Afghanistan News February 5, 2005

February 5, 2005

Search to resume for Afghan passenger jet with 104 on board
KABUL (AFP) - NATO and Afghan forces were to resume efforts to recover an Afghan passenger jet believed to have crashed with 104 passengers and crew including at least 16 foreigners on board.

"The search will continue tomorrow in eastern, northeastern and southeastern areas of Kabul," Afghan defense ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said late Friday.

The private Kam Air Boeing 737-20O has been missing since Thursday afternoon, when it disappeared from radar screens just outside Kabul during a flight to the capital from the western city of Herat.

Officials said it had asked permission to divert to the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshwawar because of a blizzard but then all contact was lost.

Kabul is surrounded by mountains and Afghanistan's rugged landscape, 40 percent of which is 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) or more above sea level, presents a challenge to pilots.

Nine Turks and an Italian were confirmed as being among the 96 passengers while three American women were thought to have been on the plane. Six Russian and two Afghan crew members were also aboard, officials said.

Western security officials and a source close to the search mission both told AFP on Friday the wreckage of the aircraft had been found east of Kabul, but the Afghan government denied it had found the 737.

The security official told AFP the plane was found 35 kilometers (22 miles) east of Kabul. "We don't know if there are any survivors," the source said.

Turkish officials also said the jet had crashed, with the prime minister's press office in Ankara saying in a statement that the Afghan transport ministry had announced the accident.

NATO-led peacekeepers troops and Afghan forces launched a huge hunt for the aircraft on Friday once it became clear that it had not landed at any other nearby airports.

The International Security Assistance Force has coordinated the rescue mission, conducting ground and helicopter searches of the area. Afghan forces including 10 helicopters were also involved in the operation, Azimi said.

Three American women working for the US-based Management Science for Health company were probably on the plane, according to one of the firm's officials..

The Turks were civilians working in Afghanistan for firms based in their own country, officials in Ankara said.

Italian officials said naval Commander Bruno Vianini, who arrived two weeks ago to help reconstruction in Herat, was on the flight, while there were fears for two other Italians who could have taken the same plane.

Kam Air is the first privately run Afghan airline and was launched in November 2003 with a fleet comprising a Boeing 767, a Boeing 727, an Antonov 24 and the Boeing 737 missing since Thursday.

The airline connects several towns in Afghanistan and also has international flights to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Search for Afghan Jetliner Suspended
Fri Feb 4,11:27 AM ET By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO and Afghan forces suspended their ground and air search as darkness closed in Friday for an Afghan passenger jet carrying 104 people after it disappeared from radar screens during a snowstorm near the mountain-ringed capital.

NATO and Afghan Officials denied statements from Turkish officials that parts of the wreckage had been located 20 miles southeast of Kabul, and they said the search would resume Saturday.

The Kam Air Boeing 737-200 took off Thursday from the western Afghan city of Herat bound for Kabul, but was unable to land because of bad weather. The airline initially said the plane was diverted to neighboring Pakistan, but officials there said it never entered their airspace.

Kam Air said there were 96 passengers and a crew of eight — six Russians and two Afghans — on the scheduled flight, but the exact number of foreigners was unclear.

A Massachusetts-based aid group said three of its American staff were missing, Turkey said nine of its citizens were on the plane, and Italy said one passenger was Italian.

Kamgar said the eight-member flight crew included six Russians and two Afghans.

Afghanistan's NATO peacekeeping force sent helicopters and ground teams to scour an area of high mountains southeast of the city, where officials said the plane was last reported on Thursday afternoon, but returned to base empty-handed.

Maj. Karen Tissot Van Patot said freezing fog had forced down even the Apache helicopters, which are equipped for night flying. An Associated Press reporter also saw Afghan troops heading back toward Kabul.

"Things will shut down for the night and resume in the morning," Patot said, discounting media reports that a piece of the wreckage had been found. "We'd have heard fairly quickly if anything had turned up."

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi said Afghan troops had also given up for the night. "They could not find a single piece of the plane," he said. "Tomorrow we will search a wider area."

A Turkish Foreign Ministry official in Ankara said Turkish military officers in Kabul confirmed wreckage had been found southeast of Kabul. The Turkish air force is in charge of Kabul airport as part of the NATO peacekeeping mission. The Turkish official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, also said the Afghan Transportation Ministry has confirmed the crash.

But Haroun Rassoul, secretary to the Afghan transport minister, said late Friday there was no such confirmation. "We have no precise information about it and the investigation is continuing," he said.

Kabul is surrounded by snowcapped mountains, raising the hazards for planes flying in bad weather. The area near the border is so remote that officials suspect militants, including Osama bin Laden, have hidden there since the fall of Afghanistan's former Taliban government in 2001.

The clouds lifted for several hours on Friday afternoon, presenting a chance to find and reach any survivors if the plane had crashed.

Hundreds of Afghan troops were sent to Khaki Jabar, a district southeast of Kabul with few roads and steep ridges rising to more than 13,000 feet. An AP photographer saw two helicopters flying over the area and a column of German armored vehicles moving along a mountain road.

The private airline's mainly domestic flights are popular with Afghans wealthy enough to avoid long journeys over bumpy roads and are also used by aid and reconstruction workers.

Three American women working for Management Sciences for Health, a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Mass., were believed to be aboard, said William Schiffbauer, a company representative in Kabul.

Turkey's Prime Ministry said Friday that nine Turks were aboard, and six of them were from a Turkish road contractor called Gulsan-Cukurova, which is working on a U.S.-funded road project in the west, company manager Kurtulus Ergin said.

In Rome, the Italian Defense Ministry said one of the passengers was Capt. Bruno Vianini, who was assigned to a military-sponsored reconstruction project.

Transport Minister Enayatullah Qasemi said the pilot last contacted the Kabul control tower at about 3 p.m. Thursday to ask for a weather update and was cleared for landing by Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military base north of Kabul with overall responsibility for Afghan airspace.

Moments later it disappeared from radar screens, a few miles east of the city.

NATO performs hands-on air-traffic control for aircraft flying in and out of Kabul, although the U.S. military retains overall authority for Afghan airspace.

The last major plane crash in Afghanistan was on Nov. 27, when a transport plane under contract to the U.S. military crashed in central Bamiyan province, killing three American soldiers and three American civilian crew.

The most recent commercial crash was on March 19, 1998, when an Ariana Airlines Boeing 727 slammed into a mountain near the area being searched Friday, killing all 45 passengers and crew.

Kam Air was the first private airline established in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and made its maiden flight on the Kabul-Herat route in November 2003. The airline operates a fleet of leased Boeing and Antonov aircraft on domestic Afghan routes as well as to Dubai.

Turkey confirms Afghan passenger jet crashed
ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey confirmed that an Afghan passenger jet which went missing near Kabul in a snow storm had crashed, citing information given out by the Afghan transport ministry. The prime minister's press office said in a statement that the Afghan transport ministry had announced the Boeing 737 travelling from the western city of Herat to the capital had went down.

The plane "disappeared after it was unable to land in Kabul due to heavy snow and asked permission to divert to Peshawar. Afterwards, the Afghan transport ministry officially announced that the plane had crashed," said the statement. "There is no definite information yet on the location of the crash, but it is said to be 30 miles (48 kilometres) southeast of Kabul," it added.

Earlier Friday, a Western security source told AFP in Kabul that the wreckage of the plane had been found 35 kilometres (22 miles) east of Kabul, while another source close to the search mission said the plane had been located at a distance of 57 kilometres from the capital.

The Turkish foreign ministry also confirmed that the private Kam Air plane, which disappeared from radar screens near Kabul late Thursday, had crashed. "We learned with great regret that a passenger plane, operated by the private airlines Kam Air, crashed while on a flight from Herat to Kabul," the ministry said in a written statement.

A senior Turkish diplomat said they had received news of the crash from Afghan officials. "The crash was announced by the Afghan transport ministry," he said without giving any other details. Turkey announced Friday that nine Turkish citizens working for Turkish companies in Afghanistan were among the 96 passengers aboard the ill-fated aircraft, which had a crew of eight people. The Turkish embassy in Kabul were in constant contact with Afghan officials to find their fate, the foreign ministry said. It was not yet clear whether there were any survivors.

Afghanistan: Self-Immolation By Women In Herat Continues At Alarming Rate
By Ron Synovitz
Self-immolation by women in the western Afghan province of Herat continues to alarm officials and aid workers more than a year after a delegation from Kabul investigated the trend. The delegation determined that within just a few months, at least 52 women in the province had burned themselves to death -- often to escape an abusive marriage. Afghan doctors and officials say at least 184 woman brought to Herat's regional hospital are thought to have set themselves on fire during the past year -- and more than 60 have died as a result. The real number of self-immolation suicides and attempted suicides is likely to be even higher because only those brought to a hospital are being registered.

Prague, 4 February 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Fifteen-year-old Fazela lies in an intensive care unit at Abdullah Ansari Hospital in Herat with burns across much of her body. Like many women from Herat who have tried to burn themselves to death during the past year, Fazela says she thought suicide was the only way to escape a physically and emotionally abusive husband she had been forced to marry.

"My name is Fazela. On that particular day when I burned myself, my husband -- who is also my cousin -- had a fight with me," she recalls. "He beat me. And after I was beaten, I poured kerosene over myself. Then I lit myself on fire. Before this, I really wanted to leave this house. But he took my burqa and did not let me go outside of the house. Now I really regret that I burned myself."

Fazela is being treated by doctor Abdullah Ardalan. He tells RFE/RL that he has been closely monitoring cases of suspected self-immolation by women in Herat since the Afghan government sent a delegation to the city a year ago to investigate the alarming trend."Since the start of the Afghan solar new year [on March 22, 2004], we have registered 234 burn victims, and 84 of those women have died as a result of their burns." -- Doctor Abdullah Ardalan

"Since the start of the Afghan solar new year [on March 22, 2004], we have registered 234 burn victims, and 84 of those women have died as a result of their burns," Ardalan says. "Four or five of these women have been transferred to hospitals in Iran by their relatives. I believe that from the 84 victims who have died here, more than 60 of them are cases of suicide."

A member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity, says 184 of Herat's burn victims during the past year were women suspected of lighting themselves on fire.

Palwahsa Kakar, who directs the commission's section for women in Herat Province, says the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission does not have executive power. But she says "there are ways [we can help approach this problem]. We are in contact with the government. If we become aware of such cases, we contact the responsible governmental office. Also, we coordinate the case with nongovernmental aid groups that are working in these areas. Then we try to draw the attention of the judicial organs -- such as the Prosecutor's Office and the courts -- to the rights of these women. And we try to help these women fight for their rights, which are guaranteed under our Islamic laws."

Mohammad Azam, the deputy chief justice of Herat's provincial court, says many Afghan institutions have little information about the rights of women. Azam says a woman has the right to a divorce if she can prove she suffers mental abuse from a lack of "psychological unity" with her husband.

Still, aid workers and human-rights researchers note that social restrictions often prevent Afghan women from seeking the help available to them.

Azam says poverty and domestic violence are common reasons for attempted suicide by women in Herat.

"There are also cases where the relatives and friends of the husband have played a role in a bad relationship. It is not only the result of the husband's behavior," he says. "A woman's own relatives may have forced her to marry a particular man. Or girls may be forced to get married at a very young age. So when such a girl grows up, she feels obligated to go back to the home of her own father and burn herself there."

At the Herat hospital, several teenagers are now recovering from burns they say they received when the mothers of their husbands poured boiling water on them. One young wife named Farzana, not older than 17, broke into tears as she tried to explain her plight to RFE/RL from her hospital bed.

"My mother-in-law burned me," she says. "I had put a pot full of water on the stove, and my mother-in-law took that from the stove and poured it onto the ground. I took this pot, filled it with water again and put it back on the stove. She took it and poured the water away again. The second time, she slapped my face and burned me. Now I have no money whatsoever for my treatment. I'm close to dying from hunger. My mother is very old and has become a beggar."

With Farzana in a state of emotional breakdown, her mother continued to explain her story, saying she received daily beatings from her husband. When Farzana tried to run away, she was restricted to the house and was allowed only a small daily food ration. The mother says Farzana was burned because she was begging for food from her husband and mother-in-law.

Zama Coursen-Neff is a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has co-authored several reports on the plight of women in Herat since 2002.

Coursen-Neff says that, regardless of whether a woman is burned because of attempted suicide or attempted murder, both instances demonstrate a lack of choice for women in Herat and the failure of the provincial government to provide protection for those in abusive, forced marriages.

(RFE/RL Afghan Service correspondents Sharafuddin Stanekzai in Herat and Ahmad Takal contributed to this report.)

Kabul Museum reopens with Nuristan art
United Press International
Kabul, Afghanistan, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The Kabul Museum has quietly reopened for the first time since the recent war of liberation from the art-destroying Taliban regime.

The museum is exhibiting artifacts from the remote region of Nuristan in the northeast of Afghanistan that have been a part of the collection since the museum's founding in 1931.

A spokesman for the museum said this week all 17 carved wooden Nuristan effigies on display had been cut up by the Taliban but meticulously restored with funds totaling $27,000 given by the Austrian government for the purpose last May. The restoration was carried out by Dr. Max Klimburg of Vienna, whose own collection of Nuristan artifacts were purchased by the German government and donated to the Kabul Museum in 1978.

The effigies, some of which are nearly life-size and include equestrian figures, were an integral part of ancestor worship practiced by the Kafirs, an animistic people who inhabited the mountains of the Hindu Kush, and were made in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nuristan (also known as Kafirstan) was forcibly converted to Islam a century ago and all but a few of the effigies were destroyed as "idols."

The Kabul Museum once contained one of the greatest public collections in Asia. Some 22,500 object believed to have been looted during the war were found last year in a vault beneath of the city's presidential palace.

Five Finance Ministry zones computerized
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/03/2005
KABUL - Afghanistan's Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday that five main zones of the Ministry had been computerized. The five zones are Kandahar, Kabul, Kundoz, Nangarhar and Balkh.

USAID had donated $140,000 for the computerization. The customs section of the ministry has also been computerized with the help of $47,000 from World Bank.

The Finance Minister, Dr. Anwar-Al-Haq Ahadi, described it as a step towards progress and development in the Finance Ministry. Computerization of other zones in the country was also being planned he said.

CIVILIAN KILLED IN TRAFFIC ACCIDENT
ISAF NEWS RELEASE
Today at approximately 3:45 p.m., near Camp Julien, an ISAF military tow truck travelling as part of an ISAF Canadian Forces convoy accidentally struck a local civilian. Both Kabul City Police and ISAF Military Police immediately responded to the scene of the accident.

Preliminary reports indicate that the individual slipped while getting off the bus and fell directly in front of the tow truck. The driver of the vehicle had insufficient time to avoid hitting the man.

ISAF Canadian medical personnel were on the scene within 15 minutes to render assistance. Other ISAF Canadian Forces security teams and Military Police arrived a few minutes later. The convoy returned to Camp Julien as soon as the authorities released them from the scene.

The injured man was taken back to the Camp Julien medical facility as quickly as possible, but was pronounced dead at approximately 4:30 p.m. local time. ISAF will contact the casualty’s family and offer assistance and the body will be taken to a location designated by the family. ISAF offers condolences to the family of the man who was killed in this accident.

There are no further details available at this time. Currently the accident is under investigation by ISAF and Afghan authorities.

SHOOTING INCIDENT AT ISAF CHECKPOINT
ISAF NEWS RELEASE
Yesterday evening at approximately 6:30 p.m. a shooting incident involving an ISAF soldier occurred in the area of the Kabul Entry Point Charlie on the Jalalabad Road at a temporary ISAF Military Police checkpoint.

A civilian Toyota vehicle pulled out of the traffic line and drove directly toward the soldiers manning the checkpoint. Despite being directed by the Military Police to stop, the vehicle continued towards the checkpoint with increasing speed and passed through the checkpoint. An ISAF military policeman fired at the vehicle. Further down the road, the vehicle turned around and drove back through the checkpoint towards Kabul, again without stopping. The ISAF Military Police fired no further shots.

Later that evening, at approximately 7:00 p.m., a vehicle that matched the description of that involved in the incident, stopped in front of Camp Warehouse. One person in the vehicle had sustained bullet wounds and requested medical assistance. Immediately, the injured civilian was taken to the Camp Warehouse hospital where he underwent surgery and remains in the hospital in good condition.

The driver and two other passengers were handed over to the Kabul City Police.
The incident is currently under investigation by ISAF and the Afghan authorities.

Weapons in the North cause of worry say DDR officials
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/03/2005 By Sayed Yaqob Ibrahimi
MAZAR-E- SHARIF — Officials of Afghanistan's Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration(DDR) process have expressed concern over the continued presence of weapons in the North, describing it as a threat to the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

Expressing concern over the presence of weapons in the hands of irresponsible militias in the Northern provinces, a delegation of the DDR said on Tuesday that it would be impossible to complete the weapon collection prior to the election.

Addressing a press conference in Mazar e Sharif on Tuesday, a DDR official from the Japanese embassy said they would be able to collect some weapons with the help of the Afghan government. While expressing concern the delegation asked for further assistance from the international community for the Afghan government.

The official described the collection of weapons from the irresponsible militias as difficult, adding "following the abolishment of the 7th and 8th corps, the presence of the weapons in the Northern provinces is quite worrying."

These two corps abolished two months ago belonged to Jamat- e- Islami Commander Atta Mohammad Noor, the Governor of Balkh province and to Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum who had previously fought each other.

But General Abdul Sabour, 15 corps commander which comprises of the two former corps said to Pajhwok ,"no one is allowed to carry weapons and pose a threat to security in the name of the two abolished corps. If there are any the police should arrest them."

General Ziyai the chief of Balkh police said security had been stepped up and no one would be allowed to disrupt security. The DDR program in the North ended nearly two months ago and 6,200 persons from the two disbanded corps were demobilized. According to a DDR representative 2,000 persons who remained unemployed would be provided with jobs by the end of February.

The Afghan Drug Crisis
The Washington Post 02/03/2005 By Robert Novak
WASHINGTON - Afghanistan, portrayed as a victory in the U.S. war against terror, is a disaster in the war against drugs. Its production of heroin has soared over the last year, with the country becoming the world's top supplier. Faced with this looming catastrophe, the Bush administration is deeply divided.

Almost everybody familiar with the drug war believes aerial spraying to kill the poppy plant must be instituted sooner or later in Afghanistan, but it surely will be later. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ruled out eradication by air. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agrees with Karzai and opposes expanding the U.S. military's role in Afghanistan.

That description hardly does justice to the intense feeling at high levels of the administration. Debate rages not only over aerial eradication but also over use of helicopters and who should train Afghan police. Meanwhile, billions of dollars pour out of heroin production, threatening to turn the jewel of the war against terrorism into a narco state.

The numbers, measured by the CIA, are daunting. In 2003, 151,000 acres yielded $2.8 billion of heroin. In 2004, the acres totaled 509,000 -- an increase of 239 percent, bringing in $7 billion. That means Afghanistan outstripped Colombia, Burma, Laos and Thailand to be tops in heroin.

Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, issued this statement Jan. 25: "Until the time the newly democratic Afghan government signals its support for aerial spraying of illicit crops, we need a very robust and effective interdiction strategy to go after the heroin labs and the Afghan narco-terrorist kingpins." Four days earlier, Hyde wrote Condoleezza Rice before her confirmation as secretary of state to warn that "time is not on our side on the Afghan drug and related terrorism issue."

Behind Hyde's warning are nightmarish consequences if narcotics in Afghanistan continue to proliferate. According to U.S. intelligence, lavish drug proceeds from Afghanistan are distributed among the HIG (Hizbi Islami Gulbuddin) terrorist group, the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) seeking a pan-Arab caliphate, remnants of the Taliban and the al Qaeda organization.

A danger is that well-heeled Afghan drug lords in Dubai and Karachi, like their predecessors in Colombia, soon will intensify assassination attempts against Karzai and his colleagues. Even before that happens, enrichment of the world's worst terrorists carries serious consequences. What helped turn around the situation in Colombia was a body blow to the coca crop by heavy use of aerial spraying.

Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois, a State Department political appointment in the first Bush administration, last week returned from his annual visit to Afghanistan. While accepting for now Karzai's ban on aerial eradication, Kirk is intent on improving the capabilities for knocking out heroin processing laboratories. That means immediate U.S. reinforcement of Afghan police with helicopters. Critics on Capitol Hill are alarmed by reports that the choppers will come from Israel -- an unsettling prospect in a Muslim country.

Rumsfeld, the strongest figure in the Bush Cabinet, wants to limit U.S. involvement in the Afghan drug war to avoid mission creep. What congressional delegations pick up on the ground in Afghanistan sometimes supports the defense secretary. U.S. officers in the field say they get more help from local farmers if they make clear they are after al Qaeda, not drugs. That begs the question of what happens if nobody goes after drugs.

At the same time, Rumsfeld is pressing for Defense Department control of police training in Afghanistan now handled by the State Department. While there is sentiment in Congress that State is not equipped for this work, the U.S. military's long record of training foreign police officers is not reassuring,

Kirk, a rare congressman with personal experience in this touchy area, is concerned. "If DOD [Department of Defense] takes over all police training," he told me, "there may be a U.S. uniform present for every police interrogation, and that's unfortunate."

The war on terrorism is difficult enough when not intertwined with the war on drugs and intense rivalries in the Bush administration. As one official put it to me, does there come a time when U.S. officials have had enough in Afghanistan and say: "I'm not going to risk American lives on a narco state"?

Afghan general visits Benning
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer 02/03/2005
Brig. Gen. Abdul Rahim Faizi, a commander in the Afghanistan Army, spent Wednesday at Fort Benning's Infantry School. The commander arrived Tuesday night at Lawson Army Airfield and spent Wednesday observing non-commissioned officers courses and captain career courses on post that will help develop the country's national army, said Rich McDowell, the post's spokesman.

"We are here to visit the Army's educational courses," Faizi said through an interpreter. "Particularly the role Fort Benning is playing in the development of the doctrine that we are implementing in Afghanistan right now. The infantry school here is very pertinent to the work that we do in establishing the new army in Afghanistan. We are very pleased in the one-year development that we have been able to achieve in Afghanistan in making the Afghan National Army stand on its own feet and we're looking for the development soon."

Faizi said those who saw Afghanistan three years ago will see no comparison since the fall of the Taliban. In October, the country held its own elections in efforts to rebuild a new government. "Now Afghanistan is a country with civil rights and the rights of the people," he said.

By Wednesday evening, the commander of air assault and command forces of the Afghan National Army ended his visit with a dinner at the Big Eddy Club with Fort Benning's Brig. Gen. Benjamin Freakley and Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff.

"The Afghan people remember the suffering during the Taliban and the liberation to all of them was memorable and deeply admired and when they look at the differences made during this period since the Taliban they all would be speaking of glowing of the role the United States played in the country," Faizi said.

Ambassador Jawad Hails President Bush's Support for Liberty
Embassy of Afghanistan, Press Release 02/03/2005
Washington, D.C. – Following his attendance at the State of the Union Address yesterday, Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United States, Said Tayeb Jawad stated:

"I appreciate President George Bush's words of praise for liberty, elections and democracy in Afghanistan. Afghans are delighted by the President's sharing the privilege of serving people and democratic governance with our newly elected President, Hamid Karzai. The success of the elections in Afghanistan was in fact a landmark event in the history of liberty.

"We value President Bush's stand to uphold freedom as 'the only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror and replace hatred with hope.' Afghanistan's recent successful elections speak to this truth. When more than 8 million Afghan women and men turned out at the polling stations in defiance of terrorist threats and attacks last October, they voted for freedom in Afghanistan and security in the world.

"I was especially moved that President and Mrs. Bush invited an Afghan woman, Ms. Homaira Nassery, to be at her side. Today, Afghanistan is emerging as a model of success of international cooperation. We appreciate the United States commitment to stand with us to see the freedom journey through.

"The advance of freedom has great momentum in Afghanistan. This summer, we will be holding our Parliamentary elections. We are grateful for reaffirmation of the commitment and support of the United States to help us make the Parliamentary elections another landmark event in the history of liberty in Afghanistan."

Macedonian parliament approves sending new peacekeeping
TIRANA, Feb 4, 2005 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Macedonian Parliament approved Friday sending a new peacekeeping contingent of Macedonian troops to Afghanistan, the MIA news agency, monitored here, reported.

The new contingent comprising two infantry units with 19 Macedonian Army troops will be under the command of German forces in Afghanistan within the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for six months.

It will be the sixth army unit sent by the Macedonian government to Afghanistan for peacekeeping missions. The previous unit with the same number of troops as the new one was sent in August last year.

Germany will not rule out shifting troops in Afghanistan
BERLIN (AP) Germany will not rule out shifting its troops in Afghanistan so that the United States can move more soldiers to Iraq, a government spokeswoman said Friday.

The United States wants Germany to take over peacekeeping duties on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to enable 10,000 American troops stationed there to move to Iraq, Der Spiegel newsweekly reported Friday.

Such a move, however, could be seen as indirectly supporting the U.S. mission in Iraq, which the German government has strongly opposed since its 2003 launch.
The German government ``has always indicated that (the missions) have different focuses namely fighting terror in one case, and stability and rebuilding in the other,'' Antje Leendertse, a spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry said. Nevertheless, ``we will not rule out conversations about the synergy effect,'' she said.

German refused to send troops to Iraq, although it does train Iraqi police and soldiers in the United Arab Emirates.

Germany has led training of a new police force and has 2,000 peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan.

Combined Polish, German and Danish force to offer help in Afghanistan
WARSAW, Poland (AP) A multinational force of Polish, German and Danish officers will offer to take over the leadership of NATO's mission in Afghanistan for a six-month rotation, Poland's Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The leadership of the so-called Multinational Corps Northeast, a force of some 200 soldiers based in the western Polish city of Szczecin that was formed before Poland joined NATO, decided to offer its assistance after a regular meeting, Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Piotr Pertek said.

All three countries are NATO members and already have troops in Afghanistan. It was not immediately clear when the offer would be presented to the alliance.
The Szczecin-based officers currently command three divisions with a total of 48,000 troops, which are stationed in their home countries.

Lack of housing and planning is proving fatal
New York Times 02/05/2005 By Carlotta Gall Bitter Times In Kabul
KABUL - Coughing and wincing in pain, Akakhel, 35, crawled out from beneath a thick quilt in a tent in the snowbound Chaman-e-Babrak refugee camp here.
"My baby died on Friday night," she said. "He was 3 days old. I gave birth to him here in the tent. He died of the cold. If I am shivering, then he definitely felt the cold." A baby boy, he was her fourth child, the second one she had lost.

After eight years of drought, the heavy snows that have blanketed Afghanistan over the past two weeks might seem to be welcome.

But for the 4,000 homeless families crammed into tents in several camps around the city, the snow and the cold are a bitter reminder that despite billions of dollars in aid and the country's rapid development, thousands of Afghans are still without shelter and the means to survive. At worst, for the most vulnerable, they are a death sentence.

Eighteen people have died since the extreme cold descended on the country two weeks ago, the minister of health, Dr. Sayeed Mohammad Amin Fatimie, said this week. Of the 18 people, 13 died in and around Kabul, including several babies, he said.

Three women interviewed in the tent camps scattered around the city said their newborns had died in the past 10 days, probably from the cold. Infant mortality is notoriously high in Afghanistan, but Fatimie said the deaths coincided with the sharp drop in temperature, as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

While the cold will lose its grip eventually, the desperate poverty of many Afghans will not, a fact that has focused attention on the failure of the government and the aid community to find a long-term solution for the homeless.

Refugees are still being encouraged to return to Afghanistan for political reasons even though the country cannot look after them, critics say.

There are an estimated 10,000 homeless people in Kabul, about 4,000 of them in two squatter camps. In addition, groups of displaced people are living in public buildings and abandoned ruins in as many as 25 locations throughout the city.

Most are refugees who have returned from camps in Pakistan in the three years since the fall of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, scores of expensive private villas are going up around Kabul, some of them built by commanders and government officials on former government land, a sign of growing inequities.

The squatters are weary and bitter. "Karzai announced to the refugees: 'Come back and we will help you,'" Akakhel said, referring to President Hamid Karzai.

Her family returned just six months ago when the Pakistani government closed down their refugee camp, said her husband, Janda Gul. "We want the government to help us and give us some shelter," he said. "If we survive this winter, we will not survive the next."

Polio cases slashed in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan: WHO
GENEVA (AFP) - The number of cases of polio has dropped by 45 percent in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, the three countries on the Asian continent that still have the disease, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

The three were on target to end polio transmission this year, a statement predicted following a meeting at WHO headquarters in Geneva with senior officials from the three countries.

"Last year, polio cases in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan were slashed by 45 percent," it said:

"Similar momentum this year should put an end to the transmission of polio in this particularly crowded corner of the world, which has proven a challenge to global eradication efforts."

The Geneva session finessed plans for the rest of this year for mass, repeated vaccination campaigns in areas of the three countries where the disease still survives.

The accent will be on treating children in communities otherwise disadvantaged in terms of health care.

"Similar action last year paid off in the shrinking the geographic footprint of the poliovirus and in falling numbers of affected children," the statement said on Friday.

The overall number of cases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India had declined from 336 in the year 2003 to 186 last year.

"The poliovirus is currently cornered in only six of the 51 states and provinces within the three countries," said Bill Sergeant, Chair of the International PolioPlus Committee of Rotary International, the humanitarian service organization that championed the charge to eradicate polio.

During vaccination campaigns in 2004 in the three countries, 1.5 billion doses were administered to 210 million children. As many as 21 additional vaccination drives are to be organised in the whole region this year.

Millions of volunteer workers will take part in door-to-door visits to vaccinate all children under five years of age.

The meeting here occurred on the first anniversary of the Geneva Declaration on the Eradication of Poliomyelitis.

The worldwide initiative to eradicate polio launched more than 16 years ago is a public sector-private sector partnership run by WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the UN children's agency UNICEF.

Carrot games in Afghanistan
Asia Times 02/05/2005 By Syed Saleem Shahzad
With the consolidation of US-backed President Hamid Karzai's position in Afghanistan following elections late last year, the administration in Kabul is seeking to further entrench itself so that the US can retain and expand its presence in landlocked Afghanistan and beyond to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea.
Evidence of this can be found in the recent release of hundreds of Taliban detainees after local tribes in different areas guaranteed that their men would not volunteer for any anti-US movement in the region.

Taking advantage of the Afghan resistance's shattered situation, resulting from a lack of funds, no safe sanctuary and no external help, the US aims to woo as many resistance commanders as it can.

However, the real political developments are taking place between the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the US: the HIA, even if Hekmatyar refuses to agree to a ceasefire, will be allowed to participate in the parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year. The HIA, which was once the largest resistance group against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, remains an important component of the current Afghan resistance.

Well placed sources in Peshawar inform Asia Times Online that backroom negotiations with top HIA members appear to have reached a concluding phase in which the HIA will be allowed to keep its influence in Kabul and Pashtun-dominated areas in Afghanistan.

The US bid to woo the HIA turned serious when US officials met with Hekmatyar's son, British-educated Jamal Din, in Afghanistan. Din acted as an intermediary between the US and Hekmatyar. However, Hekmatyar himself is holding out for nothing short of a complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, a demand which is unacceptable to the US.

Nevertheless, Hekmatyar might be isolating himself. A top HIA commander, Ustad Fareed, who was Hekmatyar's confidant and active in the resistance, has quietly moved to Kabul, where he now lives as a private citizen. Observers in Peshawar see this as a major development in a possible deal between the HIA and the US.
The chief of the HIA in Pakistan and a former deputy prime minister of the interim government in Kabul, Dr Qutubuddin Hilal, also visited Afghanistan and held talks with Karzai. However, since Hilal only put forward Hekmatyar's hardline demand for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the talks did not achieve anything.

A few months ago, Hilal visited the United Kingdom for treatment for an illness. "Of course, everybody knows that Dr Hilal, the US and Britain still see the HIA as a terrorist organization, and it is also a fact that Dr Hilal did not sneak into the UK, but acquired a visa from the UK High Commission in Islamabad. What can I say, everything is crystal clear before you. We know that Mullah Omar [Taliban leader] or any of his confidants cannot travel like this," said an HIA official in Peshawar on condition of anonymity.

Recently, Hilal returned to Peshawar, where he is bedridden because of his illness.

At the same time, the US has started a new campaign in the shape of newspaper advertisements. These carry photographs of al-Qaeda members and Osama bin Laden and offer rewards for information leading to their capture. The latest addition is Mullah Omar. However, Hekmatyar's name is not mentioned.

Clearly, the US is prepared to make major political bargains with as many Taliban and HIA officials as it can.

The Afghan national resistance had consolidated on firm ground by the end of 2002, and was about to enter its final phase, but this was cut short, mainly because Pakistan, under US pressure, stepped up its activities against the resistance in the tribal belt: several powerful Taliban bases were destroyed.

"At present, there are hundreds of Afghan diehards who were educated in HIA schools in Peshawar and are ready to sacrifice their lives fighting against US troops in Afghanistan, but there are two issues without which participation in the resistance is near-impossible. A safe sanctuary like Pakistan, from where the Afghan resistance fought against the former USSR, and second, the leadership to organize the fighters from the safe sanctuary and direct them in operations. At present, we do not have a base to organize our youths, and our leadership is unable to command the youths as they do not have any base," said an HIA official in Peshawar.

"Right now everybody is demoralized. A large number of HIA officials, like Maulvi Sarfraz Janbaz, Qasim Hamat and others, have left the party and established themselves in Kabul and represent themselves as HIA members. Hekmatyar is on the run and every other day we hear news about commanders and members leaving," the official said.

"Here in Peshawar, it looks difficult for the old leadership like Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar to reunite the scattered movement once again," the same official said.

Southern IDPs plead for winter assistance
IRIN 02/03/2005
SPIN BOLDAK - Thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) in a camp in Spin Boldak, 125 km south of the southern city of Kandahar, are in need of immediate assistance as cold weather and grinding poverty take their toll.

According to people living in the camp, the situation in Spin Boldak deteriorated for the displaced group after the Afghan government and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stopped assistance to the destitute families.

In August 2004 the camp was effectively closed and residents were told to return to their places of origin or settle as local residents. The IDPs are mainly from the central province of Ghazni and the southern province of Zabul. They are mostly nomadic people, known as Kochees, whose livelihood depends on livestock breeding. Most were displaced after losing their cattle and pastures following years of prolonged drought in southern Afghanistan.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MoRR), after another year of drought and crop failure, more than a third of the Afghan population remains dependent on food aid. Among them are at least 167,000 IDPs, most living in camps in the south and west of the country. Persistent drought, a lack of infrastructure and slow reconstruction work considerably slowed the pace of IDP returns in 2004.

Return of IDPs was progressing well in the early post-Taliban period. Officials at MoRR said that the number of IDPs in Afghanistan fell sharply from 724,000 in December 2002 to 184,000 a year later. But in 2004, only 17,000 IDPs have been assisted to return, leaving at least 167,000 IDPs languishing in camps according to ministry figures. The remaining IDPs in Spin Boldak are unable or unwilling to return to where they used to live and are need long-term solutions to their difficulties.
Hazrat Khan the IDPs' representative in Spin Boldak said they needed food and firewood to help them survive the cold winter. "Since the last four months we have not received any kind of assistance from UNHCR and from other aid agencies," Khan told IRIN.

Naik Bakhta a widow and household head, pointed to the surrounding snow-capped mountains and told IRIN her three children would soon die of cold as she did not have a proper shelter. "I don't have wood in my house to warm my children and I don't have food to feed them with. My husband died and we are helpless. There is no one to help my children."

According to Khan, UNHCR has also stopped providing drinking water. "Women fetch water from the local villages, nearly one hour far from the camp. There are no schools for our children since very beginning in the camp. Medecins Sans Frontieres [MSF] were helping us regarding health matters but as they have left Afghanistan, there is no other agency helping us," "Khan noted.

Another IDP, Abdullah, a 45-year-old nomad said: "We have asked the government to locally reintegrate us or assist us in the camp, but there is still no response". According to the UN refugee agency, the IDPs were given a deadline after which they were told they were on their own.

"We have promised the IDPs to help them with shelter but the government has stopped reintegration [into the local community] assistance," Ahmad Shah, an information officer with UNHCR's Kandahar office, told IRIN. Shah said UNHCR was waiting to see if the government wanted the IDPs to be settled locally. "If the government allows them to be locally integrated, then we will help them with shelter," he said.

Officials at MoRR's provincial office in Kandahar said they had given the IDPs three options. Local integration, relocation to Zhare Dasht IDP camp, or return to their place of origin were the choices offered.

"Some of them have departed to their places of origin, some were locally integrated in Spin Boldak and some have relocated to Zhare Dasht [IDP camp]," Mohammad Hassan Rahim, head of MoRR in the city, told IRIN. Rahimi confirmed that those who chose to remain would not be assisted as, officially, the camp no longer exists.

Rice to Press Russia Over Nuke Fuel for Iran
Fri Feb 4, 8:36 PM ET By Saul Hudson
BERLIN (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will press her hardline case over Iran's nuclear ambitions with Russia on Saturday after saying the United States has no plans for an imminent attack on the Islamic republic.

On her first trip abroad as the top U.S. diplomat, the Soviet specialist will meet her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Turkey as the Bush administration pressures Moscow to keep on hold a fuel supply deal for an Iranian reactor.

"We, of course, have worked ... with the Russians. And their efforts to cooperate with the Iranians on civilian nuclear power have been much more attuned recently to (our) concerns about the proliferation risk," Rice said on Friday in Britain on the first leg of a 10-stop trip to Europe and the Middle East.

"While it does not eliminate the proliferation risk, it certainly does help to mitigate (it)," she added.

Washington fears any Russian fuel supply to a reactor Iran is building in its southern port of Bushehr would move Tehran closer to acquiring a bomb under the cover of a civilian program.

Oil-rich Iran denies it is developing such a weapon and says its nuclear programs are for peaceful power generation needed to meet the energy demands of its growing population.

Rice, who has sought to allay fears of a possible military strike, says Russia's decision against delivering the fuel is part of the international community's diplomatic strategy against Tehran.

Asked in London, if the United States was considering military action to end Iran's programs, Rice said, "The question is simply not on the agenda at this point in time -- we have diplomatic means to do this."

Her response, which left the door open for the future -- was unlikely to reduce global tensions over a nation President Bush branded in an "axis of evil" with pre-war Iraq and North Korea.

CARROT AND STICK
Europe -- with U.S. acquiescence -- has offered economic incentives to Iran in a proposed deal to ensure Iran does not pursue the atomic bomb.

And if those talks fail -- as similar ones did last year -- the United States wants Iran reported to the U.N. Security Council for possible international sanctions that would have to be approved by Russia.

Some hardline U.S. officials see the Russian supply deal as crucial to avoiding an escalation of the crisis.

They warn that Israel might strike its longtime foe should any deliveries be made, noting the Jewish state hit Iraqi facilities when former President Saddam Hussein reached a similar stage in nuclear development decades ago.

Rice's week-long trip also seeks to repair ties with nations like Russia that were frayed because of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year.

She will fly from Germany, which opposed the war, to Poland on Saturday to thank Warsaw for sending its troops into Iraq.

From there she travels on to Turkey, Iraq's neighbor, and a top U.S. Muslim nation ally where she plans to have dinner with Lavrov.

Attack on Iran 'Not on Agenda,' Rice Says
By ANNE GEARAN - AP
LONDON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday a U.S. attack on Iran "is simply not on the agenda at this point," despite the United States' continued criticism of Iran's human rights record and suspected nuclear weapons ambitions.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has expressly said that regime change in Iran is not the U.S. goal. But Rice would not say whether the United States supports a change of government.

Speaking to reporters on the plane as she began her weeklong trip, Rice said Iran's approach to human rights and its treatment of its own citizens were loathsome.
"I don't think anybody thinks that the unelected mullahs who run that regime are a good thing for the Iranian people and for the region," she said Thursday. On Friday, she referred to Iran's leaders as "an unelected few."

In London, first stop on a tour of European capitals, Rice said there is broad international agreement that Iran cannot be allowed to use a civilian nuclear power project to conceal a weapons program.

After a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Rice was asked directly whether the United States might attack Iran. Doing so could presumably head off the threat that Iran could use a nuclear device against Israel or other nations. "The question is simply not on the agenda at this point," Rice said at a news conference.
Rice said, "We believe particularly in regard to the nuclear issue that while no one ever asks the American president to take all his options, any of his options off the table, that there are plenty of diplomatic means at our disposal to get the Iranians to finally live up to their international obligations."

She called the Iranian human-rights record "abysmal." Earlier, Rice said the Iranian regime's behavior in that area and others "is something to be loathed."

Asked during the plane trip here whether the United States should get more directly involved in the talks the Europeans are having with Iran, she said, "The Iranians know what they need to do. It's not the absence of anybody's involvement that is keeping the Iranians from knowing what they need to do."

Earlier, Rice met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the United States' closest ally in Iraq, holding her first meeting with a foreign leader since taking over from Colin Powell as the top American diplomat. Their 90-minute breakfast meeting at Blair's Downing Street office covered Iraq, the Middle East and other subjects.
Rice thanked Blair for Britain's support in Iraq "as we work to support the Iraqi people in their quest and most especially ... as we try to bring to the Israelis and the Palestinians a chance for a lasting peace." London is the site of a one-day conference in March to help the Palestinian government build democratic institutions.

En route to London on Thursday, Rice indicated the United States may take a back seat for now in the international effort to bring Israel and the Palestinians closer to a lasting peace. Rice said she does not plan to attend next week's Middle East summit meeting in Egypt, although she will be close by for talks in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
"Not every effort has to be an American effort," Rice said. "It is extremely important that the parties themselves are taking responsibility. It is extremely important that the regional actors are taking responsibility." She said the United States welcomes Egypt's help in hosting the summit and called it one of several hopeful signs for peace.

Middle East peace is one of the main topics for Rice's discussions with European leaders over the coming week, as is Iran. She will visit eight European capitals and the Vatican, with a weekend side trip to see the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

In stops in Berlin later Friday and Paris next week, she may run into opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Iran's nuclear ambitions also is expected to be a topic of discussion with Europeans who are trying to head off nuclear weapons development.

It is not clear how much international support there is for any potential action against Iran. The Europeans have offered Iran technological and financial support, and have hinted at a trade deal if weapons development stops. The Bush administration has been cool to the European diplomacy, preferring economic sanctions against Iran. In his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, President Bush called Iran "the world's primary state sponsor of terror."

At her Senate confirmation hearings last month, Rice said the United States wants "a regime in Iran that is responsive to concerns that we have about Iran's policies, which are 180 degrees" antithetical to America's interests.

Iran's supreme leader on Thursday said Bush's policies toward Iran would fail. "America is like one of the big heads of a seven-headed dragon," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in Iran's capital. "The brains directing it are Zionist and non-Zionist capitalists who brought Bush to power to meet their own interests."

Afghanistan, gem of terrorism war, becoming narco nightmare
Whittier Daily News Los Angeles Newspaper Group
AFGHANISTAN, portrayed as a victory in the U.S. war against terror, is a disaster in the war against drugs. Its production of heroin has soared over the last year, with the country becoming the world's top supplier. Faced with this looming catastrophe, the Bush administration is deeply divided.

Almost everybody familiar with the drug war believes aerial spraying to kill the poppy plant must be instituted sooner or later in Afghanistan, but it surely will be later. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ruled out eradication by air. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agrees with Karzai and opposes expanding the U.S. military's role in Afghanistan.

That description hardly does justice to the intense feeling at high levels of the administration. Debate rages not only over aerial eradication but also over use of helicopters and who should train Afghan police. Meanwhile, billions of dollars pour out of heroin production, threatening to turn the jewel of the war against terrorism into a narco state.

The numbers, measured by the CIA, are daunting. In 2003, 24,400 acres yielded $2.8 billion of heroin. In 2004, the acres totaled 82,400 an increase of 239 percent, bringing in $20 billion. That means Afghanistan outstripped Colombia, Burma, Laos and Thailand to be tops in heroin.

Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, issued this statement Jan. 25: "Until the time the newly democratic Afghan government signals its support for aerial spraying of illicit crops, we need a very robust and effective interdiction strategy to go after the heroin labs and the Afghan narco-terrorist kingpins.'

Four days earlier, Hyde wrote Condoleezza Rice before her confirmation as secretary of state to warn that "time is not on our side on the Afghan drug and related terrorism issue.'

Behind Hyde's warning are nightmarish consequences if narcotics in Afghanistan continue to proliferate. According to U.S. intelligence, lavish drug proceeds from Afghanistan are distributed among the HIG (Hizbi Islami Gulbuddin) terrorist group, the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) seeking a pan-Arab caliphate, remnants of the Taliban and the al-Qaida organization.

A danger is that well-heeled Afghan drug lords in Dubai and Karachi, like their predecessors in Colombia, soon will intensify assassination attempts against Karzai and his colleagues. Even before that happens, enrichment of the world's worst terrorists carries serious consequences. What helped turn around the situation in Colombia was a body blow to the coca crop by heavy use of aerial spraying.

Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois, a State Department political appointment in the first Bush administration, last week returned from his annual visit to Afghanistan. While accepting for now Karzai's ban on aerial eradication, Kirk is intent on improving the capabilities for knocking out heroin processing laboratories. That means immediate U.S. reinforcement of Afghan police with helicopters. Critics on Capitol Hill are alarmed by reports that the choppers will come from Israel an unsettling prospect in a Muslim country.

Rumsfeld, the strongest figure in the Bush Cabinet, wants to limit U.S. involvement in the Afghan drug war to avoid mission creep. What congressional delegations pick up on the ground in Afghanistan sometimes supports the defense secretary. U.S. officers in the field say they get more help from local farmers if they make clear they are after al-Qaida, not drugs. That begs the question of what happens if nobody goes after drugs.

At the same time, Rumsfeld is pressing for Defense Department control of police training in Afghanistan now handled by the State Department. While there is sentiment in Congress that State is not equipped for this work, the U.S. military's long record of training foreign police officers is not reassuring,

Kirk, a rare congressman with personal experience in this touchy area, is concerned. "If DOD 'Department of Defense' takes over all police training,' he told me, "there may be a U.S. uniform present for every police interrogation, and that's unfortunate.'

The war on terrorism is difficult enough when not intertwined with the war on drugs and intense rivalries in the Bush administration. As one official put it to me, does there come a time when U.S. officials have had enough in Afghanistan and say: "I'm not going to risk American lives on a narco state'?

Bush hails Iraqi, Palestinian, Afghan elections
WASHINGTON, AP
Laying out his second-term agenda, President George W. Bush pledged to confront governments that promote terror and pursue weapons of mass destruction and hailed the success of elections in Iraq as proof of democracy's march.
Bush also promised to push forward for an overall Middle East peace, including an offer of US$350 million (euro268 million) in aid to the Palestinians.

Bush spent most of his speech on domestic affairs, largely on his plan to change the 70-year-old national pension system known as Social Security, a program so popular with Americans that it traditionally has been considered sacrosanct and untouchable.

He challenged a hesitant Congress to take political risks to "strengthen and save" Social Security, saying the nation's costliest social program was headed for bankruptcy without changes. Bush's plan would reduce guaranteed retirement benefits for younger Americans but would not affect checks for people now 55 or older.

Bush, in his State of the Union address, pledged to work with Congress "to find the most effective combination of reforms," although he has ruled out some remedies such as raising Social Security taxes.

Democrats said that Bush's proposal to divert Social Security revenues into private investment accounts was dangerous and that there were better ways to fix the program, the 70-year-old centerpiece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930's.

Republicans stood and cheered when Bush urged lawmakers to approve "voluntary personal retirement accounts." Democrats sat in stony silence, underscoring the partisan divide on an issue likely to dominate the year in Congress. Democrats also groaned and grumbled when Bush said Social Security would require drastically higher taxes, massive new borrowing or severe benefit cuts unless the system is changed.

Bush's 53-minute speech dealt with problems at home and abroad, but it was the first of his annual State of the Union addresses to focus most heavily on domestic issues since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. Despite Democrats' criticism, Bush offered no hint of a timetable for a troop withdrawal from Iraq.

The longest applause was when Bush recognized Janet and Bill Norwood, the parents of Marine Sgt. Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed in the assault of the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. In an emotional gesture, Mrs. Norwood hugged Safia Taleb al-Suhail, leader of the Iraqi Women's Political Council.

Syria and Iran were singled out as nations that still export terror.

Returning to his inaugural address' theme of spreading democracy, Bush hailed the success of Sunday's elections in Iraq.

"And the victory of freedom in Iraq will strengthen a new ally in the war on terror, inspire democracy reformers from Damascus to Tehran, bring more hope and progress to a troubled region," he said. In a challenge to Iran's government, he told the country's citizens: "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."

Bush also proposed US$350 million in aid to the Palestinians to help promote a Middle East peace agreement. "The goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace, is within reach, and America will help them achieve that goal," the president said.

With more than 1,400 Americans killed in Iraq and the United States spending more than US$1 billion (euro770 million) a week on the war, Bush urged Congress to support his request for an additional $80 billion (euro61.25 billion). "During this time of war, we must continue to support our military and give them the tools for victory," he said.

While key allies like Germany and France opposed to the war, Bush said his administration "will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, delivering the Democratic response, challenged Bush on Iraq.

"We all know that the United States cannot stay in Iraq indefinitely and continue to be viewed as an occupying force," she said. "Neither should we slip out the back door, falsely declaring victory but leaving chaos. ... We have never heard a clear plan from this administration for ending our presence in Iraq."

Emboldened by his re-election, Bush demanded that lawmakers move on several controversial fronts, including liberalizing the nation's immigration laws, imposing limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, simplifying taxes and extending the life of the tax cuts enacted during his first term.

He also urged passage of long-stalled energy legislation and promised to send Congress a budget next week that holds discretionary spending below inflation.
In a nod to conservatives, he renewed support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Transforming Social Security is a political gamble for Bush and for Republican allies wary of taking big political risks. While Bush cannot run for another term, most Republican lawmakers face re-election next year and are nervous about tampering with a system that Americans like and see no immediate need to overhaul. Democrats, on the other hand, face a risk of appearing as obstructionists if they simply oppose all of Bush's plan.

"I know that none of these reforms would be easy," Bush said. "But we have to move ahead with courage and honesty because our children's retirement security is more important than partisan politics."

Bush did not disclose how deeply benefits would be cut for younger workers and he did not estimate how much it would cost to divert money from Social Security revenues into private investment accounts.

In the Democratic response to Bush's address, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, said, "It's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of 40 percent or more."