Afghan reconstruction project is tricky task
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
usatoday.com
PHOSHFAR, Afghanistan — Army Sgt. Steve DiLoreto is checking out the new fieldstone-and-cement school the U.S. military is helping villagers build in western Afghanistan. But the village elders have something else on their minds.
They tell DiLoreto that the 400 families here also need a health clinic and a deep-water well. The night before, a 20-year-old man died of tuberculosis. In the past month, 25 people have come down with diarrhea, typhoid and other waterborne diseases. The last time a doctor trekked to this village 28 miles east of Herat was two years ago.
"I understand the need is very urgent, but I can't promise we can do things quickly," DiLoreto, 36, tells the villagers. He says he'll send a medical specialist and an engineer to make an assessment. But he doubts the village will get everything it needs. "The task is never-ending," he says later. "This could go on for a long time."
U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan continue to hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban supporters to root out terrorism and defend the government of President Hamid Karzai. But recognizing that it takes more than armed force to support a new political entity, the military is expanding its mission to include helping rebuild a country destroyed by two decades of war. The effort is intended to prevent Afghanistan from reverting to a place where terrorists can find refuge.
"It is the next step in establishing Afghanistan as a viable country," says Army Maj. Byron Johnston, who oversees the Army's civil affairs office in Herat.
The first of seven civil-military teams plans to open an office with a staff of 50 to 80 next month in Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. Private aid agencies will continue to do much of the rebuilding work. But the military teams will provide coordination and information for the Afghan government and international groups.
The U.S. military is candid about the political nature of its work. It is pushing high-profile national projects to extend Karzai's influence beyond the capital. "We want to get the central government to the regions, giving them the legitimacy they need," says Army Col. George Maughan, civil affairs commander in Afghanistan.
The Kabul government's reach has been limited. A 4,800-strong corps of international peacekeepers is limited to providing security in Kabul. There are 10,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan, 8,000 of them Americans. Most of them are dedicated to hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Meanwhile, local leaders who control much of the rest of the country have not shown strong allegiance to Karzai, who was installed a year ago as interim president at an international conference in Bonn, Germany. In June, local leaders ratified his leadership of the transitional government.
Promoting the central government through public works projects "will be tricky," says William Taylor, the U.S. special representative in Kabul for reconstruction. He says each team will have to work closely with regional governors while making it clear that the teams represent the national government. "They can't get away from the fact that they're making a political statement, and that is in support of the central government," Taylor says.
The U.S. military deployed civil affairs teams to Afghanistan to help rebuild schools, bridges and health clinics shortly after combat troops arrived last year. But the projects were scattered, small-scale affairs with little impact beyond their local areas.
Now the aim is to support projects that will have a national impact. U.S. military officials recently helped open a new teachers college and a medical school in Kabul. Other projects include reopening the country's only pharmaceutical factory and bringing electricity to western Afghanistan from neighboring Turkmenistan.
Officials avoid the phrase "nation-building" to describe their work. The term had been dismissed by the Bush administration as a failed Clinton-era policy. But many concede it may be a matter of semantics. "It's reconstruction," Maughan says. He adds with a smile: "It's probably no different (than nation-building). It's just what you want to call it."
In addition to regional centers in Gardez and Herat, officials will open offices in Bamiyan, Kunduz, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kandahar. All the centers are expected to be open by next summer. The staff could total about 500. Some might be led by coalition partners such as Britain. The Pentagon plans to double its civil affairs budget from $6 million this year to $12 million in 2003.
Each team of 50 to 80 will include U.S. special operations forces and civilian government workers.
The centers also will make it easier for aid groups to move into areas now considered too dangerous for international workers. Even a small group of soldiers "tends to have a calming effect that will make them believe they can come and work," says Army Col. Roger King, chief U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan.
But a coalition of more than 70 private aid groups working in Afghanistan says the military's increased involvement could damage efforts to rebuild here. They worry that projects will be driven by short-term political and security objectives, not humanitarian needs. The fear is that once it has eliminated the threat of terrorism, the United States will relinquish any role in Afghanistan, as it did after the 10-year Soviet occupation ended in 1989.
Paul Barker, country director for CARE International, praises the U.S. military for building schools. But he says the military isn't in it for the long haul, which would require money to pay teachers and buy classroom supplies.
"This is a diversion from the military's primary role, to project a security presence," Barker says. He also worries that locals will confuse military officials with aid workers. "The humanitarian imperative is to be neutral. I can't see how we could be closely associated with this."
Johnston, who runs the U.S. military's civil affairs office here, concedes that U.S. forces and aid groups have a rough relationship. "They're not happy with us," he says. "When we walk into a meeting, they say, 'Oh, you blow up schools,' I say, 'I've probably built more schools than you have.' "
Taylor suggests that one way to allay the aid groups' concerns is for reconstruction teams to leave conventional projects such as schools and health clinics to the relief organizations. The military could focus on other projects including building customs checkpoints, courthouses and other government buildings. They also could help farmers convert from opium to legal crops, dismantle local militias and assist soldiers who are looking for civilian jobs.
Abdul Zahir, 22, a Phoshfar resident, agrees with the plan to apply U.S. money and know-how to reconstruction. "They must change their plan to rehabilitation of the country," he says.
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