“John did his job, now you do yours.”
I remembered her words, and others like them, every time I made decisions about the war.
Over time, the thrill of liberation gave way to the daunting task of helping the Afghan people rebuild—or, more accurately, build from scratch. Afghanistan in 2001 was the world’s third-poorest country. Less than 10 percent of the population had access to health care. More than four out of five women were illiterate. While Afghanistan’s land area and population were similar to those of Texas, its annual economic output was comparable to that of Billings, Montana. Life expectancy was a bleak forty-six years.
In later years, Afghanistan would often be compared with Iraq. But the two countries started from vastly different points. At the time of its liberation, Afghanistan’s per capita GDP was less than a third of Iraq’s. The infant mortality rate in Afghanistan was more than twice as high. Helping the Afghan people join the modern world would clearly be a long, arduous undertaking.
When I ran for president, I never anticipated a mission like this. In the fall of 2000, Al Gore and I debated the most pressing issues facing America. Not once did the words Afghanistan, bin Laden, or al Qaeda come up. We did discuss nation building. “The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops,” I said in the first debate. “… I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.”
At the time, I worried about overextending our military by undertaking peacekeeping missions as we had in Bosnia and Somalia. But after 9/11, I changed my mind. Afghanistan was the ultimate nation building mission. We had liberated the country from a primitive dictatorship, and we had a moral obligation to leave behind something better. We also had a strategic interest in helping the Afghan people build a free society. The terrorists took refuge in places of chaos, despair, and repression. A democratic Afghanistan would be a hopeful alternative to the vision of the extremists.
The first step was to empower a legitimate leader. Colin Powell worked with UN officials on a process for the Afghan people to select an interim government. They decided to hold a traditional Afghan gathering called a loya jirga, or grand council. Afghanistan was not a safe enough place to convene the meeting, so Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany generously offered to host the council in Bonn.
After nine days of deliberations, the delegates selected Hamid Karzai to serve as chairman of the interim authority. When Karzai arrived in Kabul for his inauguration on December 22—102 days after 9/11—several Northern Alliance leaders and their bodyguards greeted him at the airport. As Karzai walked across the tarmac alone, a stunned Tajik warlord asked where all his men were. Karzai responded, “Why, General, you are my men. All of you who are Afghans are my men.”
Five weeks later, I looked Hamid Karzai in the eye for the first time. Forty-four years old with sharp features and a salt-and-pepper beard, Karzai cut a distinctive figure. He wore a shimmering green cape over his gray tunic, along with a pointed cap made of goatskin that was traditional in his southern Afghan tribe.
“Mr. Chairman, welcome to America,” I said, “and welcome to the Oval Office.” I experienced some fascinating moments in that office over the years. Opening the door for the leader of a free Afghanistan four months after 9/11 ranks among them.
In the Oval Office with Hamid Karzai. White House/Eric Draper
“On behalf of me and my people, thank you, Mr. President,” Karzai said. “The United States liberated Afghanistan from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. And now you have liberated us again from the Taliban and al Qaeda.
“We are independent and we will stand on our own two feet,” he said, “but we need your help. The most common question I hear from my ministers and others in Afghanistan is whether the United States will continue to work with us.”
I assured Karzai that he could count on America as a partner, and that we would not abandon his country again. We talked about the hunt for the remaining Taliban and al Qaeda operatives, the need to train an Afghan army and police force, and the importance of constructing roads, health clinics, and schools.
The next night, I saw Karzai again, in the House of Representatives for my State of the Union address. Laura sat next to him. One row back was Karzai’s vice chairman—and Afghanistan’s new minister of women’s affairs—Dr. Sima Samar.
Karzai’s immediate task was to show that life would improve with the Taliban gone. To support him, I sent Zalmay Khalilzad, a talented Afghan American on the National Security Council staff, to serve as my special envoy and, later, as American ambassador. Zal and Karzai used hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid to build infrastructure, train teachers, print textbooks, and extend electricity and clean water to Afghanistan’s rural population. One program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, helped more than three million Afghan children return to school. That was three times the number who had attended under the Taliban. About a million of the new students were girls.
From the beginning, we sought to bring as many nations as possible into the rebuilding effort. A multilateral approach would defray the financial burden and invest nations around the world in the ideological struggle against extremists. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan hosted an international donors’ conference in January 2002. The Tokyo meeting yielded $4.5 billion in pledges. America and several key allies decided to divvy up responsibility for helping to build Afghan civil society. We took the lead in training a new Afghan National Army. Germany focused on training the national police. Great Britain adopted a counternarcotics mission. Italy worked to reform the justice system. Japan launched an initiative to disarm and demobilize warlords and their militias.
Basic security was a necessary precondition for political and economic gains. So as part of the Bonn process, we supported the creation of an International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, under the auspices of the United Nations. In the fall of 2002, NATO agreed to take command of ISAF, which contained nearly five thousand troops from twenty-two countries. We also had eight thousand American troops under the command of Tommy Franks training the Afghan security forces and conducting operations against the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
At the time, thirteen thousand troops seemed like the right amount. We had routed the Taliban with far fewer, and it seemed that the enemy was on the run. I agreed with our military leaders that we did not need a larger presence. We were all wary of repeating the experience of the Soviets and the British, who ended up looking like occupiers.
This strategy worked well at first. But in retrospect, our rapid success with low troop levels created false comfort, and our desire to maintain a light military footprint left us short of the resources we needed. It would take several years for these shortcomings to become clear.
In June 2002, Afghans gathered for a second loya jirga to select a transitional government. This time security was good enough to host the conference in Kabul. The delegates chose Karzai to head the new government, and he appointed cabinet ministers from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. I made it a priority to check in regularly with Karzai. I knew he had a daunting task, and I wanted to lift his spirits and assure him of our commitment. I offered advice and made requests, but I was careful not to give him orders. The best way to help him grow as a leader was to treat him like one.