THE US: The US will today be asked to contribute to the British-led UN-mandated peacekeeping force in Afghanistan by the country's interim leader, Mr Hamid Karzai, who arrived in Washington yesterday for a series of meetings with President Bush and members of the Administration.
Mr Karzai, who yesterday addressed a meeting of Afghan-Americans in Georgetown University, is expected also to press the case for what his foreign minister, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, has called a "prolonged relationship" with the US. The visit is the first by an Afghan leader in 39 years and has been described in Washington as "bringing Afghanistan back into the fold". Mr Karzai is Mr Bush's guest at tomorrow's State of the Union address in which he will no doubt feature prominently.
Mr Karzai will also want to discuss US economic aid and support in training the country's new, and extremely raw, army. Last week at the international donors' conference in Tokyo, Kabul received commitments to some $4.5 billion in reconstruction aid.
The interim government is concerned to beef up the peacekeeping force and see its remit extended beyond Kabul to break the local security strangleholds of the country's many powerful warlords.
Last week, a senior UN official backed the request by calling for an expansion of the force to 30,000 from its current 2,500.
"It's like the Wild West," Mr Bernd McConnell, of the US Agency for International Development, told the Washington Post. "It's dangerous and in some ways getting more dangerous. There has to be a secure environment to allow the rebirth of the health department, a rebirth of the school system." The Administration, however, remains adamantly opposed to further long-term engagement in the country beyond the current search for leading al-Qaeda members.
Meanwhile, as the Secretary of Defence, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, visited the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay to inspect conditions there, it emerged that the Administration is divided over the status of the prisoners.
A leaked memo from the White House counsel, Mr Al Gonzales, makes clear that the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, wants the President to reconsider his decision not to apply the Geneva Convention to the prisoners.
Mr Powell is understood to share the view that the prisoners are "unlawful combatants" and not "prisoners of war" under the terms of the convention, but wants that status confirmed by a "competent tribunal" as provided for in the convention.
The Geneva rules provide that if there is doubt over a prisoner's status "such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal".
Mr Powell is opposed by others in the Administration such as Mr Gonzales and Vice-President Dick Cheney who argue that there is no doubt about the status - the US is in a unique situation because the prisoners are seen as terrorists and not regular combatants, and therefore the Geneva Convention would not apply.
While the two sides agree that prisoners should be treated humanely and both want to continue their interrogation, the dispute reflects an ongoing difference between multilateralists and unilateralists in perceptions about the importance of international treaties and the international rule of law.
Mr Powell is said to believe that much of the international criticism of the US could be met without affecting the interrogation process by formally acknowledging that the conventions do apply. He is also said to be concerned about the precedent being set for the treatment of US soldiers captured overseas.
Reuters reports:
Two German frigates arrived in Djibouti yesterday as part of a convoy of three intended to help patrol sea lanes from the Red Sea to the Gulf in support of the US anti-terror campaign.
It is the biggest movement of the German fleet since the second World War, according to a German navy spokesman, Mr Wolfgang Jungman.
