Rice Presses Allies to Boost Afghan Aid

NATO, Europe Urged to Join U.S. in Increasing Commitments of Money and Manpower

BRUSSELS, Jan. 26 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, citing the $10.6 billion in new aid that the Bush administration proposes to give Afghanistan, pressed NATO and European allies Friday to increase their contributions of money and manpower.

Rice's push came as concern grows over the resurgence of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, massive increases in opium production and rising tension between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, where Taliban leaders and fighters have been allowed refuge.

"Nations that have made pledges of support should follow through and deliver," Rice told a meeting of NATO foreign ministers here. They had assembled at her request to address what the United States calls an urgent need to bolster the Afghan government's security and development efforts before the Taliban begins even more intensive attacks in the spring, when snows melt and mountainous border areas become more passable.

Her appeals elicited nearly universal agreement on the need for more aid, but no country made a large new offer.

NATO officials cast the meeting's outcome as positive. "We have more nations stepping up to the plate," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after the ministers' meeting, which also drew officials from the European Union and World Bank. He gave no specific examples.

A NATO official said that Denmark and Lithuania have offered a small number of additional personnel and that the alliance hopes to receive more commitments in two weeks, when its defense ministers meet in Seville, Spain.

NATO authorities said the 33,250 NATO troops in Afghanistan represent about 85 percent of what military commanders say they need. The United States has contributed 12,000 troops to the NATO mission and has another 12,000 personnel operating in the country under independent U.S. command. The United States has said it will keep 3,200 of its troops in Afghanistan for an extra four months to provide reinforcements through the spring.

Some European ministers grumbled to reporters afterward that their countries are already making significant contributions and are overstretched by military commitments around the world. Those ministers said additional money and troops should come from countries now making few or no contributions.

Although 37 nations are providing troops, only seven provide more than 1,000, and some of those prohibit their forces from serving in the most dangerous southern provinces, where the most assistance is needed to fend off the Taliban.

France and Spain, two other major contributors, said they have no more reinforcements to offer. The German Parliament is currently engaged in a heated debate over whether to deploy six Tornado reconnaissance planes to the southern areas.

Rice defended U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan, saying, "The violence we are seeing is not evidence that our strategy has failed, nor that the situation will improve in our absence." She added, "It is evidence of how much we are needed."

The appeal for more assistance for the struggling government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai comes as the Bush administration is pressuring Congress for more troops and money for the war in Iraq and foreign governments are trying to raise funds to help rebuild Lebanon after the war between Hezbollah and Israel last summer.

Rice said the Bush administration will ask Congress for $8.6 billion in new funding to equip and train Afghan police and army units and an additional $2 billion for reconstruction, with the money to be parceled out over two years. If approved, the aid would represent a significant increase in U.S. funding to Afghanistan. In the five years since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government, the United States has provided $14.2 billion to Afghanistan in security and development aid.

In addition to pressing allies to offer more money and troops for Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official said, Washington views its new proposal as "a chance to show we're not leaving, and Iraq is not sucking up all the resources and the oxygen."