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US Treasury chief O'Neill heads for India, Afghanistan

Glenn Somerville in Washington

US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, aiming to make the point that generous donor help can be insurance against terrorism, was headed for Afghanistan at the weekend to investigate the rebuilding of the war-torn country.

The US Treasury chief's 10-day trip also includes stops in Pakistan and in India, where he will attend the annual meeting of the Group of 20 finance officials late next week. He makes a short stop in Manchester, England, on the way back to address a business group.

"Our reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are not only vital to the lives of the Afghani people and important for securing Central Asia against terrorist influences -- they must serve as a model for what effective foreign assistance programs the world over can achieve," O'Neill said at a press conference on Friday.

"We are at a critical time right now for the people of Afghanistan, accelerating the reconstruction process that will create and support stability and growth in that budding nation," O'Neill said.

More than $5 billion in international aid has been pledged to Afghanistan, with about $1.4 billion disbursed at the end of October. But Afghan officials say the needs of country, which has seen more or less constant fighting during the past two decades, are enormous.

O'Neill said the effort to channel aid to Afghanistan was "going quite well" and said President George W. Bush was committed to keeping the reconstruction program on track.

The G20 is an expanded offshoot of the occasional get-togethers of the Group of Seven most highly industrialized nations.

First-hand look

But one of the highlights was certain to be the visit to Afghanistan, under such strict security the precise time it will occur was not announced. It gives O'Neill a chance to assess how billions of aid dollars pledged by the United States and others is being spent on projects like roads and schools.

Reconstruction has been pursued vigorously since the United States swept the hard-line Taliban government from power in 2001 because it harbored Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters, who the United States blamed for the attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

Rising tensions recently have underlined how fragile some of the gains in Afghanistan -- from making it possible for girls to attend school to enabling its government to meet payrolls -- may be without strong international support.

Earlier this week, an audio tape broadcast on the al-Jazeera television channel in Qatar, believed to be of bin Laden, praised recent attacks and made fresh threats, heightening concern about a possible resurgence in terror activities.

"The President is very concerned that we ensure that Afghanistan has the resources to carry out its rebuilding plans and to be able to demonstrate the results from them." O'Neill said.

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