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Limbaugh to visit Afghanistan with US aid official
18 Feb 2005 01:40:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan with the top U.S. aid official to spotlight America's aid work there, officials said on Thursday.
Political commentator Mary Matalin, a former White House aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be on the trip. She said she was not being paid to go and would pay her own way to Dubai but she believed the U.S. government would cover the cost of her visit to Afghanistan from there.
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for the Education Department's payment of $240,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout President George W. Bush's education plan.
Spokesmen for Limbaugh were not immediately available to comment.
"It's trying to get people to pay attention to all the good things we are doing in Afghanistan," a U.S. official who asked not to be named said of the trip, which is expected to take place next week. "This is just a different kind of outreach."
Jeffrey Grieco, a deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, declined comment on the trip or on whether Limbaugh and Matalin would accompany USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios.
"The successful reconstruction of Afghanistan is a story that has not yet reached a wider American audience," he said.
"The administrator of USAID is anxious to get that message out to the American public about our successful programming ... on democracy building, improved health care, improved access to education for women and children," Grieco added.
Matalin, who does volunteer work for the White House and makes paid speeches about the U.S. political system, said she wanted to see Afghanistan with her own eyes and to tell the story of its evolution since the Taliban regime's overthrow.
U.S. and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban regime after it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"Everybody I have talked to who has actually seen what is unfolding is so amazed and proud of the people," Matalin said in an interview. "I hope, to the extent I can, to tell the story that I believe is not being told as well as it can be."
Asked what was the untold story, she said: "The absolute gut desire of the Afghanis to be free and to put together a democracy, or their version of a democracy, and to put in place those institutional hallmarks of a modern state."
18 Feb 2005 01:40:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan with the top U.S. aid official to spotlight America's aid work there, officials said on Thursday.
Political commentator Mary Matalin, a former White House aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will also be on the trip. She said she was not being paid to go and would pay her own way to Dubai but she believed the U.S. government would cover the cost of her visit to Afghanistan from there.
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for the Education Department's payment of $240,000 to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to tout President George W. Bush's education plan.
Spokesmen for Limbaugh were not immediately available to comment.
"It's trying to get people to pay attention to all the good things we are doing in Afghanistan," a U.S. official who asked not to be named said of the trip, which is expected to take place next week. "This is just a different kind of outreach."
Jeffrey Grieco, a deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, declined comment on the trip or on whether Limbaugh and Matalin would accompany USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios.
"The successful reconstruction of Afghanistan is a story that has not yet reached a wider American audience," he said.
"The administrator of USAID is anxious to get that message out to the American public about our successful programming ... on democracy building, improved health care, improved access to education for women and children," Grieco added.
Matalin, who does volunteer work for the White House and makes paid speeches about the U.S. political system, said she wanted to see Afghanistan with her own eyes and to tell the story of its evolution since the Taliban regime's overthrow.
U.S. and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban regime after it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"Everybody I have talked to who has actually seen what is unfolding is so amazed and proud of the people," Matalin said in an interview. "I hope, to the extent I can, to tell the story that I believe is not being told as well as it can be."
Asked what was the untold story, she said: "The absolute gut desire of the Afghanis to be free and to put together a democracy, or their version of a democracy, and to put in place those institutional hallmarks of a modern state."