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US President Shifts to Nation-building in Afghanistan: Report
US President George W. Bush has begun planning how the United States and its coalition partners could help Afghans quickly form a post-Taliban government, the New York Times reported Sunday.
The discussions so far between Bush and his National Security Council have focused on what arrangements should emerge if the Taliban government falls.
These include creating a broad-based coalition government, beginning economic rebuilding and providing a security force that would keep the peace, a senior official told the daily.
The US president has publicly disavowed "nation-building" by the United States, but in the meetings with senior aides and security officials, Bush "has said repeatedly that we don't want to have to deal with a similar threat like the Taliban three years from now," an official told the Times.
In meetings with members of Congress and other leaders, Bush has been quoted as saying that the reconstruction of Afghanistan would cost billions of dollars.
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