Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that he and others were still weighing options for a peacekeeping force to restore and keep order in Afghanistan if and when the Taliban militia were ousted.
In addition, Powell played down the notion that a massive reconstruction program on the order of the Marshall Plan, which aided Europe in recovering from World War II, would be necessary to rehabilitate Afghanistan.
"On the military force, I don't (yet) have a view on it," he told reporters accompanying him back to Washington from Shanghai where he attended meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meetings.
Powell denied there was a fight between the United States and Europe and the United Nations on the composition of a possible peacekeeping team but did say there was a spirited debate going on about what would be best for Afghanistan.
He outlined three options but did not offer specific support to any one of them except to question the feasibility of one idea, reportedly backed by UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, and France for an all-Afghan peacekeeping operation.
"That seems to be tricky until you've established some form of government and some form of understanding among the various groupings as to how they'll share power and authority," Powell said.
He noted that unless all of Afghanistan's fractious clans and factions had been brought on board, it would be difficult to "really put an army together or a police establishment in place."
Powell appeared to favor one of the two other options or variations on them -- a traditional UN force made up of peacekeepers from around the world or an assemblage of troops from "willing nations" that would go into Afghanistan either under a UN mandate or would work closely with a UN civilian transitional government.
"You can put in something under Blue Helmets, a UN force, or you can try to assemble willing nations who might put in a force, not necessarily under the UN but to work with whatever UN presence is in the region," he said.
But believing that speedy deployment of a formal UN peacekeeping operation would be hindered by the world body's bureaucracy, Washington is reportedly shopping around an idea for an Islamic force led by Turkey.
Turkey is the only country yet to offer troops for such an operation, albeit in a limited fashion, and US and other officials acknowledge that persuading Arab and Muslim nations to contribute to such a force could be difficult.
"It is too early to say what kind of formula is going to be used," Brahimi said on Sunday after talks on the matter last week with US officials, including Powell's special coordinator for Afghanistan, Richard Haass.
Powell said he would be conferring with Haass throughout the upcoming week and insisted that there was no bickering or acrimony in the discussions about Afghanistan's future.
"Right now, it's not that there is a fight going on, it's that we are trying to debate it out, trying to figure out what the right answer is.
"Some reporting last week suggested that we were at odds with Mr Brahimi and the UN, I think a better way to characterize it is that we're looking at alternatives to see what would be best supported," he said.
On rehabilitation assistance for post-Taliban Afghanistan, Powell said it would be a far cry from the massive influx of money required to rebuild the shattered European industrial economy after 1945.
"It isn't a huge Marshall Plan kind of investment," he said. "We're talking about an agrarian society, some extractive industries with gas and oil potential, but a fairly modest investment could work wonders with that" -- Washington, (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
