Bush touts Afghanistan as model for Iraq

President George W. Bush yesterday held up progress in Afghanistan as a model for Iraq as he tried to paint the US involvement in the Asian state as a success in his run-up to the November US election.

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai at his side at a White House news conference, Mr Bush cited progress in child health care, women's rights and education as signs Afghanistan had risen "from the ashes of two decades of war and oppression."

A new society was growing up in that country since the 1991 US invasion that ousted the Taliban government and the al Qaeda movement it harboured, he said. "And the same thing's going to happen in Iraq. These aren't easy tasks," he said.

Mr Bush's popularity ratings have fallen steeply because of concerns over instability and killing in Iraq as the United States prepares to hand over control to an Iraqi interim government on June 30.

Mr Karzai is favoured to win a September presidential election in Afghanistan but concerns have mounted about worsening provincial violence and threats from the Taliban and allied Islamic militants.

Democrats say Mr Bush's invasion of Iraq last year diverted military and financial resources from Afghanistan and from the global war against terrorism he declared after the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

An international peacekeeping force provides security for Mr Karzai's fragile government in Kabul, but government control outside the capital is limited with parts of the country in the grip of regional warlords and militant fighters.

During Mr Karzai's visit to Washington, a rocket hit a military base near the US embassy and Nato headquarters in Kabul, wounding an Afghan soldier. A government official was shot dead in a separate incident in Kandahar.

A former Clinton administration official slammed Mr Bush for not proposing new steps to crack down on opium cultivation in Afghanistan, which has grown sharply since the Taliban was ousted. "Heroin is an enormous threat to the national security of this country," said Robert Weiner, who worked in Mr Clinton's office of national drug policy.

But Mr Karzai joined Mr Bush in portraying Afghanistan as a success story, touting economic growth of more than 25 per cent last year and projections this year of growth of 20 per cent.

"This could not have been possible without your help, without America's assistance," Mr Karzai told Mr Bush.

Mr Karzai also defended his talks with regional leaders referred to as warlords.

"First of all, we don't call them warlords. Some of those people are respected leaders of the Afghan resistance," he said. "It's my job to keep stability and peace in Afghanistan. And I will talk to anybody that comes to talk to me about stability and peace and about movement toward democracy."

Mr Karzai made a plea for more US aid, telling lawmakers earlier that democracy would require "sustaining and accelerating the reconstruction of Afghanistan through long-term commitment."