Copyright 2001 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc. St.
Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
December 3, 2001 Monday Five Star Lift
Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 1278 words
HEADLINE:
U.S. WRESTLES WITH NOTION THAT MASSIVE AID CAN STOP TERRORISM; NATION PLEDGES MORE TO FRONT-LINE STATES, BUT LITTLE CHANGE FOR
OTHERS
BYLINE: Jon Sawyer Post-Dispatch
Washington Bureau Chief
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY: In recent weeks, President George
W. Bush has repeatedly pledged to make economic help to the world's poorest
people a key front in the war on terror.
"In our
struggle against hateful groups that exploit poverty and despair," Bush told the
U.N. General Assembly last month, "we must offer an alternative of opportunity
and hope."
That commitment has showed up mostly at the
margins so far, however, with pledges of increased aid to front-line states like
Afghanistan and Pakistan but little change proposed otherwise in U.S. foreign
aid.
The administration has called for no increase in
the foreign operations bill now in conference in Congress. Moreover, when
finance ministers from the world's top donor nations urged a doubling in foreign
aid, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stressed that money alone was not the
answer.
"The world has spent an enormous amount in the
name of development," O'Neill said. "It's not just a matter of wearing our
hearts on our sleeves."
The terrorist attacks on the
United States have unleashed a debate not just on the scale of U.S. aid to the
world's poorest people but also -- and to many participants more importantly --
how that aid is provided.
"Nobody gets the fact that we
can't fight the war on terrorism without substantial increases in foreign aid,"
said Susan Rice, who served as assistant secretary of state for Africa during
President Bill Clinton's administration.
Rice said she
was stunned that no one in either party had moved for significant increases in
the foreign operations budget. The draft bill now in conference between the
House and Senate is set at $15.3 billion, an increase of less than $200 million
in the amount Bush sought before the terrorist attacks.
U.S. development aid, measured as a percentage of gross domestic
product, ranks last among the 22 donor countries belonging to the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development. Last year, the U.S. share was 0.10
percent of GDP - one-seventh of the aid target set by the United Nations and
one-twentieth of the aid that the United States provided Western Europe under
the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Rice said the aid
budget ought to be doubled at least, if the United States is serious about
wanting to "drain the swamp" where terrorists breed.
"Much of Africa is a veritable incubator for the foot soldiers of
terrorism," Rice said in testimony last Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom. "Its poor, overwhelmingly young,
disaffected, unhealthy and undereducated populations often have no stake in
government, no faith in the future and harbor an easily exploitable discontent
with the status quo. . . .
"These are the swamps I
refer to that we must drain," she said. "We must do so for the cold, hard reason
that to do otherwise, we place our national security at further and more
permanent risk."
Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., a
member of the appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, said he
rejected the idea of a link between foreign aid and terrorism.
"The premise that inadequate U.S. aid was the cause of the terrorist
attacks is absolutely wrong," Bond said. "The terrorist hijackers were mostly
from Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries per capita in the Middle East.
Others came from Egypt, one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid.
"Obviously we have to provide some aid," Bond added, "but
how we do it is very important. The best U.S. help we can provide is through
opening up trade and promoting investment. . . . It's the difference between
giving people fish and teaching them how to fish."
Proponents of increased aid say they are focusing on the budget for the
2003 fiscal year, which begins next October. Administration officials are
completing work on the proposal they expect to give Congress in January.
Senators urge increase
Two
senators late last week sent colleagues a letter calling for an increase in
money for international affairs programs, but they did not specify how
much. The letter, co-authored by Sens. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., and Gordon Smith,
R-Ore., notes that the State Department, foreign aid and related programs
received only 1 percent of the federal budget.
Budget
director Mitch Daniels said Friday that the administration was open to increased
spending on foreign aid in next year's budget, particularly where money is
directed at countries identified as staging areas for terrorists.
"The front line will grow," Daniels said at a breakfast
meeting with reporters. "So I think it's quite possible that there will be
additional assistance as part of the war effort."
Sen.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was among those signing the Sarbanes letter. Durbin, a
member of the appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, said that in
his view, foreign aid was a critical complement to the U.S. military war on
terror.
"Whenever there's an international crime
scene, the U.S. military is first on the scene," he said. "We put up the yellow
tape, and we try to catch the wrongdoers. We're called in because we're the best
and we've spent a lot of money to develop that skill. . . .
"But as soon as the criminals are apprehended we leave, even though a
lot of the problems that created the crime are still there. We have to step back
and think about what is it we're going to achieve now - what we're going to do
about the neighborhood that's left behind."
Dividing
the aid pie
The foreign aid bill now emerging from
Congress includes money, for example, for Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. The two
ex-Soviet nations have been criticized for human rights abuses but are now
viewed as important allies in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.
The biggest single gainer in aid so far is Pakistan, a
military dictatorship that was shunned by the United States for most of the past
decade because of human rights violations and its development of nuclear
weapons. Because of its support of the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan is in line
for $600 million in direct economic assistance and for debt relief and other
provisions worth hundreds of millions more.
The lion's
share of aid dollars still goes to Israel, Egypt and Russia. Less than 1 percent
of the total goes to India, the world's most populous democracy.
Congressional advocates have pressed to increase spending on basic education in the foreign operations bill. Total spending in
that category for the entire world, however, is likely to fall short of $200
million.
"I think this is a change-the-world moment,"
David Beckman, president of Bread for the World, told a symposium at the global
development center. Beckman said that his organization, which fights poverty
worldwide, had s een big jumps in membership and donations since the September
attacks.
Yet Beckman acknowledged what many advocates
of foreign aid won't - that improving the lives of poor people in less developed
countries was not simply a matter of writing a bigger U.S. government check.
He said public opinion surveys showed that when Americans
were asked about tangible steps in combating world poverty - building schools,
for example, or immunization programs - a great majority wanted the government
to do more. The same respondents say "No" when asked if they favor increasing
foreign aid.
The paradox reflects an informed
skepticism about foreign aid programs that too often have been used to prop up
allied governments or to benefit American businesses, Beckman said.
"It's not that people are misinformed," Beckman said.
"More effective instruments for the reduction of poverty and hunger: Those are
the goals that the American people really support."
NOTES: AMERICA RESPONDS; Reporter Jon Sawyer:;
E-mail: jsawyer@post-dispatch.com; Phone: 202-298-6880
GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC; (1) Graphic / Chart by POST-DISPATCH - Foreign
aid in 2000:; Who gave and how much; Country Total Percentage
of gross;amount* national product; Denmark 1.66 1.0;Netherlands 3.07
0.82;Sweden 1.81 0.81;Norway 1.26 0.80;Luxembourg
0.12 0.70;Belgium 0.81 0.36;Switzerland 0.89
0.34;France 4.22 0.33;United
Kingdom 4.46
0.31;Finland 0.37 0.31;Ireland 0.24 0.30;Japan
13.05 0.27;Germany 5.03 0.27;Australia 0.99
0.27;New
Zealand 0.12 0.26;Portugal 0.26 0.26;Canada
1.72 0.25;Austria 0.46 0.25;Spain 1.32
0.24;Greece 0.22 0.19;Italy 1.37 0.13;United
States 9.68 0.10;* In
billions of dollars; (2) Graphic / Pie Chart by POST-DISPATCH - U.S. economic
assistance loans and grants 1999; Interregional activities - 36%; Other 115
countries - 24%; Top 15 recipients; Israel - 9%; Egypt - 7%; Russia - 6%;
Ukraine - 2%; Jordan - 2%; Columbia - 2%; Indonesia - 2%; Peru - 2%; Bangladesh
- 2%; Bosnia & Herzegovina - 2%; India - 1%; Korea - 1%; Dominican Republic
- 1%; Bolivia - 1%; Ethiopia - 1%; Honduras - 1%
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