President Bush and Afghan President Karzai hold a joint press conference at the White House September 26. (©AP Images)

Bush, Karzai Address Terrorism, Reconstruction in Afghanistan, September 26, 2006 Rebuilding Afghanistan (a State Dept./IIP webpage)

26 September 2006

(The two leaders agree fighting terrorism is a top priority)

Washington -- President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai presented a united front against terrorism and a shared commitment to strengthening Afghanistan’s government and infrastructure during a press conference following a private meeting September 26.

“We are proud to call you ally and friend,” Bush told Karzai at a joint press conference at the White House.

Bush said their talks focused on the best ways to secure and reconstruct Afghanistan, “building institutions necessary for Afghans to have a secure future.” He said, “I know that Taliban and al-Qaida remnants and others are trying to bring down your government because they know that if democratic institutions take root in your country the terrorists will not be able to control your country or be able to use it to launch attacks on other nations.”

“The fighting in Afghanistan is part of a global struggle,” he said.

Noting that terrorist forces victimized people in Afghanistan long before the Iraq war or September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Karzai said, “They came to America on September 11th, but they were attacking you before September 11th in other parts of the world.” He said extremist schools, “madrassas preaching hatred,” are the root of the problem.

Bush and Karzai discussed the Taliban, recently resurgent in southern Afghanistan. “We’ve adjusted tactics and we’re in the offense to meet the threat and to defeat the threat,” Bush said. The extremist Taliban governed Afghanistan for five years before being toppled by Northern Alliance and coalition forces in 2001.

“We’re trying to clean the country of these elements,” Karzai said. “And now we’re at a stage of bringing more stability and trying to get rid of them forever. The desire is to do that sooner, but a desire is not always what you get,” Karzai said, adding that it will take time and patience to get “rid of them for good.”

Opium cultivation and strategies to eradicate it also were on the two leaders’ agenda.  Karzai said narcotics is a problem, “an embarrassment,” but he explained, “It has come to Afghanistan because of years of our desperation and lack of hope for tomorrow,” the result of years of droughts and misery. He said in some areas anti-narcotics strategies had worked and in others failed, but efforts to contain the trade would continue.

Bush said that to aid reconstruction the United States would help develop “effective and accountable government agencies” and build roads.  “We’re helping you with a national literacy program,” he said, stressing the importance of education in a democracy. “The more educated a populace is, the more likely it is they’ll be active participants in democratic forms of government,” he said.

Karzai thanked President Bush and the American people for their support for Afghanistan and acknowledged the difficulties of reconstruction. “Afghanistan is a country that is emerging out of so many years of war and destruction and occupation by terrorism and misery,” he said. “ We lost almost two generations to the lack of education, and those who are educated before that are now older. We know our problems,” he said.

A transcript of the remarks by Bush and Karzai is available on the White House Web site.

For additional information, see Rebuilding Afghanistan.