olution 1386 approved on December 20 called for a peacekeeping force limited to
Kabul and “its surrounding areas.” Britain and other NATO countries—excluding the
United States—contributed troops to this new force, the International Security Assis-
tance Force (ISAF), which initially was under U.S. command but essentially amounted
to little more than a palace guard for Karzai and his new government in Kabul. As
the Taliban reemerged and the security situation deteriorated, the Bush administration
gradually relented in its opposition to a nationwide peacekeeping force. The Security
Council in 2003 authorized ISAF to expand its operations outside the Kabul region,
but the expansion took place slowly because of continuing U.S. resistance. It was not
until 2006 that the peacekeeping force operated on a truly nationwide basis and came
under the command of NATO. Meanwhile, thousands of American troops remained
in Afghanistan under a separate U.S. command, with the objective of tracking down
Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
The United States and other countries poured billions of dollars in emergency
relief supplies and long-term development aid into Afghanistan in the years after 2001.
By the beginning of 2005, total aid had reached approximately $9 billion, just short
of the $10 billion the United Nations had estimated in 2002 would be necessary to
meet the country’s immediate needs. Afghanistan was in such terrible shape after a
quarter-century of war, however, that even this large infusion of foreign assistance did
little to improve the lives of most Afghan residents. Kabul was transformed into a rel-
atively cosmopolitan city, with a few luxury hotels and a high-end shopping district,
but millions of refugees who had sought shelter in the capital and other cities during
the years of conflict still lived in shacks without electricity or running water. Karzai’s
government struggled to keep up with the demand for services from its citizens and
the demands from Western governments for accountability in the use of aid money.
In January 2006, international donors agreed to support another $10 billion aid effort
to help Afghanistan meet its needs.
Following are excerpts from a speech to the people of Pakistan by President Pervez
Musharraf delivered on September 19, 2001, concerning U.S. requests for Pakistani
cooperation in an impending invasion of Afghanistan; texts of statements made Octo-
ber 7, 2001, by U.S. president George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony
Blair announcing the start of military operations against the Taliban regime and
the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan; and excerpts from the “Agreement on Provi-
sional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent
Government Institutions,” signed on December 5, 2001, in Bonn, Germany, by rep-
resentatives of major political, ethnic, and tribal factions from Afghanistan.AFGHANISTAN 601