>Almost all of them, regardless of political posture,
>see the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as stupid,
>slopiily executed maneuvers that will end with the US
>leaving, as former UN weapons inspector and US Marine
>Scott Ritter once said, "with it's tail between its
>legs."
Financial Times - June 5, 2003
Karzai seeks more aid for broken country By Victoria Burnett in Kabul
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan arrived in Britain yesterday to begin canvassing Tony Blair, the prime minister, and other top-ranking officials in an effort to drum up fresh international support for rebuilding Afghanistan.
Mr Karzai will also meet the Queen during his trip, which ends tomorrow.
The visit comes while he is in the throes of a determined but desperate struggle to harness the country's meagre domestic resources.
Mr Karzai has threatened to resign if he fails to squeeze cash out of unruly provincial governors who are taking in an estimated $600m (¤513m, £368m) in customs revenue each year and some of whom are embroiled in low-level local wars against military rivals. Two weeks ago the president told them to hand over money and relinquish their military titles.
His struggle to exert control beyond the capital is by no means new. The president is considered politically weak. He has only a small national army to pit against the warlords' hordes of soldiers and has lurched from one political stand-off to another since he took office in December 2001.
The latest ultimatum was issued as Afghanistan strives to demonstrate greater self-sufficiency to an international community whose continued help it needs and whose commitment it fears will soon ebb.
Ashraf Ghani, the finance minister, reminded reporters on Tuesday that per capita assistance to Afghanistan was the lowest of any recent post-conflict situation, and said the country needed $15bn in foreign aid over the next five years - in addition to the $5.2bn pledged at the Tokyo aid conference in early 2002 - plus $15bn of private-sector investment.
"The true development projects are just starting and developmental work is expensive," he said. "We need 12 to 14 per cent growth to get out of poverty."
Mr Karzai dispatched teams to the provinces last week to find out how much money the governors had and to persuade them to hand it over. The initiative has borne some fruit. Following a visit from Mr Ghani, Ismail Khan, the despotic and wealthy governor of Herat, parted with $20m at the weekend, saving the impoverished treasury from a crisis that left thousands of salaries unpaid for more than two months.
But few believe Mr Khan's payment will herald an influx of funds to the treasury from around the country or that the government will be able to do anything if the governors refuse to comply. "I think it's been born out of desperation. The fact that the government gets tough and makes an ultimatum doesn't mean it's strong," an economist based in Kabul said.
Mr Khan managed to hold on to about $15m, which Mr Ghani said was already earmarked for projects and had apparently not given up his many titles, including emir. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a notorious northern warlord and deputy minister of defence, continued to defy the president's desire that he leave his fiefdom of Mazar-i-Sharif and move to Kabul.
The government is at a critical juncture as it sets about the tricky processes of rewriting the constitution and preparing for elections in June next year amid deteriorating security that has rendered parts of Afghanistan a no-go zone. ,
The resurgent Taliban has made itself felt in the rugged south-west, which borders Pakistan, with a campaign of violent attacks. It has declared a holy war on westerners and is suspected in the killing of two expatriates - one aid worker and one tourist - over the past two months.