U.S. Soldiers at memorial service in hangar
Music
CORCORAN: They gather in a bullet-ridden hangar in Afghanistan. America's "Generation X" Army, farewells the fallen with a video clip and a soundtrack from the movie "Gladiator".Two young soldiers, the latest casualties in a war the US Administration has declared all but over.
CHAPLAIN: Make us all aware of the brevity of life and the need to live it with a noble purpose. Keep us this hour of our need and enable us to find sufficient strength. Amen.
Karzai walks surrounded by bodyguards
CORCORAN: Sharing that noble purpose is Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai a man with one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Every morning, as he strides to work across his Palace compound, he is surrounded by a flying wedge of American bodyguards, watched over by American snipers. But even here in the relative safety of the Presidential Palace, he knows each step could be his last.
In the post Taliban Afghanistan, politics remains a deadly business. In the past 12 months, a Vice President and a cabinet minister have both been murdered and President Karzai himself narrowly escaped assassination.
Karzai
HAMID KARZAI: It's not my nature to see risk. I'm an optimist, maybe too much of an optimist, but I am that kind of a person. I just do things and work and have a permanent hope that things will go all right. So far they have gone all right for me and in the work I did for Afghanistan has produced a result for this country and I will go on regardless of the threats. I'm not aware of them.
Captured Taliban/U.S. Soldiers
CORCORAN: The most immediate threat comes from a re-invigorated Taliban. The Taliban were behind the Kandahar assassination attempt and these captured Taliban fighters are part of a new guerrilla campaign against American troops. They're distancing themselves from Al Qaeda and are now teaming up with renegade Afghan warlords, launching attacks from sanctuaries across the border in neighbouring Pakistan.
COLONEL ROGER KING: I imagine there is a measure of frustration among the soldiers who are out there
Col. King who see the rockets fly toward them. They believe that the people who shot them are then going back across the border where, in many instances, they're beyond their reach and they would really like, I think, to be able to pick up the telephone and call the Pakistani forces and say they just crossed at this point, go get 'em and have something happen.
Karzai walks surround by bodyguards
CORCORAN: If they can destabilise or kill Karzai the very symbol of the new Afghanistan -- the Taliban know the country could again slide into anarchy.
HAMID KARZAI: These are very, very inhuman, brutal terrorists that are coming from across the border,
KarzaiSuper: Hamid KarzaiPresident, Afghanistan so we will definitely have to get rid of them, stop them, eliminate them.
Reconstruction of Kabul Music
CORCORAN: The Taliban also know that without security there can be no meaningful reconstruction. Beyond the palace walls, the capital Kabul is rising from the rubble - the reconstruction effort protected by a 5,000 strong international security force but the peacekeepers' mandate stops at the city limits and Afghans outside Kabul have seen precious little security or rebuilding.
Karzai walks Stung by criticism that he's little more than the Mayor of Kabul, besieged in his fortress, the President decrees that if he can't get to the people, the people shall come to him.
HAMID KARZAI: What I like is to go to people, to the markets, to the shops and mingle around.
Karzai That has become a little difficult and that I miss.
Tribal men line up to see Karzai
CORCORAN: It's essential for Hamid Karzai's political survival lobbying tribal groups to support a draft constitution and national elections slated for next year. But such grassroots politicking is a security nightmare.
Security at Palace Karzai is Washington's anointed nation-builder.
US SECURITY OFFICER: [Talking to bewildered Afghan bodyguard] You dont come out before the President, you come out behind the President!
Karzai at meal
CORCORAN: And the Americans dont trust any one faction with the President's life so U.S. State Department security experts are now urgently training up replacement Afghan bodyguards. Having a private army of foreigners guarding the President damages Karzai's credibility in the eyes of many Afghans but at least he's still alive. Karzai's own father, a Kandahari tribal leader, was murdered by the Taliban.
Col. KingSuper: Col. Roger KingU.S. Military Spokesman
COLONEL ROGER KING: I think he's a very brave man.
We call Afghanistan a combat zone. I think anyone in Afghanistan has a certain element of risk in his life. President Karzai probably has more elements of risk than others here.
Karzai walks
CORCORAN: Amid grey suits of international diplomacy, 45-year-old Karzai cuts a colourful figure with his chic nationalist dress and informal manner.
National Security Council meeting
KARZAI: Ill put my hat on. I look better with a hat on than with a bald head. Ah, now t hats better. So what do we have? What reports do you have, Minister of Interior?
CORCORAN: He's called a meeting of his national security council. A different crisis is brewing on what is a disputed border. Not Taliban this time, but Pakistani frontier troops who've marched five kilometres into Afghan territory, seizing the village of Gulam Khan. Already there's been heavy fighting.
HAMID KARZAI [Talking to Interior Minister]: So what's the situation on Gulam Khan?
MINISTER: There's a stand off over there. From that side I dont know, but from our side, there are sufficient troops. The Chief of Security of Khost told me.
Karzai leaves in motorcade
CORCORAN: When President Karzai leaves the Palace, his movements are heralded by prowling Apache gunships. The heavily armed motorcade sweeps into Kabul airport, his American bodyguards are taking no chances. Today he's off to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad for urgent talks on border security.
Karzai on plane
The President is firmly focussed on the job at hand a critical meeting with Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf.
CORCORAN: [Question put to Karzai] Sir can I just ask your relationship with General Musharraf, how would you describe it?
HAMID KARZAI: Very good relationship. I trust him, we're friends, and I'm glad that I'm going to visit him.
Karzai arrives in Pakistan CORCORAN: Despite the red carpet reception, many Afghans ask with friends like Pakistan, who needs enemies?
Karzai briefly joined the Taliban in the early 90s but soon left after becoming suspicious of Pakistan's involvement. The Taliban only held power through the covert support of Pakistan's military the same generals who now greet Karzai like an old friend.
Musharraf and Karzai After September 11, General Musharraf abandoned the Taliban regime and their troublesome Al Qaeda guests to publicly support Washington's war on terror but according to one of the world's leading analysts of the Taliban, Musharraf is playing a double game detaining more than 400 Al Qaeda suspects on behalf of the Americans while secretly helping the Taliban to undermine Karzai.
AHMED RASHID: The intelligence agencies have given freedom of movement, freedom of access across the border to the Taliban. They have clearly linked them up with many of the extremist groups in Pakistan who have been fighting in Kashmir and of course did fight for the Taliban.
Musharraf and Karzai
CORCORAN: The smiles and firm handshakes of the Pakistani Generals conceal a long held desire to control their chaotic neighbour and they view Hamid Karzai as part of the problem a man too readily influenced by Pakistan's enemies India, Russia and Iran.
AHMED RASHID: Unfortunately I think the strategic impulse form the Pakistan Army has not changed very much to what it was before 9/11 when Pakistan was supporting the Taliban.
Musharraf and Karzai
CORCORAN: General Musharraf holds a winning hand. For as long as he wages war on Al Qaeda, Washington won't intervene -- even if that infuriates American commanders in Afghanistan.
RashidSuper: Ahmed RashidAnalyst
AHMED RASHID: The officers in the field are very, very upset because they see the Taliban coming in from Pakistan and they see the Pakistani troops on the border literally opening up a gap for them to come in and then to go back. So the American troops on the ground, I think, have been lobbying the Pentagon very hard but the Pentagon have not been wanting to kind of upset the relationship with Pakistan because Pakistan has been providing, arresting Al Qaeda elements.
Musharraf and Karzai
CORCORAN: Behind closed doors, General Musharraf rejects a demand from President Karzai to hand over Taliban leaders living in Pakistan. But in public, everyone is sticking to the diplomatic script. Now is not the time to address any awkward realities.
General Pervez Musharraf President, Pakistan
Musharraf makes statement to pressSuper:
GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: And we will make all efforts, adopt all possible methods of sealing or denying movement across the borders to those who carry out terrorist acts, either in Afghanistan or on our side.
CORCORAN: Who are these people these days sir, who are these people conducting these acts across the border?
HAMID KARZAI: You are taking chances away from other people any more questions?
Haqqania Madrassa
CORCORAN: Just a couple of hours drive from the Afghan border in Pakistan lies a school that calls itself the Harvard of Fundamentalist Islam the Haqqania Madrassa, an institution that claims 90 percent of the Taliban leadership as graduates.
Afghan Taliban
AFGHAN TALIBAN: My brother and also another student -- another best comrade -- right now in Guantanamo Air Base -- and also another place, we would like to struggle -- to fight with the American people. Okay?
Students at Madrassa
CORCORAN: The word Taliban means students and nearly half the 2,500 who study here are Afghans, many of them veteran fighters. They've found a safe haven in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where last October local Islamic fundamentalist parties took power in provincial elections and now encourage the Taliban to depose Karzai and his American backers.
Afghan Taliban
AFGHAN TALIBAN: The enemy of Islam is George W Bush. We dont like compromise with the American government. Our struggle will continue until the day of the judgement. We are every time ready to lay down our lives for the sake of Islam.
Madrassa students
CORCORAN: Pakistan's military has a long history of co-opting fundamentalists to fight in Afghanistan to wage Jihad or holy war while the state officially denies involvement and it's in no one's interests to spell it all out to a western journalist.
AFGHAN TALIBAN [Argue amongst themselves in front of Corcoran]: Stop! Stop! dont talk.
AFGHAN TALIBAN: But the whole world knows about it it's a very good thing. When we graduate from here, we will go and fight against the Americans too!
U.S. Soldiers in helicopters Music
CORCORAN: Three days after the smooth reassurances of the Karzai-Musharraf meeting, we are flying to the American outposts on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. While we are still in the air, a US patrol is ambushed. Two Americans are killed and four wounded. Gunships set off to hunt down the attackers who melt away before the US can bring its decisive air power to bear. With almost daily rocket attacks on their posts the Americans prepare to strike back.
There's still an 11,500 strong U.S. led force here for the sole purpose of hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda. According to American intelligence, the Taliban are remarkably well equipped with body armour, night vision equipment and surface to air missiles.
Briefing
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: Positively ID what you're shooting, especially those of you with the bigger weapons.
CORCORAN: The orders from Captain Mike Gonzalez are clear.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: [Briefing] You give them that warning shot, fire one across the bow, one over the hood, whatever okay, but if it keeps coming, alright, lay waste into it, make pink mist of the truck.
CORCORAN: The plan calls for hundreds of troops of the 82nd Airborne to sweep border villages for weapons caches and militants.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: [Briefing] Talk to those village elders, let them know what we're going to do, blah, blah, blah.
CORCORAN: Top of the hit list deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar still thought to be hiding in the region. His ability to evade capture a growing embarrassment for the Americans.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: [Briefing] Just ensure you know what you're shooting at.
CORCORAN: Notably absent from this briefing are American's Afghan allies. They won't state it publicly, but US officers simply dont trust the Afghan army or pro-Karzai militias.
CORCORAN: How do you distinguish friend from foe?
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: That's a good question because it's hard. A lot of times you dont know who your friend is and who your foe is. It's kind of frustrating sometimes.
Briefing
GONZALEZ: Dont get complacent. That memorial service the other day is a grim and harsh reminder of how challenging and how harsh this environment is over here.
Soldiers head out on patrol into dust storm
CORCORAN: They head out at dusk, but even with all their high tech weaponry there are still some things the world's most powerful army can't conquer. A blinding dust storm becomes the great equaliser.
Turret Gunner
TURRET GUNNER: Right now the dust storm is pretty hectic. It makes a lot of the leadership and the gunners a little nervous because we're use to stand-off of up to 2,000 metres and now that's been reduced to 25 so it'd be hard to spot an ambush or any enemy contact.
Convoy
CORCORAN: As the convoy creeps towards the target villages in darkness, there's a burst of machinegun fire from a nearby ridge.
RADIO: Were they shooting at anything in particular that you can tell?
VEHICLE COMMANDER: They appear to be shooting straight across the ground a good level above the ground over.
CORCORAN: It turns out to be an Afghan military post, spooked by the unannounced arrival of the Americans. The element of surprise is lost. At dawn, the patrol enters the first village.
Parker talking to villagers
CAPTAIN PARKER [talking to villagers]: We're going to search the village now to tell us if they have any weapons. We have a female soldier, she'll search the rooms where they have females. We won't make bad eyes at the women, we won't steal things, we won't break things, we won't, we won't bother with Islam.
Soldiers enter village and conduct search
CORCORAN: This deeply conservative region of Afghanistan is not only Hamid Karzai's home, it's also the Taliban heartland.
To many of these people, the Taliban are heroes freedom fighters confronting American occupiers.Not so long ago these men would have killed any outsider who entered family compounds and gazed upon their women.
OLD AFGHANI MAN: This soldier woman should remove all those things from her body,because our women are scared of her! They wont let her near them!
US SOLDIER: Dont be scared. Don't be scared. Tell him I'll keep him safe.
CORCORAN: After 25 years of war, the arrival of soldiers usually means bad news a few villagers are clearly traumatised by the presence of the Americans.
US SOLDIER: Nobodys in trouble.
WOMAN: This is the only son I have.
U.S. SOLDIER: Dont worry, they wont hurt him. Just go and sit down.
WOMAN: This is the only one.
Soldiers search house
CORCORAN: For two days, locals are questioned and houses up-ended in an ultimately fruitless search for weapons and militants. In one home, New York's Twin Towers takes pride of place. The irony lost on all in the room as the search operation grinds on.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: A lot of times these people will tell you a lot of things you dont expect them to if you show them a little bit of respect. Just because these people are simple doesnt mean they're stupid. We are the big boys in town right now and it's one, either talk to us or dont talk to us and dont get our help, because we're also here to help the people.
U.S. Soldiers conduct search
CORCORAN: No matter how well-intentioned the Americans, their attempts to win hearts and minds often fail. As the medics discover when they try to convince the parents of a boy with a badly cut foot that he needs to be hospitalised.
U.S. Soldiers with Injured boy and family
U.S. SOLDIER: They have to bring him to Kandahar if they want him to keep his foot.
TRANSLATOR: I told him what you said but he says that he is not ready to go with them.
US SOLDIER: Tell him again.
US SOLDIER: Does mum know he will lose his foot if he doesnt go? Tell her. The infection is very bad, it will get worse. He may lose his foot if he does not go to the hospital.
CORCORAN: The offer of medical help is rejected. These people have seen too many regime changes in recent years to feel confident yet of throwing in their lot with Hamid Karzai's sponsors.
Military band, National Army
Not so surprising when you see the men the President hopes will ultimately bring security to all Afghans. Parading by the Palace walls is the new National Army. Plagued by desertions, this western-trained force so far only numbers 4,000. It's little more than a comic opera palace guard and no replacement for the vast private armies of the warlords totalling some 100,000 men.
HAMID KARZAI: Afghanistan has no options there. We either have a national army, we either build it and disarm the irregular militia groups or Afghanistan will be chaotic and the Afghan people dont want that.
Karzai meets with warlords
CORCORAN: Determined to force the issue, President Karzai calls a crucial meeting. It's a who's who of the ruling warlords. There's blood on every hand Karzai shakes. During the past quarter century, these men have fought the Russians, the Taliban and each other. Now they are supposed to help Hamid Karzai rebuild the country.
AHMED RASHID: Most of the people in that room are probably more powerful than he is. They have larger armies, they have more loyalty and larger populations under their control than probably Hamid Karzai does.
CORCORAN: They are his reluctant constituency forced to listen while he calls on them to lay down their weapons, disband their militias and submit to Kabul's rule.
Karzai addresses warlords
HAMID KARZAI: I dont know who of you speaks positive or negatively.
CORCORAN: Keeping discreetly to the background is the real power in this room the Americans who stage manage the whole show.
AHMED RASHID: The B-52s are still up there
Rashid and the Afghan commanders know that and they know that if any of them actually start resisting Kabul the B-52s will come and take them out.
Warlords at lunch
CORCORAN: But self-interest rules here. The warlords have already stacked Karzai's new defence ministry with more than 200 freshly minted generals whose greatest challenge appears to be the buffet. In once sense the Taliban have already scored a subtle victory, for none of these warlords will seriously contemplate laying down their arms while ever attacks can be launched from Pakistan.
KarimiSuper: Maj-General Sher KarimiAfghan National ArmyGENERAL SHER KARIMI: They do acts of terrorism, they do acts of insurgency and run away back to Pakistan.
CORCORAN: Who's supporting them, who's backing them now?
GENERAL SHER KARIMI: Well, Pakistan is supporting them it's very clear. If Pakistan is not supporting them, then why don't they contend them? Why don't they secure the border?
Music
Children
CORCORAN: The Taliban also confound efforts on the hearts and minds front. Ordinary Afghans have seen scant evidence of the $5 billion in reconstruction aid promised by the west and are unlikely to while the security situation remains unstable.
AHMED RASHID: I really think now crunch time is coming. The Americans and the British and the United Nations, they have to sit down and reconfigure the issue of security. If they dont, I see the situation in Afghanistan getting much worse.
CORCORAN: What would happen if you left tomorrow?
Col. KingSuper: Col. Roger KingU.S. Military Spokesman COLONEL ROGER KING: I wouldn't want to think about it. There'd be a variety of options. One option would be that this place would just continue to go along as if there were coalition forces here and eventually it would all work out. Okay that's a possibility. There's another possibility that it would degenerate into chaos and I wouldn't want to put a bet on either one of them.
Music
Rumsfeld press briefing
CORCORAN: In the 18 months since the U.S. officially deposed the Taliban, fighting has claimed more than 2,000 lives here yet US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims victory.
DONALD RUMSFELD: We're at a point where we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilisation and reconstruction and the bulk of this country today is permissive it's secure.
U.S. Troops fire salute
CORCORAN: Since this proclamation in May, Afghan government troops have begun dumping the bodies of Taliban fighters they've killed back over the border with Pakistan. A not so subtle message to Islamabad that neither Hamid Karzai or the US Administration seems willing to deliver. Viewed from Washington, Afghanistan is a success story in nation building. The only problem is the closer you get to the frontline in this so-called "War on Terror", the more blurred that vision becomes.
Credits
Karzais War Reporter: Mark Corcoran
Camera: Ron Foley
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Producer: Chris Clark
Music
CORCORAN: They gather in a bullet-ridden hangar in Afghanistan. America's "Generation X" Army, farewells the fallen with a video clip and a soundtrack from the movie "Gladiator".Two young soldiers, the latest casualties in a war the US Administration has declared all but over.
CHAPLAIN: Make us all aware of the brevity of life and the need to live it with a noble purpose. Keep us this hour of our need and enable us to find sufficient strength. Amen.
Karzai walks surrounded by bodyguards
CORCORAN: Sharing that noble purpose is Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai a man with one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Every morning, as he strides to work across his Palace compound, he is surrounded by a flying wedge of American bodyguards, watched over by American snipers. But even here in the relative safety of the Presidential Palace, he knows each step could be his last.
In the post Taliban Afghanistan, politics remains a deadly business. In the past 12 months, a Vice President and a cabinet minister have both been murdered and President Karzai himself narrowly escaped assassination.
Karzai
HAMID KARZAI: It's not my nature to see risk. I'm an optimist, maybe too much of an optimist, but I am that kind of a person. I just do things and work and have a permanent hope that things will go all right. So far they have gone all right for me and in the work I did for Afghanistan has produced a result for this country and I will go on regardless of the threats. I'm not aware of them.
Captured Taliban/U.S. Soldiers
CORCORAN: The most immediate threat comes from a re-invigorated Taliban. The Taliban were behind the Kandahar assassination attempt and these captured Taliban fighters are part of a new guerrilla campaign against American troops. They're distancing themselves from Al Qaeda and are now teaming up with renegade Afghan warlords, launching attacks from sanctuaries across the border in neighbouring Pakistan.
COLONEL ROGER KING: I imagine there is a measure of frustration among the soldiers who are out there
Col. King who see the rockets fly toward them. They believe that the people who shot them are then going back across the border where, in many instances, they're beyond their reach and they would really like, I think, to be able to pick up the telephone and call the Pakistani forces and say they just crossed at this point, go get 'em and have something happen.
Karzai walks surround by bodyguards
CORCORAN: If they can destabilise or kill Karzai the very symbol of the new Afghanistan -- the Taliban know the country could again slide into anarchy.
HAMID KARZAI: These are very, very inhuman, brutal terrorists that are coming from across the border,
KarzaiSuper: Hamid KarzaiPresident, Afghanistan so we will definitely have to get rid of them, stop them, eliminate them.
Reconstruction of Kabul Music
CORCORAN: The Taliban also know that without security there can be no meaningful reconstruction. Beyond the palace walls, the capital Kabul is rising from the rubble - the reconstruction effort protected by a 5,000 strong international security force but the peacekeepers' mandate stops at the city limits and Afghans outside Kabul have seen precious little security or rebuilding.
Karzai walks Stung by criticism that he's little more than the Mayor of Kabul, besieged in his fortress, the President decrees that if he can't get to the people, the people shall come to him.
HAMID KARZAI: What I like is to go to people, to the markets, to the shops and mingle around.
Karzai That has become a little difficult and that I miss.
Tribal men line up to see Karzai
CORCORAN: It's essential for Hamid Karzai's political survival lobbying tribal groups to support a draft constitution and national elections slated for next year. But such grassroots politicking is a security nightmare.
Security at Palace Karzai is Washington's anointed nation-builder.
US SECURITY OFFICER: [Talking to bewildered Afghan bodyguard] You dont come out before the President, you come out behind the President!
Karzai at meal
CORCORAN: And the Americans dont trust any one faction with the President's life so U.S. State Department security experts are now urgently training up replacement Afghan bodyguards. Having a private army of foreigners guarding the President damages Karzai's credibility in the eyes of many Afghans but at least he's still alive. Karzai's own father, a Kandahari tribal leader, was murdered by the Taliban.
Col. KingSuper: Col. Roger KingU.S. Military Spokesman
COLONEL ROGER KING: I think he's a very brave man.
We call Afghanistan a combat zone. I think anyone in Afghanistan has a certain element of risk in his life. President Karzai probably has more elements of risk than others here.
Karzai walks
CORCORAN: Amid grey suits of international diplomacy, 45-year-old Karzai cuts a colourful figure with his chic nationalist dress and informal manner.
National Security Council meeting
KARZAI: Ill put my hat on. I look better with a hat on than with a bald head. Ah, now t hats better. So what do we have? What reports do you have, Minister of Interior?
CORCORAN: He's called a meeting of his national security council. A different crisis is brewing on what is a disputed border. Not Taliban this time, but Pakistani frontier troops who've marched five kilometres into Afghan territory, seizing the village of Gulam Khan. Already there's been heavy fighting.
HAMID KARZAI [Talking to Interior Minister]: So what's the situation on Gulam Khan?
MINISTER: There's a stand off over there. From that side I dont know, but from our side, there are sufficient troops. The Chief of Security of Khost told me.
Karzai leaves in motorcade
CORCORAN: When President Karzai leaves the Palace, his movements are heralded by prowling Apache gunships. The heavily armed motorcade sweeps into Kabul airport, his American bodyguards are taking no chances. Today he's off to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad for urgent talks on border security.
Karzai on plane
The President is firmly focussed on the job at hand a critical meeting with Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf.
CORCORAN: [Question put to Karzai] Sir can I just ask your relationship with General Musharraf, how would you describe it?
HAMID KARZAI: Very good relationship. I trust him, we're friends, and I'm glad that I'm going to visit him.
Karzai arrives in Pakistan CORCORAN: Despite the red carpet reception, many Afghans ask with friends like Pakistan, who needs enemies?
Karzai briefly joined the Taliban in the early 90s but soon left after becoming suspicious of Pakistan's involvement. The Taliban only held power through the covert support of Pakistan's military the same generals who now greet Karzai like an old friend.
Musharraf and Karzai After September 11, General Musharraf abandoned the Taliban regime and their troublesome Al Qaeda guests to publicly support Washington's war on terror but according to one of the world's leading analysts of the Taliban, Musharraf is playing a double game detaining more than 400 Al Qaeda suspects on behalf of the Americans while secretly helping the Taliban to undermine Karzai.
AHMED RASHID: The intelligence agencies have given freedom of movement, freedom of access across the border to the Taliban. They have clearly linked them up with many of the extremist groups in Pakistan who have been fighting in Kashmir and of course did fight for the Taliban.
Musharraf and Karzai
CORCORAN: The smiles and firm handshakes of the Pakistani Generals conceal a long held desire to control their chaotic neighbour and they view Hamid Karzai as part of the problem a man too readily influenced by Pakistan's enemies India, Russia and Iran.
AHMED RASHID: Unfortunately I think the strategic impulse form the Pakistan Army has not changed very much to what it was before 9/11 when Pakistan was supporting the Taliban.
Musharraf and Karzai
CORCORAN: General Musharraf holds a winning hand. For as long as he wages war on Al Qaeda, Washington won't intervene -- even if that infuriates American commanders in Afghanistan.
RashidSuper: Ahmed RashidAnalyst
AHMED RASHID: The officers in the field are very, very upset because they see the Taliban coming in from Pakistan and they see the Pakistani troops on the border literally opening up a gap for them to come in and then to go back. So the American troops on the ground, I think, have been lobbying the Pentagon very hard but the Pentagon have not been wanting to kind of upset the relationship with Pakistan because Pakistan has been providing, arresting Al Qaeda elements.
Musharraf and Karzai
CORCORAN: Behind closed doors, General Musharraf rejects a demand from President Karzai to hand over Taliban leaders living in Pakistan. But in public, everyone is sticking to the diplomatic script. Now is not the time to address any awkward realities.
General Pervez Musharraf President, Pakistan
Musharraf makes statement to pressSuper:
GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: And we will make all efforts, adopt all possible methods of sealing or denying movement across the borders to those who carry out terrorist acts, either in Afghanistan or on our side.
CORCORAN: Who are these people these days sir, who are these people conducting these acts across the border?
HAMID KARZAI: You are taking chances away from other people any more questions?
Haqqania Madrassa
CORCORAN: Just a couple of hours drive from the Afghan border in Pakistan lies a school that calls itself the Harvard of Fundamentalist Islam the Haqqania Madrassa, an institution that claims 90 percent of the Taliban leadership as graduates.
Afghan Taliban
AFGHAN TALIBAN: My brother and also another student -- another best comrade -- right now in Guantanamo Air Base -- and also another place, we would like to struggle -- to fight with the American people. Okay?
Students at Madrassa
CORCORAN: The word Taliban means students and nearly half the 2,500 who study here are Afghans, many of them veteran fighters. They've found a safe haven in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where last October local Islamic fundamentalist parties took power in provincial elections and now encourage the Taliban to depose Karzai and his American backers.
Afghan Taliban
AFGHAN TALIBAN: The enemy of Islam is George W Bush. We dont like compromise with the American government. Our struggle will continue until the day of the judgement. We are every time ready to lay down our lives for the sake of Islam.
Madrassa students
CORCORAN: Pakistan's military has a long history of co-opting fundamentalists to fight in Afghanistan to wage Jihad or holy war while the state officially denies involvement and it's in no one's interests to spell it all out to a western journalist.
AFGHAN TALIBAN [Argue amongst themselves in front of Corcoran]: Stop! Stop! dont talk.
AFGHAN TALIBAN: But the whole world knows about it it's a very good thing. When we graduate from here, we will go and fight against the Americans too!
U.S. Soldiers in helicopters Music
CORCORAN: Three days after the smooth reassurances of the Karzai-Musharraf meeting, we are flying to the American outposts on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. While we are still in the air, a US patrol is ambushed. Two Americans are killed and four wounded. Gunships set off to hunt down the attackers who melt away before the US can bring its decisive air power to bear. With almost daily rocket attacks on their posts the Americans prepare to strike back.
There's still an 11,500 strong U.S. led force here for the sole purpose of hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda. According to American intelligence, the Taliban are remarkably well equipped with body armour, night vision equipment and surface to air missiles.
Briefing
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: Positively ID what you're shooting, especially those of you with the bigger weapons.
CORCORAN: The orders from Captain Mike Gonzalez are clear.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: [Briefing] You give them that warning shot, fire one across the bow, one over the hood, whatever okay, but if it keeps coming, alright, lay waste into it, make pink mist of the truck.
CORCORAN: The plan calls for hundreds of troops of the 82nd Airborne to sweep border villages for weapons caches and militants.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: [Briefing] Talk to those village elders, let them know what we're going to do, blah, blah, blah.
CORCORAN: Top of the hit list deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar still thought to be hiding in the region. His ability to evade capture a growing embarrassment for the Americans.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: [Briefing] Just ensure you know what you're shooting at.
CORCORAN: Notably absent from this briefing are American's Afghan allies. They won't state it publicly, but US officers simply dont trust the Afghan army or pro-Karzai militias.
CORCORAN: How do you distinguish friend from foe?
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: That's a good question because it's hard. A lot of times you dont know who your friend is and who your foe is. It's kind of frustrating sometimes.
Briefing
GONZALEZ: Dont get complacent. That memorial service the other day is a grim and harsh reminder of how challenging and how harsh this environment is over here.
Soldiers head out on patrol into dust storm
CORCORAN: They head out at dusk, but even with all their high tech weaponry there are still some things the world's most powerful army can't conquer. A blinding dust storm becomes the great equaliser.
Turret Gunner
TURRET GUNNER: Right now the dust storm is pretty hectic. It makes a lot of the leadership and the gunners a little nervous because we're use to stand-off of up to 2,000 metres and now that's been reduced to 25 so it'd be hard to spot an ambush or any enemy contact.
Convoy
CORCORAN: As the convoy creeps towards the target villages in darkness, there's a burst of machinegun fire from a nearby ridge.
RADIO: Were they shooting at anything in particular that you can tell?
VEHICLE COMMANDER: They appear to be shooting straight across the ground a good level above the ground over.
CORCORAN: It turns out to be an Afghan military post, spooked by the unannounced arrival of the Americans. The element of surprise is lost. At dawn, the patrol enters the first village.
Parker talking to villagers
CAPTAIN PARKER [talking to villagers]: We're going to search the village now to tell us if they have any weapons. We have a female soldier, she'll search the rooms where they have females. We won't make bad eyes at the women, we won't steal things, we won't break things, we won't, we won't bother with Islam.
Soldiers enter village and conduct search
CORCORAN: This deeply conservative region of Afghanistan is not only Hamid Karzai's home, it's also the Taliban heartland.
To many of these people, the Taliban are heroes freedom fighters confronting American occupiers.Not so long ago these men would have killed any outsider who entered family compounds and gazed upon their women.
OLD AFGHANI MAN: This soldier woman should remove all those things from her body,because our women are scared of her! They wont let her near them!
US SOLDIER: Dont be scared. Don't be scared. Tell him I'll keep him safe.
CORCORAN: After 25 years of war, the arrival of soldiers usually means bad news a few villagers are clearly traumatised by the presence of the Americans.
US SOLDIER: Nobodys in trouble.
WOMAN: This is the only son I have.
U.S. SOLDIER: Dont worry, they wont hurt him. Just go and sit down.
WOMAN: This is the only one.
Soldiers search house
CORCORAN: For two days, locals are questioned and houses up-ended in an ultimately fruitless search for weapons and militants. In one home, New York's Twin Towers takes pride of place. The irony lost on all in the room as the search operation grinds on.
CAPTAIN MIKE GONZALEZ: A lot of times these people will tell you a lot of things you dont expect them to if you show them a little bit of respect. Just because these people are simple doesnt mean they're stupid. We are the big boys in town right now and it's one, either talk to us or dont talk to us and dont get our help, because we're also here to help the people.
U.S. Soldiers conduct search
CORCORAN: No matter how well-intentioned the Americans, their attempts to win hearts and minds often fail. As the medics discover when they try to convince the parents of a boy with a badly cut foot that he needs to be hospitalised.
U.S. Soldiers with Injured boy and family
U.S. SOLDIER: They have to bring him to Kandahar if they want him to keep his foot.
TRANSLATOR: I told him what you said but he says that he is not ready to go with them.
US SOLDIER: Tell him again.
US SOLDIER: Does mum know he will lose his foot if he doesnt go? Tell her. The infection is very bad, it will get worse. He may lose his foot if he does not go to the hospital.
CORCORAN: The offer of medical help is rejected. These people have seen too many regime changes in recent years to feel confident yet of throwing in their lot with Hamid Karzai's sponsors.
Military band, National Army
Not so surprising when you see the men the President hopes will ultimately bring security to all Afghans. Parading by the Palace walls is the new National Army. Plagued by desertions, this western-trained force so far only numbers 4,000. It's little more than a comic opera palace guard and no replacement for the vast private armies of the warlords totalling some 100,000 men.
HAMID KARZAI: Afghanistan has no options there. We either have a national army, we either build it and disarm the irregular militia groups or Afghanistan will be chaotic and the Afghan people dont want that.
Karzai meets with warlords
CORCORAN: Determined to force the issue, President Karzai calls a crucial meeting. It's a who's who of the ruling warlords. There's blood on every hand Karzai shakes. During the past quarter century, these men have fought the Russians, the Taliban and each other. Now they are supposed to help Hamid Karzai rebuild the country.
AHMED RASHID: Most of the people in that room are probably more powerful than he is. They have larger armies, they have more loyalty and larger populations under their control than probably Hamid Karzai does.
CORCORAN: They are his reluctant constituency forced to listen while he calls on them to lay down their weapons, disband their militias and submit to Kabul's rule.
Karzai addresses warlords
HAMID KARZAI: I dont know who of you speaks positive or negatively.
CORCORAN: Keeping discreetly to the background is the real power in this room the Americans who stage manage the whole show.
AHMED RASHID: The B-52s are still up there
Rashid and the Afghan commanders know that and they know that if any of them actually start resisting Kabul the B-52s will come and take them out.
Warlords at lunch
CORCORAN: But self-interest rules here. The warlords have already stacked Karzai's new defence ministry with more than 200 freshly minted generals whose greatest challenge appears to be the buffet. In once sense the Taliban have already scored a subtle victory, for none of these warlords will seriously contemplate laying down their arms while ever attacks can be launched from Pakistan.
KarimiSuper: Maj-General Sher KarimiAfghan National ArmyGENERAL SHER KARIMI: They do acts of terrorism, they do acts of insurgency and run away back to Pakistan.
CORCORAN: Who's supporting them, who's backing them now?
GENERAL SHER KARIMI: Well, Pakistan is supporting them it's very clear. If Pakistan is not supporting them, then why don't they contend them? Why don't they secure the border?
Music
Children
CORCORAN: The Taliban also confound efforts on the hearts and minds front. Ordinary Afghans have seen scant evidence of the $5 billion in reconstruction aid promised by the west and are unlikely to while the security situation remains unstable.
AHMED RASHID: I really think now crunch time is coming. The Americans and the British and the United Nations, they have to sit down and reconfigure the issue of security. If they dont, I see the situation in Afghanistan getting much worse.
CORCORAN: What would happen if you left tomorrow?
Col. KingSuper: Col. Roger KingU.S. Military Spokesman COLONEL ROGER KING: I wouldn't want to think about it. There'd be a variety of options. One option would be that this place would just continue to go along as if there were coalition forces here and eventually it would all work out. Okay that's a possibility. There's another possibility that it would degenerate into chaos and I wouldn't want to put a bet on either one of them.
Music
Rumsfeld press briefing
CORCORAN: In the 18 months since the U.S. officially deposed the Taliban, fighting has claimed more than 2,000 lives here yet US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims victory.
DONALD RUMSFELD: We're at a point where we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilisation and reconstruction and the bulk of this country today is permissive it's secure.
U.S. Troops fire salute
CORCORAN: Since this proclamation in May, Afghan government troops have begun dumping the bodies of Taliban fighters they've killed back over the border with Pakistan. A not so subtle message to Islamabad that neither Hamid Karzai or the US Administration seems willing to deliver. Viewed from Washington, Afghanistan is a success story in nation building. The only problem is the closer you get to the frontline in this so-called "War on Terror", the more blurred that vision becomes.
Credits
Karzais War Reporter: Mark Corcoran
Camera: Ron Foley
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Producer: Chris Clark