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On Visit to Afghanistan, Bush Says Bin Laden Will Be Caught

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 March 2006, 18:00 CST

KABUL, Afghanistan _ Four years after the United States and allies toppled the terrorist-supporting Taliban regime of Afghanistan, President Bush arrived here for his first visit Wednesday to face questions about the still-elusive Osama bin Laden, who has found refuge in the region.

"I am confident he will be brought to justice," Bush said of the fugitive al-Qaida leader during a news conference outside the Afghan presidential palace.

"What's happening is that we've got U.S. forces on the hunt for not only bin Laden but anybody who plots and plans with bin Laden," said Bush, making an unannounced stop at Bagram Air Force Base en route to New Delhi and Islamabad this week. "It's not a matter of if they are captured and brought to justice, but when they're captured and brought to justice."

It's a particularly sensitive question on the president's three-day trip to India and Pakistan, where bin Laden and chief lieutenants have long been suspected of hiding in a renegade region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that has remained resistant to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's campaign to track down terrorists. Bush will meet with Musharraf on Saturday in Islamabad.

Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a 1999 coup and quickly allied with the U.S. in the aftermath of the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, boasts of having captured 700 terrorists in cooperation with the United States. Yet bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, remains the most notorious and elusive of a besieged al-Qaida leadership.

"There are Afghan forces on the hunt, for not only bin Laden but those who plot and plan with him," said Bush, promising to raise the issue on his visit to Pakistan. "We've got Pakistan forces on the hunt. Part of my message to President Musharraf is that it's important we bring these people to justice."

Bush's five-hour stop in Afghanistan _ meeting with President Hamid Karzai and other governmental leaders at the presidential palace, having lunch, holding a news conference, visiting the U.S. embassy and addressing American troops at Bagram Air Force Base _ represented his first visit there. Vice President Dick Cheney and first lady Laura Bush had made separate visits before the president's.

The White House did not announce the visit until Air Force One was en route, a recognition of the security problems inherent in a presidential visit to what remains a war zone.

For Bush, the emergence of a democratic government after the ouster of the Taliban is a showcase for what has become the central theme of his presidency: spreading democracy and defeating tyranny worldwide. Yet unrest in Afghanistan, where the United States still spends nearly $1 billion a month for continued fighting, remains a continuing challenge for both Bush's and Karzai's governments.

"People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan," said Bush, standing alongside Karzai outside the presidential palace, where the leaders fielded a few questions from American and Afghan reporters. "As democracy takes hold, you're inspiring others, and that inspiration will cause others to demand their freedom. And as the world becomes more free, the world will become more peaceful."

Bush, who had vowed to capture bin Laden dead or alive after the terrorist assaults on New York and the Pentagon, faced questions about the failure to capture him from both American and Afghan reporters.

It is not the only contentious question that the president faces during this three-day, heavily guarded visit. He was heading for New Delhi on Wednesday without an agreement between the United States and India to fulfill his administration's promise of supporting a growing civilian nuclear power industry in India.

As part of the agreement announced last summer, India has promised to separate its civilian nuclear power generators from its military nuclear weaponry program.

But the question is how many nuclear reactors will remain within the control of a nation that never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has tested atomic weapons twice _ and as recently as 1998 _ and how many civilian reactors India will yield to the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Bush has been careful in recent days to downplay expectations for a nuclear power agreement.

"Our relationship with India is broader than discussions about energy," Bush said in Afghanistan. "Ours is a strategic relationship ... This is a difficult issue. We'll continue to dialog and work it. Hopefully we can reach an agreement. If not, we'll continue to work on it until we do."

Bush made a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at an already open new U.S. Embassy that he offered as a symbol of commitment to Afghanistan.

"My message to the people of Afghanistan is, take a look at this building," Bush said. " It's a big, solid, permanent structure, which should represent the commitment of the United States of America to your liberty."

Later, at a large recreational building at Bagram, Bush received a rousing welcome from about 500 troops, mostly American. Bush, wearing a blue presidential windbreaker, spoke on a stage with a backdrop of GIs.

"The United States doesn't cut and run," Bush said in a brief speech there, underscoring themes he has been voicing in addresses across the United States.

"The enemy cannot defeat us militarily," he said. "The only thing they can do is to kill innocent lives and try to shake our will. But they don't understand the United States of America. We will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins."

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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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