The Associated Press
President Bush and Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai talk to reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House on Monday. Bush is sticking to his stand that U.S. forces not take part in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

President pledges 'lasting partnership'

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- President Bush promised Afghan leader Hamid Karzai a "lasting partnership" including economic aid and training for a national military Monday but turned aside a request for U.S. troops as part of a peacekeeping force.

Americans will help build a new Afghanistan "free from terror, free from war and free from want," Bush told Karzai as the tri-colored flag of the visitor flew in the White House Rose Garden for the first time in nearly four decades.

The president said the United States would help train a national military and police force for the central Asian nation that has weathered Soviet invasion, warlords, the terrorist-harboring Taliban and, most recently, battering U.S. military strikes.

Bush was not receptive to Karzai's interest in having U.S. forces remain in Afghanistan as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

Ruling out such a direct role, Bush said the United States will support the international security force and stands ready to help if its "troops get in trouble."

"Better yet than peacekeepers ... let's have Afghanistan have her own military," Bush said.

He pledged a $50 million loan to help Afghanistan attract U.S. business investment and $3 million from the Labor Department to create jobs.

In their joint appearance under an unseasonably warm sun, Karzai thanked the United States for its help in driving the Taliban from power and defeating Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan.

Karzai said the goal of his impoverished country is to remain "a good partner" and never let terrorists re-infest Afghan lands.

"I assure you, Mr. President, that Afghanistan -- with your help, and the help of other countries, friends -- will be strong and will stand eventually on its own feet, and it will be a country that will defend its borders and not allow terrorism to return to it or bother it or trouble it," Karzai said.

In an interview later, Karzai said that while the job of rebuilding his country and ensuring it is secure and free of terrorists will be difficult, "Nothing is impossible."

"Can you imagine a month and a half ago that that massive terrorist structure would disappear, like that, in Afghanistan in a matter of days? People say that's impossible. But it happened," he said.

At a diplomatic reception Monday night, Karzai spoke sadly of the lives lost in his country's struggles against the repressive Taliban regime.

"We must remember them or we have betrayed ourselves," Karzai told about 700 people who dined on a buffet of rice, eggplant and spinach dishes. He vowed to run a "clean, transparent, accountable" government and pledged to be tough against corruption and not allow "a single penny" of foreign aid to be wasted.

Karzai's visit to Washington, D.C., was the first by an Afghan leader since King Mohammad Zaher Shah was invited by President Kennedy in 1963.

A breeze played with the folds of the green, red and black Afghan flag standing near the Oval Office where Bush and Karzai met.

With a long, striped green robe draped over his sport coat, Karzai stood at Bush's right arm and spoke easily in English.

The Afghan people know better than most the horror Americans suffered on Sept. 11, Karzai said. "The Afghans have suffered exactly in the same way. We have sympathy. We know that pain."

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