Afghan leader faults US and NATO on war

Life no better since 2001, Karzai says

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's president sharply critiqued the seven-year Afghan war yesterday, complaining that US and NATO troops haven't made life better. The criticism came a day after he accused foreign forces of undermining him with a "parallel government" in the countryside.

The back-to-back barbs aimed at the international community's handling of the fight with the Taliban and the rebuilding of Afghanistan underlined President Hamid Karzai's increasing frustration with a conflict that has gotten bloodier each year.

"We haven't accepted the international community so our lives would get worse. We accepted them so our lives would get better," Karzai said. "We can accept some destruction - even some civilian casualties - if we have hope for a future of security and peace . . . but this [style of] fighting can't be the only way forever."

During a meeting Tuesday with a UN Security Council delegation, Karzai called for the international community to set a timeline for ending the war, although he didn't mention a specific date.

He asked how - given the number of countries involved and the amount of money spent in Afghanistan - "a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, continue to flourish."

The president expanded on that idea yesterday during a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, saying he was not asking for a withdrawal date, but rather a "date for your success."

Karzai then turned to one of his long-standing criticisms of US and NATO military actions: high-powered ground attacks and airstrikes that cause civilian casualties.

He said he visited yesterday with Afghans from a village in Herat province where an Aug. 22 US raid killed at least several dozen civilians. One villager, Karzai said, asked how the president would feel if he had to take his wife and son and flee his home every night for fear it would be hit by an airstrike.

"They get their children and leave their houses and look for a safe place," Karzai said. "Let's imagine that we are those people, suffering from those fears. If our children are being bloodied because of the fighting, we cannot come up with words for it."

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged there are difficulties in Afghanistan, but said she has assured Karzai "that we, too, are concerned about what he's concerned about, which is civilian casualties." She noted the Taliban often attack in civilian areas, making it difficult to avoid the deaths of bystanders.

Rice said that ultimately the Afghans themselves are going to have to defeat the Taliban. "This is not for NATO to do. This is for NATO to do with the Afghan people."

De Hoop Scheffer said NATO is in Afghanistan for the long term.