Interview With Afghan President Hamid Karzai
FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria. On the program today, an exclusive interview with Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Over the last year, it's become abundantly clear that the war in Afghanistan is going badly. In the last few weeks, many voices have been heard asking whether this is even a struggle that can be won -- or should be fought. In the story I wrote for Newsweek two weeks ago, we asked on the cover, is this Obama's Vietnam? Others have suggested we should simply pack up and leave. And then there are the specific criticisms. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls it a narco-state. President Obama describes the Kabul government as detached from what is going on around it. Now, there's one person who has not talked publicly about Afghanistan in recent months. It's President Hamid Karzai. The last television interview he gave, back in September, was to me on this program. We are delighted to have him back for an extended, exclusive conversation. So, stick around.</s>ZAKARIA: So, let us begin. President Hamid Karzai joins us from the presidential palace in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Welcome, Mr. President.</s>HAMID KARZAI, PRESIDENT OF AFGHANISTAN: Good to see you. Thank you.</s>ZAKARIA: Mr. President, let me ask you about your dealings. How will you deal with the Obama administration? Because you did get on well with Bush.</s>KARZAI: Oh, President George Bush is a great person. I have a lot of respect for him.</s>ZAKARIA: President Obama says that Karzai is in -- has a bunker mentality. He has said that the Afghan government seems detached from what is happening in the rest of the country.</s>KARZAI: Well, I saw that statement, and I was surprised to see that statement. Perhaps it's because the administration has not yet put itself together. Perhaps they have not been given the information yet. And I hope as they settle down, and as they learn more, we will see better judgment.</s>ZAKARIA: When you hear Barack Obama say the things he said about Afghanistan, what is your reaction? You've met President Obama. Do you think that you can work with him? Do you think he understands the region?</s>KARZAI: I can certainly work with him. I can certainly engage with him very, very, very positively. It's part of what has been said by him during his election campaign. It's part of the things that's been said recently. I consider him a remarkably great person.</s>ZAKARIA: But you don't think he understands Afghanistan.</s>KARZAI: Surely he understands Afghanistan. Surely he's a very intelligent person as well. And given the right reporting by his administration, given the right figures by this administration, he'll figure out very quickly as to how things are in Afghanistan.</s>ZAKARIA: What are the issues? What are the things that you think that cause it?</s>KARZAI: Well, it's -- there's the question of civilian casualties. There's the question of arrests of Afghans. There's the question of home searches. These activities are seriously undermining the confidence of the Afghan people in the joint struggle that we have against terrorism, undermining their hope for the future. It's something that I've raised with my friends in the United States. And we hope to have a solution soon to this. We are talking about it. I have given my word to our friends in the United States -- to Hillary Clinton, to Vice President Joe Biden and to others -- that as soon as Afghanistan is assured that such activity would not take place in Afghanistan, that our homes will be secure, that the conduct of operations will be done together with Afghan forces -- and in consultation with Afghan forces -- the fundamentals will remain very strong between us, and Afghanistan will continue to be a friend, will continue to be an ally. But Afghanistan deserves respect and a better treatment.</s>ZAKARIA: Do you think Barack Obama should send the two to three brigades more of American forces that some people within the government are advocating?</s>KARZAI: What should have happened early on didn't, unfortunately, happen. Now, the country is not in the same mood as it was in 2002. So, any addition of troops must have a purposeful objective that Afghan people would agree with, that any addition of troops should effectively curb terrorism and terrorists crossing into the Afghan side, and that the Afghan people should feel secure. In other words, the war on terrorism -- as I've said many, many times before -- is not in the Afghan villages. So, any addition of troops, if agreed upon between the Afghan government and the U.S. government, must be in order to defeat terrorism and to protect Afghans, and not cause them casualties. So, this is a serious matter. And I think the U.S. government should discuss this with us and evaluate it. And then, upon agreement, we will decide about it.</s>ZAKARIA: Do you mean by that, Mr. President, that any additional troops should really be focused on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, rather than in the heartland of Afghanistan itself?</s>KARZAI: Definitely, the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages. It never was. Afghanistan was the victim of terrorists -- before September 11th, for many, many years, till September 11 occurred. And the world then began to pay attention to Afghanistan -- which was good. And the partnership between the Afghan people and the U.S. and others produced significant results, for us and world security. Now, when -- if there is a deployment, in consultation with the Afghan government, it should be in places where the fight against terrorism gets us a result, where terrorists are, where we see better security -- not in our villages. Definitely not in our villages.</s>ZAKARIA: Let's talk about corruption, Mr. President. There are many reports -- and this is part of the reason that there is negative press about you -- there are many reports that your government is riddled with corruption. There are reports that, while you personally may not have been involved, certain members of your family, your brother, have been deeply involved in corruption. How do you answer those charges?</s>KARZAI: Yes. These charges have been there for the last at least three years, three years and a half. And I'd like to talk about this now, publicly. There were charges in the "New York Times" in 2004, just about a month-and-a-half before the presidential elections in Afghanistan, that my brother was involved in drugs -- or rumored to be involved in drugs. Now, incidentally, Mr. Zakaria, this happened after I had a serious dispute with the U.S. and British ambassadors on a spraying from air on a poppy field in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. I considered that spraying, which was done without the permission of the Afghan government, as a violation of Afghan sovereignty and Afghan airspace. And when I protested to that spraying of chemicals on our country, the next day or the day after that, an article appeared that my brother was involved in drugs. And indeed, I, at that time, did not see the connection. But subsequent to that, when there was an incident of torture in Bagram and report in the press, and when I reacted to that -- again, within a day or two -- there was something again in the "New York Times" about my brother and a connection to drugs. And this kept repeating. Whenever there was a disagreement, this kept repeating. So, my conclusion today is that perhaps it was because of that.</s>ZAKARIA: But let me clarify, because this is a very important point. You are suggesting that, because of political disagreements you have had, where you have objected to U.S. policy, some elements within the U.S. government -- perhaps within the U.S. embassy or in Washington -- have been spreading this rumor. Is that correct?</s>KARZAI: My conclusion is that, yes, this was part of a political pressure tactic, unfortunately. But, well, I understand that, you know. For a country like us, and in a situation that we are in, that's -- we can probably understand it.</s>ZAKARIA: But Mr. President, you're surely not saying that there isn't a problem of major and large-scale corruption in Afghanistan and in the Afghan government. That seems to be beyond doubt.</s>KARZAI: Yes, corruption is there. Sure. Corruption in the Afghan government is as much there as in any other Third World country. This country was completely destroyed. Afghanistan is a...</s>ZAKARIA: You've dropped -- you've dropped on Transparency International's corruption index...</s>KARZAI: Yes, I'm coming to that.</s>ZAKARIA: Mr. President. You've dropped on Transparency International's corruption index by 50 places...</s>KARZAI: I'm coming to that.</s>ZAKARIA: ... in the last year or two.</s>KARZAI: I'm coming to that. I'm coming to that. As any other Third World country. And one like Afghanistan that was completely destroyed by interventions from the Soviet Union, and then the neighbors, and then the subsequent abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew to complete misery and destruction. Daily, we have judges dismissed. Daily we have officials dismissed. Daily we have people imprisoned. We have ministers dismissed. We have governors dismissed. We have governors in prison -- done sentence terms. We have ambassadors dismissed. We have ambassadors held to accountability. It's going on on a daily basis. The problem is that we don't announce it. And that's why it doesn't become a knowledge for those of us in the international community. So, I guess we have to improve on that. But there is serious and systematic work going on in this regard.</s>ZAKARIA: We will be back in a moment with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.