Afghanistan may be lost forever

A US congressional panel was warned that the Bush Administrations Afghan policy had totally failed and Afghanistan was on its way to be lost forever.

Washington, Oct 5 : A US congressional panel was warned that the Bush Administration's Afghan policy had totally failed and Afghanistan was on its way to be lost forever.

At a panel hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Republican congressman D. Rohrabacher also blamed the Clinton Administration, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for creating the Taliban.

"Let me repeat that the Clinton Administration, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, created the Taliban," he said.

"And during the 1990s, the Clinton Administration stuck with that deal and tried -- and undermined every effort for those of us who were opposed to the Taliban."

Rohrabacher also blamed the ISI and other Pakistani officials for engaging in the drug trade, and claimed that the ISI has been up to their necks in the drug trade for 20 or 30 years now.

The panel's chairman, Congressman David Ackerman, painted a very bleak picture of the situation in Afghanistan, the Dawn reported.

"There is no security in much of the country. The central government's grip does not extend much beyond the environs of Kabul. In the provinces, there is no functioning local government, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime projects that 2007 will be another record year for opium production in Afghanistan," he noted.

ANI