Rumsfeld - U.S. troops to help train new Afghan army

U.S. troops will begin training Afghan army soldiers to bolster security and guard borders in that still-unstable nation, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.

The training will begin in four to six weeks and be led by 125 to 150 members of the U.S. Army's special forces teams.

In a statement, the Pentagon said the training will start with 10-week courses emphasizing "basic soldier skills." More complex training involving a range of units -- from small groups to battalions comprising several hundred soldiers -- will follow.

"Training the Afghan army will serve as a positive step to help ensure that there is a better chance for peace and security in Afghanistan, and that the country is not used as ... a terrorist haven in the future," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who accompanied Rumsfeld at his Pentagon briefing.

Training plans

No additional forces will be sent in. The training will be conducted by troops already in the country when they are not engaged in other tasks, Rumsfeld said.

He added that no decision has been made about how large the Afghan army might eventually be, saying that was a decision to be made by the Afghans.

The United States will ask other governments to contribute money to help pay for the training and to pay individual soldiers. The Bush administration also might consider asking Congress for money to help with the training, the defense secretary said.

So far, British and German members of the international security force in Afghanistan have begun providing basic training for 600 or so Afghans in Kabul.

But thousands of other potential recruits have been waiting, idly and untrained, in tent camps or barracks blocks. So far, most are paid only with a daily plate of onion and potato, although some officers have had meager wages paid by local businessmen. All are so far without uniforms.

"What we've decided to do is to try to get it started, and be helpful with one piece," Rumsfeld said.

The hope is that Afghan officers and noncommissioned officers who have taken part in the U.S. training would then train their own classes of recruits, perhaps as early as year's end, Rumsfeld said.

Fighting among regional Afghan warlords has become a problem in some areas since the Taliban were removed from power, and Rumsfeld has said he believes the key to future stability in the country is the creation of an Afghan army.

The United States has declined to put any military troops into the international security force now in Afghanistan, whose leadership will soon be taken over by Turkey.

All efforts aimed at improving the situation for Afghans, whether it be building roads, setting up schools, or even feeding the country's refugees, depend upon improving the security situation inside Afghanistan, he argued.

The focus of most U.S. troops in the country will continue to be "to track down and try to find ... the senior al-Qaida and Taliban in the country," Rumsfeld said.

Queried about the discovery of what appeared to be an al-Qaida biological weapons lab under construction near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, Myers said that suspicious items have been found at several sites.

Myers said in five or six cases, test swabs were positive for anthrax and possibly the poison ricin, which is derived from castor beans. But the general said the traces were in "such minute amounts" that they did not amount to "conclusive proof" of chemical or biological weapons.

The general said equipment was found, such as driers that could be used to make the deadly anthrax spores airborne, but "not all the equipment you would need was present."

Rumsfeld, asked whether a plan existed for U.S. forces to cross the Afghan-Pakistan border in search of fleeing al-Qaida and Taliban troops, said none existed.

He praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for placing troops along the border, calling it a "very rugged difficult" region.

"He and his forces are working very hard to help us to stop them from coming across and to the extent they come across, stop them and arrest them. And he's done a good deal of that," Rumsfeld said