Afghanistan has goodwill but little else

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's new leaders have a lot of goodwill -- but little else.

They didn't even have desks or chairs until the United Nations chipped in $600,000 for basic necessities ahead of their first Cabinet meeting Sunday. The start-up kit included computers, stationery, even paper clips, as well as one vehicle, evidently to be shared by the 29 ministers.

Over the next six months, the interim administration will get an additional $25 million from the United Nations to set in motion the restoration of the judiciary and an enduring system of government.

But that's just the beginning.

The United Nations says it could take billions of dollars to rebuild the nation, a long, arduous task that also will demand the sustained political will of the international community and the commitment of the Afghan leadership.

"What has happened here over the last two decades is an affront to humanity," said Ahmed Fawzi, a spokesman for the U.N special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi.

Fawzi chastised the international community for abandoning Afghanistan, which fought a Western-financed insurgency against the former Soviet Union during the 1980s. Bitter factional fighting followed that led to the repressive Taliban regime, which used brute force to ensure law and order and total compliance to its rule.

"We have neglected Afghanistan for too long," Fawzi said. "We are doing the right thing."

28,000 widows

At a conference to be held in Japan next month, Fawzi said the international community will put together a plan to raise the huge amounts needed to rescue Afghanistan.

The country's coffers are empty. Its infrastructure is in shambles, destroyed by 23 years of conflict. Government employees haven't been paid in more than five months. There are more than 28,000 widows in Kabul alone, more than 30,000 children making a living off the streets of the capital and nearly two-thirds of the city's population dependent on international aid.

A three-year drought has ravaged what war hasn't destroyed. The World Food Program estimates that as many as 4 million could starve.

Education is in tatters, particularly for girls. The Taliban denied them education beyond the age of 8.

Health care also is a mess. Hospitals do not have enough medicine, doctors are underpaid and the new ones are undereducated. Patients have to buy their own medicines from the market. In some hospitals, including the one for Kabul's children, the only heating comes from oil stoves that throw out black smoke.

"We are talking about rebuilding an entire country -- the infrastructure, the roads, hospital education, the army, police," Fawzi said.

At Sunday's meeting, security topped the agenda, but there has been no real game plan unveiled on how to improve it. In rural Afghanistan, the law of the land is in the hands of tribal leaders, former and present-day Taliban and bandits.