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Wall Street Journal: What I Saw in Afghanistan
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For Immediate Release Office of the First Lady June 16, 2008

Wall Street Journal: What I Saw in Afghanistan Wall Street Journal



June 12, 2008
HEADLINE: What I Saw in Afghanistan
BYLINE: Laura Bush

This week has been a study in contrasts. On Sunday, I was in one of the
most remote areas of Afghanistan - where unpaved roads are lined by
tin-roofed shanties, and most people live without running water or
electricity.

Today, I am in the City of Light. Yet while the circumstances of these
visits could not be more different, their purpose is the same: to reaffirm
the world's commitment to the people of Afghanistan.

This morning, a delegation representing 80 countries and multilateral
organizations will gather here for the International Conference in Support
of Afghanistan. This event is a chance for developed nations to learn more
about the challenges facing Afghanistan - and to offer the political and
economic assistance it needs to recover from decades of war and oppression.

When the Taliban were driven from power in 2001, they left Afghans to build
a society from nothing. But working in partnership with the United States
and other nations, the Afghan people have made amazing progress. Since the
fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan's infant-mortality rate has been reduced
by almost 25%. Its per capita GDP has increased by 70%. In 2001, only 8% of
Afghans had access to basic health care. Today, that number is 85%. In
2001, fewer than a million Afghan children were in school - all of them
boys. Today, more than six million Afghan children are in school - about a
third of them are girls.

On my trip, I saw how these developments are offering Afghans new hope. Yet
many hurdles still lie ahead - and my trip was a reminder of those, too.
The new schools and roads I visited stood in the shadow of Bamiyan's
sandstone cliffs - where two hollow caves are all that remains of
Afghanistan's ancient Buddhas, blown up by the Taliban in 2001. Those scars
in the cliffsides are a reminder of the danger lurking in the Afghan hills.
It's a danger we read about on the front pages, as the Taliban and al Qaeda
step up their campaign of suicide bombings and violence. And it is a danger
that threatens to erase the progress that Afghans have made.

This morning, President Hamid Karzai will present his government's
five-year plan for securing that progress. The Afghan National Development
Strategy defines how the government will work to improve education and
health care, and to address the nation's overwhelming poverty and lack of
basic infrastructure. The plan also addresses energy and agriculture needs.
Right now, only 12% of Afghans have access to electricity. And an
agricultural crisis threatens starvation. Mr. Karzai has urged farmers to
grow wheat instead of poppy, so that they and their neighbors will not go
hungry.

The national strategy is a solid plan to address Afghanistan's many
challenges, and it is clear that Afghanistan will also need solid support
from its international partners. At today's conference, the United States
will pledge $10.2 billion toward the nation's development efforts. This
comes on top of the $5.9 billion we committed in 2006 at the donor
conference in London. And it means that our commitment of humanitarian,
development, and security assistance since 2001 now totals more than $26
billion.

Other nations are doing their part. In Kandahar, Canada has provided
literacy training for more than 5,000 Afghans, and vaccinated more than
360,000 against polio. In Helmand, the United Kingdom has brought clean
drinking water to more than 175,000 people, and provided microcredit to
more than 336,000 small businesses. Training programs run by Germany and
other nations have helped put more than 58,000 soldiers and 80,000 police
on the streets. And in Bamiyan, I met the New Zealand troops who are
providing security and promoting development.

Private citizens are eager to help. I'm proud to be a member of the
U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, which President Bush and President Karzai
launched in 2002. Through the council, individual American citizens have
secured more than $70 million in private-sector funding for a total of 30
programs. Council initiatives have trained women judges, lawyers,
entrepreneurs, midwives and parliamentarians. In fact, many of the projects
I observed on my trip were council initiatives. I have met children
orphaned by Taliban massacres who now have classrooms to study in and safe
homes to live in. And I watched women once forbidden to leave home without
a male escort now run businesses that provide for their families.

Today's conference is an opportunity for governments and the private sector
to do more. It is important - and smart - for the world to invest in
Afghanistan. Americans learned on a clear September morning that misery and
oppression half a world away can manifest themselves on the next block.
That lesson has been retaught in the years since, in cities from Jakarta to
London to Madrid.

Our security depends on preventing al Qaeda from re-establishing a foothold
in Afghanistan. The best way to do that is to counter al Qaeda's campaign
of terror with an international campaign of support for Afghan democracy.

It is also important for the world to invest in Afghanistan because the
Afghan people have invested so much themselves. On my trip, one of the
people who impressed me most is Afghanistan's only female provincial
governor, Habiba Sarabi.

Gov. Sarabi's province, Bamiyan, is one of Afghanistan's poorest. Every
day, she risks her life to serve her people, and under her leadership the
region shows immense promise. The number of children attending school, and
the percentage of students who are girls, are both higher than the national
average. I was also inspired by the courage of the women I met in Bamiyan's
police-training program. In a place where the law once prohibited women
from learning how to read, I saw a class of female recruits studying
Afghanistan's constitution and preparing to defend the rule of law in their
new democracy.

Bamiyan shows us how determined the Afghan people are to see their country
succeed, and now the international community must do its part to help make
that success possible. As one Afghan woman told me when she visited the
White House in January: "This is our only chance."

Today, as leaders from across the globe gather in Paris, we need to show
with our commitments that the world will not let this chance pass
Afghanistan by.

Mrs. Bush is the first lady of the United States.

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