US Aid to Afghanistan Eclipses $117 Million By Scott Hogenson CNSNews.com Executive Editor September 14, 2001

(CNSNews.com) - The United States has given more than $117 million in assistance to Afghanistan so far in Fiscal Year 2001, according to the United States Agency for International Development.

The aid to date includes millions of tax dollars for mostly humanitarian relief both in Afghanistan and in support of Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan. As of July 9, 2001, the total amount of financial assistance was $117,869,525, according to USAID.

International terrorist Osama bin Laden, the man thought to be responsible for masterminding Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, is thought to be taking refuge in Afghanistan.

Earlier Friday, religious leaders of the Taliban called on Muslims around the world to unite against America, as the specter of U.S. retaliation for the September 11 terror attack grows.

Already, the U.S. is negotiating with Pakistan for assistance in launching an American military strike against bin Laden and his cohorts in Afghanistan.

The United States is currently trying to communicate with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban faction. "We have ways of talking with them and we're exploring those ways now," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday.

According to a July Information Bulletin by the USAID, the American assistance has taken the form of humanitarian aid in response to an ongoing drought in the country, as well as assistance for Afghans displaced by continued fighting by the Taliban, which USAID estimates controls 90 percent of the territory in Afghanistan.

The bulletin noted that as of July 9, American aid amounted to more than $14.4 million from USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance; $22.5 million from the agency's Food for Peace program; $61.2 million worth of American wheat through the U.S. Department of Agriculture; $16.4 million through the State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration; $2.8 million for a joint State Department/Department of Defense program to locate and remove land mines; and $569,525 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to fight polio via a United Nations program.

"Two key factors have deepened Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis," the July bulletin noted. "The Taliban made substantial new territorial gains in August and September 2000, including the September 6 capture of Taloqan, which had been a Northern Alliance stronghold as well as the provincial capital of Takhar. Afghanistan has also suffered the effects of a debilitating drought that followed two successive years of inadequate rainfall."

While federal spending for aid to Afghanistan in the current fiscal year spans both the present and previous U.S. administrations, the Bush administration has been responsible for sending on June 17 a five-person Disaster Assistance Response Team to help Afghan refugees in Pakistan, as well as a February 2 disaster declaration for Afghan refugees in Pakistan issued by then U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan William B. Milam.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2001

Answers

guess we can earmark that money for some other type of aid...

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2001