The State of Afghanistan

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Some of your closest aides are suspected of stealing land, smuggling drugs and running illegal militias. Yet you balk at bringing them to trial.
One of our biggest sources of contention with the international community has been their use of [militias as] private security companies. [That's] one of the reasons for insecurity on our highways. This is something that we do not support, that we are publicly and officially very much against. It is something with which I have called on all members of the international community, on all the ambassadors.

Yet the militia commanders are still in your government as advisers, ministers, even governors.
They are not funded by us. We are against this; we have been clear about this.

Why will the international community not listen to you? Why can you not say "Stop"?
"Stop" is not the solution. I have to run this country. I have to take it forward with all the problems that it has. If someone in the international community is backing the warlords, and I say "Stop," and they don't stop, what is the next option? I tell them to leave this country? Pack up and leave Afghanistan? Take their money away, take their troops away? Then what? Will we be better off? I came to power when there was no government, no institutions, no laws. Six years on, it's not like that. The overall situation is: we act and defend and bring offenders to justice and put them in jail. Even government offenders.

Last week I went to Jowzjan province where I met an 11-year-old girl who had been raped about six months ago. Her family had to pay bribes to pursue the case in the courts. Her sister told me that under the Taliban that man would have been executed. "We want the Taliban back," she said, "because they gave us justice."
The Taliban did provide that sort of justice. They were much better in that way. Yes, that's true.

So you are falling behind in a competition for hearts and minds with a regime that was one of the most horrific in recent history?
Unfortunately, yes.

One reason why the Taliban is gaining ground is because people are rapidly losing faith in your government. They see it as ineffective and corrupt.
I don't think the Afghan people would prefer the Taliban to the current government. They have reduced faith in the government, yes, definitely. But if you ask them if they have an alternative to this government, they will say no. The Taliban will never be in the eyes of the Afghan people an alternative to this government. Corruption is different; this government is doing its best on corruption.

Two years ago you had a governor in Helmand province accused by the British of smuggling drugs: Sher Muhammad Akhunzada. The British forced you to remove him.
Yes, but do we have more drugs now in Helmand, or then?

He was found with nine tons of opium and heroin in his basement.
So what? Now there are hundreds of tons of heroin in basements across Helmand ... Drugs were three times less [under Akhunzada] than they are today. The province was in our hands. Schools were running, women's associations were running, clinics were running, hospitals were running, girls and boys were going to school. There was peace. We removed Akhunzada on the allegation of drug-running, and delivered the province to drug runners, the Taliban, to terrorists, to a threefold increase of drugs and poppy cultivation. To the closing of schools, to women being killed in the street. To complete lawlessness, and complete lack of sovereignty in Helmand for Afghanistan. Which condition is better?

So you are going to let these people ...
You have to let Afghanistan determine its own ways. The methods and ways that are developed in offices in the West don't work here. That is the problem. Somebody sits there behind a desk, gets a few reports from English-speaking Afghans and they say, "Well, this is what we want to do in Afghanistan." And then things go down the drain.

O.K., let's take someone else facing allegations of corruption and drug-manufacturing and smuggling ...
[You mean] my brother [Wali Karzai]. He was accused in 2004, after I refused to allow aerial spraying of poppies [by foreign counternarcotic forces]. My brother can also easily be accused [so as] to put pressure on me. Regardless of that, I took this seriously. I called the Americans, the British and the Europeans, and I repeatedly said, "Anything you have, let me know." And once, twice, three times, four, five, six times — nothing. Allegations have been there, but never have they come to me with proof. Privately they say, "President, we have nothing."

You are expected to run for a second term in office in 2009.
I have a job to complete.

Why do you think you are the best person to complete this job?
I hope there is someone who can do a better job than me. I very much hope so. One of my duties for Afghanistan is to find the next leadership of this country. I am not going to be happy to be known as the only man; that is no good. That is a shortcoming, not a plus. Afghanistan will be a good strong country if it has leaders. That is my goal.