Transcript for Sept. 24

PRES. KARZAI: No.

MR. RUSSERT: Rather than siding with your government...

PRES. KARZAI: No, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: ...over the Taliban.

PRES. KARZAI: No, no, no. No, no, no. That’s not what General Richards meant. I know General Richards. I meet him almost every week.

MR. RUSSERT: That’s what he said.

PRES. KARZAI: He’s a—he’s a very capable general, that’s not what he said.  That’s not what he meant. What he meant was that the Afghans are having a tremendously high expectation of the international community and of their own government. And that they don’t understand when there still is an attack coming across the border into Afghanistan, terrorism crossing the border into Afghanistan and hurting the international community and the Afghan people, they don’t understand how a group of people can come and attack the whole international community without us having the ability to stop them where they are groomed, where they are trained. So that is, yes, a concern in Afghanistan. The Afghans don’t understand the rise in violence. They felt, four years ago, that terrorism was gone and they were thrown out and that they would not be allowed to return across Afghan borders. That is what the Afghans are angry about. That’s what the Afghans are confused about, as a matter of fact. That’s why the international community must take a much tougher action. By that I mean the international community should go to the sources of terrorism.

MR. RUSSERT: They are also concerned, however, about your government. Let me read you something and then tell you where it came from. “It’s not that the Taliban were strong. It’s that the government was weak. They have moved into a vacuum. There was protracted negligence on our part of those” southern “provinces.” That’s your chief of staff.

PRES. KARZAI: That’s true.

MR. RUSSERT: So you allowed the Taliban to gain strength by being the only form of government that helped the people.

PRES. KARZAI: No. That—not in that sense. They don’t help the people.  They kill people. They burn schools. They burn clinics. They kill aid workers. They kill teachers. They kill clergy. They behead teachers. They kill those who are helping the Afghan reconstruction. By that, what is meant is that the Afghan security institutions are weak. And indeed, that is a problem.

MR. RUSSERT: Here’s what the Taliban says: “The Taliban had established a true peace in the country with law and order. But now, the country has become a center of instability, killings, plundering, obscenity and drugs. There’s no protection for the life or property of any individual. Everybody has seen the true of the U.S. and its allies. Therefore, the Afghan people are supporting the Taliban.”

PRES. KARZAI: The Taliban were a terrorist associates. Al-Qaeda was there in Afghanistan. There was no life to be secured in Afghanistan. It was a death trap for the Afghan people. Schools were closed, universities were closed, women were not allowed to come out and work. People could not even whisper. People were not allowed to listen to radios. They would climb over your walls and night and beat you and arrest you and even kill you if you listened to the radios. It was an occupied country in the name of the Taliban. The Taliban was there in name only.

Now those thugs and terrorists and their foreign sponsors who were ruling Afghanistan with terror and exporting terror from Afghanistan to the rest of the world, are today the ones that are blowing bombs. So the bombers and the suicide bombers and the people who are committing crimes now were then the government.

Today, you have six million children going to school. At that time, there were only 700,000 children going to school. Only boys then. Today, you have almost all the country’s roads paved. At that time, you had no roads. Then, in 2001, there was only 9 percent of health service available to the Afghan people. Today, it’s 80 percent.

MR. RUSSERT: Must you eliminate the Taliban by the end of the year? Is General Richards correct?

PRES. KARZAI: It’s not eliminating the Taliban, it’s ending terrorist violence in Afghanistan. We must differentiate. Those Taliban who are—Talib means a student of the religious school in Afghanistan. Now, there are thousands of students of religious schools in Afghanistan who are just like you and I, people who have a feeling for their country, who want to have a good life, who are—who are participating on a daily basis in, in Afghan reconstruction and, and, and political and social life.

There are those elements of them who are outside of the Afghan border, in association with al-Qaeda and their sponsors, who are the ones that are hurting us. And that is the first issue we’re talking about, that is the one we should get rid of as soon as possible.

MR. RUSSERT: Of grave concern to the American people are the reports that the opium cultivation is up 60 percent in one year in Afghanistan. Enough to create 610 tons of heroin, some of it which comes to the United States. Why is that so out of control? Is Afghanistan become a narco state?

PRES. KARZAI: No. Let’s go a little bit into the history. Thirty years ago when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the Afghan people lost hope for the future. There was complete despair. No Afghan family was sure if they were going to have their own house the next day, if they were going to have their children alive the next day, if they were going to be refugees or if they were going to be in their own country the next day. I know people, I know families in southwestern Afghanistan who destroyed their pomegranate orchards, which is among the most beautiful fruits and the most beautiful of orchards, to replace it with poppies. Thousands of farmers lost their vineyards that were replaced with poppies.

So poppy came to Afghanistan out of an extreme desperation in the Afghan people, and out of promotion by mafia from outside of Afghanistan. By now, it is an economic reality. As menacing as it is, it is an economic reality.  More than 30 percent of the Afghan economy runs on this. The farmers live on it.

Now, we are ashamed of it. It embarrasses us like hell when, when I’m asked, when, when the international community comes to speak to me about this. Four years ago, I was naive about this. I thought we would go and destroy, eradicate poppies, and next year, they will not be there. And we tried that, but next year they came again. And when I was inaugurated as the elected president of the country two years ago, I asked the Afghan people, stop growing. A lot of them did stop growing, but that was an emotional response to a newly elected president of the country. This year, the economic reality has set in again. Add lack of rain, drought to the country. Poppy is easily grown and easily sold.

MR. RUSSERT: There has been much discussion in the United States that the U.S. took its eye off of Afghanistan, and distracted by Iraq. Could the $300 billion that we have spent in Iraq have been better spent stabilizing Afghanistan and rebuilding Afghanistan?

PRES. KARZAI: Three hundred billion dollars? You give that to Afghanistan, and we’ll be heaven in less than a year.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you need more money for reconstruction?

PRES. KARZAI: We definitely need more money for reconstruction. We’ll be very happy if more money’s given to us for reconstruction. Afghanistan will be—will be a very prosperant country if, if that sort of assistance is given to Afghanistan. With what we have received now, we are already a very good country. Where there were no roads at all four years ago, now we can travel on, on, on paved roads all over the country with schools, with clinics, with, with better life, better economy. And, and if we were to get the kind of money you mentioned, we’ll be the best country in that part of the world.

MR. RUSSERT: Where is...

PRES. KARZAI: And I hope that happens.

MR. RUSSERT: Where is Osama bin Laden?

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