they've done this competitively.  They actually --

QUESTION:  Good thing they didn't hire Arthur Andersen's --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  That's right.  They didn't --

QUESTION:  And I think we are getting a pattern.  Italians for rule of law, Americans for auditing -- (laughter) --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  That's right.  There is a pattern here.  So they are taking great efforts, making great efforts, taking strides to reassure donors and not turn them off.

Now, there are some non-donors, but implementers in the country who are a little concerned about the lead role that the government has played.  And these are the nongovernmental organizations who have been in Afghanistan, in some cases 20 years, but some cases since the '80s and -- and some started in the '90s -- and those nongovernmental organizations never dealt with the Government of Afghanistan, either because there wasn't a Government of Afghanistan, it was in chaos, or it was government they didn't want to deal with, the Taliban.

So they have developed their humanitarian processes -- humanitarian delivery systems -- independently of the government, of the previous government.  So now they are being asked, "Please work with and through the Government of Afghanistan.  We the Government, the new Government of Afghanistan, want to be the allocators of resources.  We want to allocate our scare resources in ways that make sense on humanitarian projects as well as on reconstruction projects, and we, the Government of Afghanistan, can only do that if we know what you are doing.  We don't want, necessarily, to do it ourselves," the government says, "but we want to know where your money is going."

For example, on the road, the money for the road construction is not going to the government and then to the contractors that are doing the road, but those three countries  that I mentioned -- the Japanese, the Saudis and the Americans -- are letting the government know very clearly how much money is going in to what part of the road so that the government knows and it can incorporate that into the government's overall budget and can reallocate other money to areas that are not being treated by the international community.

So the point is, they are taking steps to encourage donors, they are addressing concerns of the nongovernmental organizations who have not been traditionally working with the government, encouraging them to do that. They are also encouraging the donors to encourage the nongovernmental organizations that they fund to work with the government.

So there is a major effort that the Government of Afghanistan has taken. Now this actually leads into your second question about lessons.  In the past -- I'm not familiar, actually, with the Cambodia model, but I am somewhat familiar with the Balkan model.

QUESTION:  Yeah, you can take both --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  And one of the lessons there -- Balkan help on this one -- in Kosovo, anyone who has been to Pristina will be struck, as I was, with the very heavy presence of the international community.  I think you'd say the same thing in Bosnia, in Sarajevo.  But it was particularly striking to me in Pristina where the international community, in particular the UN, plays a major, plays the dominant role.  It's not even a major role; it's the dominant role in governing that province.

Now, there are reasons that Paul can probably describe much better than I for that.  I mean, there's reasons that the UN is playing such a major role there.  But I don't think that's particularly healthy.  When I was talking to the Kosovars, they were eager, chafing at the bit, trying to take responsibility for themselves.  They had a new parliament.  The parliament was able to pass laws, but the high commissioner, the high representative of the UN in Pristina, was able to veto these bills.

So here is a foreigner able to have a major --

QUESTION:  Because he knew they would, as a first step, vote for independence.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Well, there's that.  (Laughter.)  There is that concern. And that's what I say, there are reasons for this being there.  But it's not particularly healthy.

I think we have learned -- we are learning a lesson there that the more the government, in this case of Afghanistan -- but this would apply to other countries as well -- receiving international assistance, the more the government can take responsibility for this and build up its own capabilities, build up the capacity of its ministers and ministries to channel the funds into education, to be responsible for building the schools, to channel the funds and coordinate the funds going into transport as the Minister of Public Works is doing, to channel the resources going into public health as the Ministry of Public Health is doing with UN agencies as well, and other donors.  The more that the government can do itself, earlier, the more capacity it will build and the more able it will be to take over when -- as we know is going to happen, sooner or later -- the international community will either be done and there will be a government there that is able to govern.

So, in that case, at that time, the Government of Afghanistan will have developed the capacity to govern.  So I'm hoping that we have learned a lesson.  Indeed, I'm hoping that Afghanistan can be a model for the future, if there might be some other reconstruction efforts that might happen some time in the future --

QUESTION:  In Iraq.  A model for Iraq.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Maybe.  Who knows?  I'm hoping we would use this as a model.  I hope it works.  There are good signs that it will.  There are good signs that the donors are responding well to the government's request to work through it.

QUESTION:  But still you need to strike a balance between security, assisting and building security and trying to have economic development in the country.  Again, compared to the Balkans, maybe in Bosnia there was too much security and still now, seven years after the end of war, there's still too little economic development in Bosnia.  That's a big problem.

It seems to me in Afghanistan it's the other way around.  Don't you think, still, for a longer perspective it's too little of security assistance?  You have ISAF with just a couple of hundreds troops only in Kabul --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Oh, no.  You have ISAF with thousands of troops, but --

QUESTION:  Well, compared to Bosnia it's basically nothing.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  It's smaller than Bosnia, sure.

QUESTION:  And in Bosnia and in Kosovo it was required to have -- there was this huge security force and this leads me to my second question.  The international presence was also a means of nation-building.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yeah, true.

QUESTION:  And if not nation-building, then to try to build a civil society.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yes.

QUESTION:  And the question is, can you have development of a civil society without a huge security presence throughout the country, not only in Kabul?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  A very good question.  And it's a point that I thought of earlier that I should have made and I'm glad you asked that.  I think there does need to be a balance between the security and the reconstruction effort.

QUESTION:  That's one of the lessons from the Balkans.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I think that's right.

QUESTION:  It was too much, too much security, so --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I think that's right and it goes both ways.  You need security in order to do reconstruction, but you also need reconstruction and economic development to create jobs and economic growth in order to get more secure, in order to develop more security.  In particular, in Afghanistan this is true, where there are, as people know, these militias -- more militias, more men under arms than is necessary.

In order for those militias to decline, to grow smaller, they need jobs to go to.  So the reconstruction and the development of the economy and the onset of economic growth, which, as I said, is starting, will enable those militias to decline, it will enable those people to take jobs in the private sector instead of carrying guns, it will enable a more secure environment to develop.  But now that leads to the second part of your question.

Nation-building does need, I mean, the reconstruction, state-building, as we like to call it, does require a secure environment.  There is a pretty secure environment in Kabul.  ISAF with its thousands of troops is a pretty heavy presence there and they are pretty well armed, but, as you say, they are only in Kabul and its immediate environs.  I think it goes all the way up to Bagram.  But there is thinking going on which I think will turn into action sometime in the next couple of months about how to get military activity, military security, out into the regions -- not by expanding ISAF, which appears not to be on the cards.

The Germans and the Dutch, of course, are about to take over ISAF from the Turks in February.  The UN doesn't appear to be eager to expand the responsibilities of the Germans and the Dutch to the whole rest of the country, but the coalition task force, the coalition of militaries -- led by the Americans, but with a lot of participation from a lot of countries -- is looking at ways that it can send out military into the regions to provide general security for the reconstruction effort, for the state-building effort.  These are right now being referred to as "Joint Regional Teams." And these Joint Regional Teams would go out to maybe eight different locations and provide general security, but would also provide civil-military activities.  We have civil affairs officers in all of the militaries whose job it is to work with local governments and villages and local elders to reduce tension, to increase the environment of security, the security environment.

And these Joint Regional Teams would have some military capabilities, yes, to defend themselves, but also would have these civil military experts and would have people from reconstruction organizations like USAID in the United States, DFID, D-F-I-D is the British counterpart.  There are others, JAICA is another example that would have representatives on these Joint Regional Teams to actually provide reconstruction assistance.  So there are these thoughts, plans even --

QUESTION:  But under the umbrella of ISAF?  Or --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  No, not under ISAF.  It would be under the umbrella of the coalition of -- General McNeill is the coalition commander out of Bagram, and this is the coalition military that, up until now, has spent most of its time tracking down al-Qaida bad guys.  It is now about to make a decision to switch that priority from tracking down bad guys to helping
provide security for reconstruction of the country.  But it's exactly your point.  You need both.  There needs to be a balance.  It can't be too much on one side or the other.

QUESTION:  Yes, I want to know what situation you found in the judiciary  system.  Have they been doing any efforts to reorganize, to remodel it?  And the second question is on the constitution.  You were talking about --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Yes.

QUESTION:  What can we expect in that Loya Jirga?  How far can they go as to have a constitution that separates somehow state, God?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Good question.  A very good question.

MR. DENIG:  And I'm sorry, what country are you from?

QUESTION:  Spain.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Spain.  And the answer to both parts of your question, actually, is related.  The judiciary and the constitution.  Actually, I would probably do it reverse order because there is some work going on in the judiciary, but the real focus needs to be on developing a constitution because that will then set up courts, parliament, and executive that will be
adopted by a Loya Jirga sometime, I hope, within the next year, in terms of the time.

There's already work going on.  I mentioned the Italians focusing on judiciary and rule of law issues, and so there is not only a constitutional commission that is formed, that is now working, but there's also a judicial commission that is formed and is now working to establish courts.

Now, both of those, both the court system and the constitution, get to your second part of your question about the separation of church and state.  This is going to be very complicated, I think.  However, they have -- there was a constitution in 1964.  There are some elements of the '64 constitution that won't work.  For example, it has the King as a major component and we don't expect the King to play a major role in the constitutional framework that emerges from the Loya Jirga.  As you know, the former King is back in Afghanistan.  He has not taken up his King responsibilities, his royal responsibilities, but he was named the "Father of the Country," I think was the title given to him.  The '70s were not a bad time in Afghanistan's history, and it was actually during that time that they had the '64 constitution that they may start with.  But so they would probably have to, as I say, start with that, take what's relevant, make some changes.

And then just to your question.  What is going to be the Islamic component of this constitution?  And they're looking at -- again, with Italian help and other countries' help --  models.  They're looking for countries that may be able to bring expertise to bear.  Apparently, there are a lot of Egyptian scholars, constitutional scholars who are Muslims, but they also have given a lot of thought to how a Muslim-Islamic constitution could be constructed.

Malaysia may also have something.  Here's another Islamic country that might have examples, might have relevant experience to bring to Afghanistan and help them as they are trying to put together this constitution.

So I don't have an answer to that question.  It's a hard one.  It's a complicated one.  They have to somehow avoid the extremes on both sides.  It can't be Sharia law on the one hand, but neither can it be a secular constitution.  There needs to be an Islamic flavor and they are looking for that.  And Afghan people are looking for that.  The Afghan members, all the
members of these commissions are Afghan -- some people who have been in Afghanistan the whole time, some who have come back, but they are all Afghans coming back to work on this and they are dealing with this with a lot of help from the outside.

MR. DENIG:  So you would not expect it to be as secular, say, as the Turkish constitution?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I wouldn't.  I would imagine it will be an Islamic constitution of some kind but I would be surprised if it were Sharia law.

QUESTION:  One question.  But it does seem that monarchy will be part of it.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Not clear.   Not clear to me.

QUESTION:  Okay.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Again, the former King is not back in Afghanistan as the King.  I mean, he's back there in an honorary role as a symbol of continuity, a symbol of previous custom and tradition.  Many people look up to the King.

MR. DENIG:  In fact, he stated explicitly that he did not want to be King, right?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  He did.  At the Loya Jirga he made the statement himself that he did not want to be King, didn't want to be President, and, indeed, endorsed Hamid Karzai as the President.  So I, frankly, would be surprised if there would be a monarchy as part of this constitution.

QUESTION:  If it's possible, I just want to ask a question.  Most of the people already questioned the most questions, and so the Iraqi thing, you know, (inaudible) your personal opinion if you have to rebuild the country of Iraq, what kind of model should be adopted and what will be a tough issue?  I think, you know, the State Department are working a lot of hours, they are making a lot of blueprints and they are making a lot of scenarios about what's going on in the future of Iraq, they have the Future of Iraq projects, but you are the expert of the rebuilding, so what kind of thing?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Well, only Afghanistan.

QUESTION:  In Afghanistan, yeah.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  The international community needs to do Afghanistan right.  It needs to complete the job.  And it needs to complete the job not only because of the normal reason that we all agree on, that is, Afghanistan cannot fall back into the chaos that led to it being a home for terrorists. So that's one of the reasons we have to complete the job.

But we also have to complete the job because if we do want to go into Iraq, if the international community decides or the Americans decide or some coalition of the willing decides to go into Iraq, we will have a commitment to rebuild Iraq and that commitment will only be credible if we've done a good job in Afghanistan.  So it's very important to do and complete and
stick with that job in Afghanistan in order to even have credibility to think about the question that you asked, and that is how would we, what kind of model should we use.  Beyond that, I can't really talk about Iraq.

QUESTION:  Yeah.  But U.S. policy is the U.S. force is not going to build the nation-building thing.  That's the basic U.S. policy, I think.  They are not going to participate in the peacekeeping operation, basically, as the history.  They fight for the peace and not for the nation-building.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Well, but Afghanistan is the exception to that.

QUESTION:  Yeah.  Mm-hmm.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Because Afghanistan, the Americans are there with the international community --

QUESTION:  Yeah, that's right.  Yeah, that's right.  Yeah.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Very much with the international community.  But we are there in full force on state-building.  And I don't think we're even bashful about that.  I don't think we're ashamed to say that we're there helping to build the state.  We're supporting the Afghan state as it develops itself. And this is something that we think is very important to do and we are proud to be part of it as, again, as a member of the international community. We're not doing it as the lead; we are doing it as a member of a coalition under the guidance of the Government of Afghanistan.  So I'm hoping that will be a model.

QUESTION:  I will have one question for the road, but --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  Here's a technical question.  The commissions you talked about for the constitution and the judicial -- are they mixed Afghans and donors?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  No.  They are all Afghans.  Some are Afghan ex-pats, or Afghans who have spent time abroad during the time of the Taliban or during the time of the communists when the Soviets were there, but are now coming
back.  And some have stayed, you know, in Afghanistan during that time.

QUESTION:  So exactly how do the Italians and the others fit in to that picture?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  They, while not being members of the commission, they are supporting the commission, both in --

QUESTION:  Consulting --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  In consulting, helping to renovate the building that the commission works in, maybe providing computers to help the operation of the commission, helping to document the work of the commission -- this kind of  thing.  So it is that kind of support that the Italians and others are providing.

QUESTION:  Okay.

QUESTION:  I understand from you're saying is that the road project is not yet finalized, like we don't know the amount of money or -- it's not a finished project yet, I mean, in terms of development, not construction.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  We have identified a donor, in some cases the World Bank, in some cases the Asian Development Bank, in some cases it's bilateral donors.  We have identified it for all of the pieces.

QUESTION:  Okay, beyond donor, it is not a concrete project yet?  Once you identify the donor you will then develop a project likely?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.  The donors -- some of the work has been done. Some of the actual dirt has been moved.

QUESTION:  Oh, has it?  Okay.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Oh, yeah.  On the 11th of November -- this is an important point -- on the 11th of November, President Karzai and the ambassadors from those three donor countries went down to kilometer 42 -- the Taliban did one good thing, I'm told, maybe the only good thing they did was they did a good job paving the road from Kabul to kilometer 42.  It's a pretty good road.  I was on it.  I was out at kilometer 42 this month.

But, beyond that it's gravel and so we went out there to see where it stopped.  And on the 11th of November we were down there and the bulldozers were moving and the earthmovers were leveling the ground, the asphalt, you know.  So that's working.  That's underway.

QUESTION:  Okay.  No, but my question was that when the whole project gets underway, it will probably be a massive project.  And for that kind of project -- and I will tell you where I am leading -- you need a lot of labor and middle, lower middle-class technical power --

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Absolutely.

QUESTION:  -- which Afghanistan doesn't have and I don't think the Italians will like to live there and, you know, provide that, or Europeans.  So the question is -- yeah, it's a hardship place -- so the question is that all that labor, and, you know, you need draftsman, engineer, blah blah, supervisors.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Right.

QUESTION:  Do you thing that manpower pool will come from Iran or Pakistan?
Because they are local, they can go and work.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  I think, well, what is clearly happening -- the way we're organized, the way the Americans are organized, and I think this would apply to others --

QUESTION:  Because we might need thousands of workers.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Exactly.  The way it's organized is there is an American prime contractor who is awarding sub-contracts on a competitive basis to contractors or companies who are actually doing the work.

QUESTION:  Okay.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  The first sub-contract from the American prime went to a joint venture between a Turkish firm and an Afghan firm --

QUESTION:  And American Prime is the name?

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  No, no.  The name is Louis Berger.

QUESTION:  Oh, Louis Berger.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Louis Berger is the name of the prime contractor.

QUESTION:  Okay, Louie Berger.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  But Louis Berger gave its first contract on a competitive basis, on an international competitive basis to a joint venture between a Turkish firm and an Afghan firm.  Most of the labor in that joint venture will come from the Afghan side and it will have -- all companies will be able to bid on subsequent stretches of that road.

But, so I'm not sure where it will come from but there is a requirement that the Americans have put on, the USAID has put on, that there be an Afghan component to all the subcontracts because we do want to have at least a lot of the labor coming from the Afghan side where it's available.  Now if there's more demand than supply, then the competitive contracts will be able to pull from Tajikistan or from Pakistan or from Iran.  But, in the first instance, part of the benefit of this road goes to employing Afghans.  And they need that for the economic development going back to this question of security and reconstruction working together.  That's an important part.

QUESTION:  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Thank you.  I enjoyed it.  I always learn more from you guys and your questions.

QUESTION:  We hope to see you in Afghanistan.

AMBASSADOR TAYLOR:  Thank you.  Well, come on out and visit.