POSTWAR AFGHANISTAN

U.S. Questions Its Share Of Reconstruction Costs

WASHINGTON -- After bearing the multibillion-dollar cost of the war in
Afghanistan, the Bush administration is now questioning how much it will
contribute to the United Nations reconstruction effort in that country.

Officials said the administration was considering paying less than the
United States has customarily contributed to postwar reconstruction costs
in other countries, but members of Congress and the State Department are
arguing to keep the American contribution as generous as possible.

Since the end of the cold war, the United States has underwritten large
portions of peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts in the Balkans,
Cambodia, Mozambique and many other countries. But the cost of fighting the
war in Afghanistan has already cost tens of billions of dollars.

"We will look at Afghanistan in its entirety -- the fact that we've made a
uniquely large contribution so far -- and we will contribute
appropriately," a senior White House official said.

He added: "We do have a role to play -- we do not want to be the people who
do the bombing and leave the reconstruction to others."

The price, by World Bank estimates, could be more than $10 billion for the
first five years alone, to rebuild schools and roads and communications
systems, create a health system, attack the narcotics problem and
underwrite the new government, especially the police and justice system to
ensure the rule of law.

Typically, the United States contributes one-fourth of a peacekeeping
mission's costs and has contributed up to one-third of reconstruction
costs. Senior European and United Nations officials said they had assumed
that the United States would pay up to one-third of the reconstruction
costs, with Europe paying one-third and the rest of the world, led by
Japan, picking up the final third.

"It has been an unwritten assumption that this would happen, but we would
not complain if the United States maybe gave less," said a European official.

As officials prepare for a top-level meeting later this week in Brussels to
discuss reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, the federal Agency for
International Development is drawing up the American plans that will be
considered there.

As a candidate and then as president, Mr. Bush has showed little enthusiasm
for rebuilding other nations, an ideological bent that officials say plays
into the debate within the administration over the American role in postwar
Afghanistan.

For the president, the top priority of reconstruction is to ensure that
Afghanistan never again becomes a terrorist haven. Officials drawing up the
American plans say that means immediate assistance to demobilized soldiers,
helping them return to the countryside as farmers and animal herders
instead of reverting to lawlessness that would undermine the nascent Afghan
interim government.

"We've already started planning to ship seed for the next spring planting
and live animals to restore the loss of huge portions of the sheep and goat
herds," said Andrew S. Natsios, administrator for the Agency for
International Development.

After 20 years of war, the country is so threadbare that the United Nations
put together an emergency $20 million fund to underwrite the interim
government, providing desks, computers, telephones and salaries.

"This is all part of a broader political message that however long it
takes, we are committed to a stable, democratic government," said Mark
Malloch Brown of the United Nations Development Program, who will oversee
the reconstruction.

The Arab and Muslim worlds, including many countries that are part of the
coalition, are watching to see if the United States holds to its promise
that it is fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and not fighting the Afghan
people.

And like a mantra, administration officials have said they have learned
from the Soviets' war in Afghanistan and will not abandon the country this
time.

To prove that point, administration officials point to the president's
contribution of an additional $320 million in food and other relief aid to
Afghanistan during the war and to the United States' record as the largest
foreign donor to Afghanistan even before Sept. 11.

And at this stage of the conflict, the president plans to stay the course,
even though he has yet to decide how much money the United States will
contribute, said his spokesman, Ari Fleischer.

"Given how involved the United States has been in feeding the Afghan
people, the president believes it is the right thing for the United States
to remain politically engaged and to help with the reconstruction of
Afghanistan," Mr. Fleischer said today.

Yet even as relief operations are spreading across Afghanistan and
reconstruction plans begin, the administration continues to make the war
effort its top priority.

The Pentagon insists that Gen. Tommy Franks at Central Command has the
ultimate say over coordinating civilian and military operations on the ground.

"This is going to be an overlapping effort," said Joseph J. Collins, the
deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and relief
assistance. "Our first priority is to insure noninterference in the war."