12.00 pm - By RUPERT CORNWELL
WASHINGTON - United States President Bush has pledged $US320 ($780) milllion of humanitarian aid for devastated Afghanistan, the first instalment of what Washington says will grow into a long term rebuilding programme for the country in the post-Taleban era.
"This is our way of saying that while we strongly and firmly oppose the Taleban regime, we are friends with the Afghan people," Mr Bush said.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is in the Middle East nailing down final details ahead of an imminent US-led military action against Osama bin Laden and his Taleban protectors, which could be just days away.
The sum announced by the President in a speech at the State Department represents $US295m of new money, on top of an emergency $US25m released by Mr Bush at the weekend. White House officials said $US100m would be dispensed at once, in operations to help refugees inside and outside Afghanistan.
Some would bolster United Nations aid programmes for refugees who crossed into Iran and Pakistan. Part would be delivered by airdrops inside the country of food and other supplies from military cargo planes, aimed at internal refugees -- people displaced by hunger, civil war and fear of US reprisals after the September 11 terrorist attacks, but still trapped inside Afghanistan.
The Pentagon said the parachute drops would almost certainly involve so-called Humanitarian Daily Ration packages. Each "HDR" includes enough food for one person for one day and is designed to be religiously and culturally acceptable to all people.
Mr Bush’s offer came as Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, appealed for 500,000 tons of emergency food aid. With the bitter Afghan winter fast approaching, Mr Annan made an urgent request last week for almost $US600m of assistance for Afghanistan, to cope with what UN staff call "the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world," brought about by a decade of civil war and the country’s worst drought in 30 years.
From the start of the crisis the US has been at pains to make clear that its enemy is Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and those who shelter it - not ordinary Afgans, Arabs or Muslims - and the aid package is another way of making this clear.
If anything this concern has only increased as the crisis has progressed, along with an awareness that anything which smacked of reprisals against Islam would merely guarantee more, possibly even deadlier, terrorism in the future.
As Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked after a meeting with Colin Powell, the Secretary of State this week, "Are we really sure we are not going to be creating more Osama bin Ladens by what we will do?"
That worry explains why Mr Bush has repeatedly gone out of his way to make gestures towards Arab- and Muslim-Americans. It is an unspoken theme of Mr Rumsfeld’s current trip to the region, to shore up support in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt, three highly edgy US allies in the region.
The Bush administration is now telling foreign governments that it will be a major contributor to the post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan, as part of an even broader coalition than the one it is seeking against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, this one under a UN umbrella.
According to Mr Biden, the US contribution should be at least $US1bn.
The shape of a post-Taleban Afghanistan is still hazy, but yesterday Richard Haass, director of policy planning at the US State Department, became the highest ranking American official to meet Zahir Shah, the former Afghan king now living in exile in Rome. The King has agreed to head a provisional government of national unity, once the Taleban is removed from power. Washington broadly supports the idea, though Mr Bush continues to insist that the US is "not in the business of nation-building."
Mr Rumsfeld yesterday was in Oman, where the US has bases, before travelling to Cairo to meet President Hosni Mubarak. Although the US has military agreements with Egypt, it is most concerned with access to Egyptian intelligence about bin Laden, who is closely involved with the Islamic movements trying to overthrow the Mubarak regime.
Today he goes to Ukbekistan, the former Soviet republic whose bases the US wants to use in the forthcoming offensive against bin Laden and the Taleban.
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Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror