U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met yesterday with Afghanistan’s new leaders and assured them that Washington does not covet their land.
“From the very beginning, we have tried to make it clear that our operation here was not against Afghanistan. It was against terrorism,” Rumsfeld told Afghanistan’s interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai.
“The United States coveted no territory. We were here for the sole purpose of expelling terrorists from the country and establishing a government that would not harbor terrorism.”
Rumsfeld met with Karzai – who heads a six-month interim government taking power on Saturday – at Bagram Airfield near Kabul as U.S. warplanes continued round-the-clock bombing of the suspected last stronghold of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda fighters in eastern Afghanistan.
Designated Afghan Defense Minister Fahim Khan greeted Rumsfeld at the airport, only recently cleared of land mines, and the defense secretary was escorted under heavy security to meet with Karzai in the remnants of a bombed-out aircraft hangar.
Karzai, who speaks English well, chatted easily with Rumsfeld about the course of the war and plans for Afghanistan’s future as they sat on folding chairs in a room draped with camouflage.
Rumsfeld, the first senior U.S. official to visit the theater of war, said it was important for him to meet with members of the country’s transitional government for a chance “to sit down, face to face, to talk about what has been done and what’s left to be done – and there’s a good deal left to be done.
“We want to make sure that we are all on the same wavelength as to what’s left to be done,” he said.
The United States wanted to be as helpful as possible in making Afghanistan a stable country inhospitable to terrorists, he told Karzai.
The defense secretary said Karzai was “anxious to be cooperative with us in every possible way.” Still, he added, “It’s not going to be an easy task.”
Karzai told Rumsfeld the Afghans were thankful for U.S. help in battling terrorism and the Taliban.
“We were incapacitated earlier to deal with so many things at once in the country. You came on board and provided help for us – provided the opportunity that we wanted,” he said.
After the meeting and briefings from U.S. commanders, an upbeat Rumsfeld shook hands with some of the troops at the Bagram air base.
He said an international security force of 3,000 to 5,000 troops from various countries would enter Kabul sometime after Saturday, when Karzai will take office.
The United States would provide support, including intelligence, airlift support and a rapid-reaction force in case of trouble. There were “rumblings” that a similar security force for one or two other Afghan cities is under consideration, Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld also met with soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, which is based in upstate New York.
One soldier asked Rumsfeld if it was “poetic justice” that forces from that state were sent to join the fight to avenge the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which “took place in our back yard.”
“Oh, I think so,” Rumsfeld replied. “The attacks really were, to be sure, in New York and, to be sure, in Washington, but they were also against the country, the fact that we are a free people and intend to be a free people. And there are just an awful lot of people who are very proud that you are here.”
The troops also asked Rumsfeld to assess the chances of catching terror kingpin bin Laden.
“Believe me, we’re looking,” he said.
Meanwhile, the finance minister of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban said the hard-line militia’s rule had ended and it would not oppose a “stable Islamic government,” an Afghan news agency reported.
“If a stable Islamic government is established in Afghanistan, then we don’t intend to launch any action against it,” Mullah Agha Jan Mutasim told the Afghan Islamic Press from an unknown location inside Afghanistan.With Post Wire Services