WASHINGTON -- President Bush committed $320 million in humanitarian aid to the "poor souls" of Afghanistan Thursday as he and allies from Mexico to Qatar moved ahead with plans against terrorists sheltered by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban. \n"In our anger, we must never forget we're a compassionate people," the president said. \nHundreds of foreign service personnel, integral to Bush's effort to build an international coalition against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, cheered Bush's speech at the State Department. \nFear of a U.S. military strike on the Taliban has chased thousands of destitute Afghan civilians into neighboring Pakistan. As many as 1.5 million Afghans, already weakened by years of drought and civil war, could seek food and refuge in neighboring countries in the coming months, the United Nations estimates. \nBush sought once more to assuage suspicion that his is a campaign against Muslims in general. \n"This is not a war between our world and their world," he said. "It is a war to save the world." \nThe new relief funds, which include $25 million in emergency aid that Bush authorized over the weekend, will go to the United Nations, the Red Cross and other groups providing food and medicine to Afghans and refugees. \n"We will fight evil, but in order to overcome evil, the great goodness of America must come forth and shine forth," Bush said. "And one way to do so is to help the poor souls in Afghanistan."\nThe humanitarian campaign will also include military air-drops of supplies, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters as he rounded up support in the Middle East and Central Asia. \n"We're applying diplomatic pressure from around the world," Bush told Labor Department employees during an afternoon visit there. "I promise you this: I will enforce the doctrine that says if you house the terrorists, you're just as guilty as the terrorists themselves." \nThe State Department is expected to issue its latest list of terrorist organizations Friday. The list is virtually unchanged from the one compiled two years ago, two Bush administration officials said. \nBut its issuance serves as a reminder to Americans it is unlawful to provide money or other material support to the groups under a 1996 law, and U.S. financial institutions must freeze their assets. \nBush met in the Oval Office with Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Arab ruler of Qatar, an oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate that has pledged "to stand by the United States." \nEarlier Thursday, Bush telephoned the emir of Bahrain and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. The president lunched with congressional leaders working on legislative responses to terrorism, and then called Russian President Vladimir Putin. \nOn Friday, Bush meets with Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. He sat down with Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Thursday, outlining the difficulties the Soviet Union had when they sent troops to Afghanistan, with thousands of soldiers killed.
Shevardnadze also made suggestions on a couple of countries in the region that the United States could work with, but Lott would not name those countries. \nIn an effort to encourage Pakistan's crucial support, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously endorsed a bill Thursday to eliminate remaining sanctions against that country. The full Senate and House have yet to act on the question. \nMeanwhile, the State Department's director for policy planning, Richard Haass, met in Rome with Afghanistan's deposed king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, as part of continuing U.S. contacts with Afghan exiles. Zahir, 86, was deposed in 1973 and is seen as a possible figurehead for a post-Taliban government.
