15 October 2001

Fact Sheet: Humanitarian Aid to the Afghan People

This fact sheet outlines the efforts as of October 15, 2001, to provide relief assistance to the Afghan people while the United States and its allies conduct military operations against targets involving the Al Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban regime which shelters it in Afghanistan.

Humanitarian Aid to Afghans Will Continue

• As the U.S.-led coalition forces maintain their military operations in Afghanistan, the United States presses on with its enhanced humanitarian assistance of the Afghan people inside Afghanistan and in the border areas of neighboring countries.

• President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld have repeatedly emphasized this point, saying that humanitarian aid is another major goal of the U.S. military action to uproot the terrorists and make their sponsors in Afghanistan pay a heavy price. The air strikes, Secretary Rumsfeld has frequently maintained, are designed "to create conditions for sustained military and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan."

• For five nights straight after military operations commenced, teams of two Air Force C-17s have airdropped a total of 275,000 humanitarian daily rations (HDR) packets for Afghans facing starvation, Rumsfeld said October 15.

• Contrary to Taliban disinformation, these packets represent balanced and nourishing meals prepared carefully to provide Afghans with adequate dietary rations, plus medical supplements. Taliban's reported destruction and burning of these humanitarian relief airdrops demonstrate the brutal nature of that regime and its woeful disregard for the survival and wellbeing of its own people.

• As USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios has pointed out, the military operations against Taliban targets and terrorism camps have not impeded the delivery of tons of wheat overland into Afghanistan. "The great bulk of Afghans are not affected by the military operation," he said at a press briefing in Washington on October 11. "The great bulk of Afghans live in rural areas. The rural areas are relatively unaffected by what is happening."

• As soon as the U.S. forces secured dominance of the skies in Afghanistan last week, food deliveries over land were resumed. The World Food Program, the United Nations' relief organization which receives large contributions from the U.S., has moved more than 6,000 tons of food into Afghanistan since September 11. As of this week, food stocks inside Afghanistan will have risen to 12,000 tons - enough to feed 3.4 million people for one week. Additionally, 50,000 tons of wheat are already in the region. Food deliveries will continue, and the international community aims to transport nearly 400,000 tons of food into Afghanistan over the next year.

• USAID Administrator Natsios has stated that great attention is being paid to moving food stores into areas that could soon become inaccessible to delivery trucks as winter weather sets in, specifically to feed nomads in the Hindu Kush mountains.

U.S. Humanitarian Aid to the Afghan People

• The United States has been the single largest donor of humanitarian aid for Afghans for the past several years. In 2000, the United States contributed a total of $113 million in humanitarian aid to Afghans, both inside Afghanistan and in refugee camps in neighboring countries. In 2001, the aid level has already exceeded $184, accounting for some 300,000 tons of American food sent to Afghanistan this year.

• On October 4, President Bush announced a new contribution of $320 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghans. This assistance includes food, medicine, blankets and shelter.

• This assistance is not given to the Taliban or any other faction, but is distributed through the United Nations, and non-government organizations (NGOs). The assistance is distributed in Taliban-controlled and opposition-controlled areas of the country, wherever the need is greatest. As President Bush has said, the Afghan people are not our enemy. Terrorists are our enemy, and the Afghan people have suffered greatly because of the terrorists in their midst.

Humanitarian Aid and the Campaign Against Terrorism

• Just as Americans and citizens of 80 other countries were among the 6,000 victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the Afghan people have been the victims of al-Qaida and the Taliban.

• Millions of Afghans are facing imminent starvation due to four years of extreme drought, to continuing conflict, and to Taliban misrule and oppression.

• But "even as we oppose the brutal Taliban regime," President Bush reaffirmed in his radio weekly address on October 13, "we will oppose their evil with firm justice, and we will answer their hatred with compassion for the Afghan people."