O'Neill, in Afghanistan, Promises to Push $2.3 Billion Aid Bill By CARLOTTA GALL
DURRANI, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 — Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill confirmed the Bush administration's support for reconstruction in Afghanistan during a visit here today, promising that the administration will do everything possible to see that a $2.3 billion aid bill pending in Congress will go through.
Mr. O'Neill visited development projects, including one in this village, and met with President Hamid Karzai and Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmedzai. He told them that the bill still had to go before appropriations committees but assured them it had President Bush's support.
"Listen, the president really wants this done, and we will get it done," he told Mr. Karzai, according to an American official who was at the meeting.
Mr. O'Neill made the one-day visit to Afghanistan as part of a tour of the region ahead of visits to Pakistan and India.
Coming just a month after a visit by Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, Mr. O'Neill's visit helped to highlight the United States' shift in emphasis in Afghanistan from military and emergency aid operations to reconstruction and development of the economy.
"There is absolutely no change in the importance and the priority accorded to Afghanistan," Mr. O'Neill said today. "The president has made a commitment that we would come here and we would get rid of the Taliban, and that we would help the Afghan people to build a civil and just society, and there is no change in that."
He added that he wanted to see money going directly to the Afghan government, rather than to international bodies and private groups, to enhance the government's stature and credibility with its people. "We are interested in seeing flows of money into this government because President Karzai and this government are so important to the future of Afghanistan," he said.
During his visit today, Mr. O'Neill went to two small factories run by returning refugees, a road project and the Central Bank, where officials are halfway through an ambitious plan to introduce a new currency in order to stabilize the economy.
In the early morning, he stepped out of a Chinook helicopter and stood squinting down a rough gravel road at this village, 27 miles south of Kabul. A United States-finance construction project started here just a week ago on the mammoth task of fixing Afghanistan's roads.
Mr. Karzai has said fixing the roads is a priority, a project that will be highly visible to all Afghans and will provide employment and expand trade and commerce. But it will take some $260 million and three to five years to repair and rebuild 600 miles of roads that have generally not had any maintenance work since they were built 35 years ago.
The United States, Japan and Saudi Arabia have each pledged $50 million toward the project, but only the United States has made any money available, enabling work to start on a first 30-mile section south of Kabul.