Collins meets new Afghani leader

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan – A nine-member delegation of U.S. senators touring south and central Asia were greeted by interim Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai during a visit Monday night to Bagram Air Base.

Karzai greeted the senators, including Maine Republican Susan Collins, with a broad grin and ushered them into a large tent.

“Welcome to Afghanistan,” said Karzai, who made a point of shaking the hand of each senator as they arrived.

“I used to see you on TV in the U.S.,” Karzai told John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut, both candidates in the 2000 presidential election.

The senators described their talks as cordial and friendly. The delegation responded positively to Karzai’s request that the United States stay involved in the war-torn country.

“The Afghan people are fearful that the United States will now abandon them when there’s so much to be done to rebuild Afghan society,” Collins said afterward.

“Not only is the country experiencing a severe drought, it is facing enormous devastation after years of being ruled by the Taliban,” Collins said.

“We’re going to be here a lot longer than the Taliban,” Lieberman said, referring to the repressive militia that ruled Afghanistan for five years before fleeing under the heat of U.S. airstrikes and ground assaults by Afghan fighters backed by U.S. and British troops.

Karzai was joined by Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Foreign Minister Abdullah and Women’s Affairs Minister Sima Samar.

During a meeting with Samar, Collins said she discussed the status of women after more than a decade of oppression and the denial of basic human rights under the Taliban. She said she was assured that young girls once again will be permitted to attend school and that efforts will be made to fully integrate women into Afghan society. “It may take some time,” Collins said. “I was told there is still some fear.”

The delegation, which had been touring Central Asia, met at the former Soviet air base being used by U.S. and British special forces.

Collins said the delegation’s plane arrived at Bagram in the dark of night with lights off to avoid attracting hostile action and anti-aircraft missiles. “It was very strange and eerie,” she said. “The pilot then did a spiral landing where we descended very quickly from a very high altitude.”

The senators toured the base, meeting and posing for photos in a hangar with about three dozen American soldiers, mostly from the Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

U.S. soldiers stationed at Bagram are living under very primitive conditions, Collins said. And the area where the base is located – about 30 miles north of the capital of Kabul – is riddled with landmines.

But the soldiers’ spirits are high and they believe in their mission, Collins said, adding that she had the opportunity to meet with one Maine resident at the base, Tim MacArthur of Winslow.

The senators left Washington on Thursday for a trip that included scheduled stops in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Oman, Turkey and possibly India. They also were expected to visit U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf.

It is the first delegation of American senators to visit Afghanistan since U.S. military operations began in October against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, which is suspected of orchestrating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In Pakistan, the senators will be meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, with whom they are expected to discuss the war on terrorism as well as the rising tensions between Pakistan and India.

Collins said she is especially concerned about reports that members of al-Qaida may be escaping over the Pakistan border.

“I want to hear what they are doing to go after them,” she said.

Other members of the delegation are Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.; Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; Jack Reed, D-R.I.; Jean Carnahan, D-Mo.; John Edwards, D-N.C.; and Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

David Phinney of States News Service contributed to this report.