[A-List] Afghanistan: collapsing, again

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Afghanistan, the war the world forgot
By Colin Brown and Kim Sengupta
The Independent, 25 May 2004

'We've got to make sure this time that we do it properly'
Tony Blair, 5 April, 2002
'It's a basket case. It's a forgotten country'
Eric Illsley, Labour member of Foreign Affairs Select Committee, yesterday

Three years after the overthrow of the Taliban and George Bush's declaration
of victory in the first conflict in the war on terror, Afghanistan is a
nation on the edge of anarchy.

A devastating indictment of the Allies' failure to help reconstruct the
country in the wake of the 2001 conflict is to be delivered in a
parliamentary report.

The Independent has learnt that an all-party group of MPs from the Foreign
Affairs Committee has returned from a visit to the country shocked and
alarmed by what they witnessed. They warn that urgent action must be taken
to save Afghanistan from plunging further into chaos because of Western
neglect.

As President Bush and Tony Blair unveil their plans today for the future of
Iraq through the draft of a new United Nations resolution, the MPs warn that
the mistakes of Afghanistan could be repeated with similar tragic
consequences in Iraq.

Eric Ilsley, a Labour member of the committee, said: "Afghanistan is a
basket case. It's a forgotten country." Shortly after the conflict, Mr Blair
pledged to the Afghan people: "This time we will not walk away from you", as
the United States and Britain had been accused of doing following the
mujahedin's war against the Soviet Union.

But MPs and international aid agencies say that is, in effect, what has
happened. With the focus of Washington and London firmly on Iraq, the
situation in Afghanistan has been allowed to unravel. The remaining
infrastructure is shattered, opium production is rocketing, and the Taliban
and warlords are back in control of large areas.

The committee, chaired by Labour MP Donald Anderson, will charge in their
report, due out in July, that Nato and the West failed to fulfil their
promise to restore order and democracy to Afghanistan.

They will urge Mr Blair to press for Nato countries to fulfil their
commitments in Afghanistan at the organisation's summit in Istanbul at the
end of June. The committee believes Nato countries are holding back troops
from Afghanistan because they may be needed in Iraq.

The MPs' assessment follows similar warnings by humanitarian organisations.
Earlier this month, a report by Christian Aid described how aid efforts were
in jeopardy because of Western inaction.

With Nato forces suffering from a shortage of manpower and materials and the
Americans concentrating on hunting Osama bin Laden, Western organisations
and diplomats, including the British ambassador, Rosalind Marsden, are
dependent on private security firms for protection. Mr Ilsley said: "It's
very worrying. We arrived in Kabul and found our ambassador has a private
security firm acting as her bodyguards who look like the Men in Black. They
were in civilian clothes and armed to the teeth."

The security situation was so fraught that the committee reported to the
Foreign Office that they felt several MPs, including the former minister
Gisela Stuart, were in danger during a demonstration in Kabul.

The Nato commander in Afganistan, Major General Rick Hillier of the Canadian
Army, told the visiting MPs that he had asked for 10 helicopters for his
force of more than a thousand but not a single aircraft had been delivered.

John Stanley, a former Conservative defence minister, said: "We were told in
no uncertain terms by the top Nato general that the situation in delivering
Nato expansion in Afghanistan is very disturbing indeed."

Hamid Karzai, President of the interim Afghan government, praised the role
of British troops in getting warlords to disarm in his meeting with the
parliamentary delegation. Afghan officials say he is under pressure from the
US to hold elections in September, prior to the American presidential
elections in November, so that President George Bush can show how democracy
has been successfully nurtured in the country.

However, the Afghan elections, originally scheduled for June, have already
been postponed once due to the unsafe security situation. The UN reports
that attacks by the Taliban have led to only 1.6 million out of the 10.5
million eligible electors being registered.

The Liberal Democrat MP David Chidgey added: "The UK troops are doing a
wonderful job but we found only 30 looking after an area the size of
Scotland. It's a disgrace. Allowing the Afghan operation to remain a
forgotten theatre means warlords, funded by drugs profits, will continue to
flourish."

Taliban attacks on aid workers has led to many humanitarian projects being
abandoned.