| Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected President |
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Hamid Karzai’s inauguration as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected President opens a new chapter in the battle to rescue this impoverished country, which became a haven for international terrorism and now risks turning into a narco-state.
Tuesday’s inauguration was being held in the capital’s war-scarred former royal palace. The 150 foreign guests included US Vice President Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking American official to visit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Afghanistan’s red, black and green flag has been hung from lampposts in downtown Kabul, and officials issued a commemorative blue stamp featuring a triumphant-looking Karzai. The proceedings were to be shown live on national television _ rickety power supplies permitting.
Wary of attacks by Taliban or Al-Qaeda militants, Afghan and international forces launched their biggest security operation since the Oct 9 election that gave Karzai a landslide victory. Police sealed off the four-kilometre route from Kabul’s airport to the palace, and NATO troops patrolled the city on foot. Cheney, arriving at the main US base north of Kabul early Tuesday, congratulated some of the 17,000 US troops for helping give democracy a chance to take root.
"For the first time the people of this country are looking confident about the future of freedom and peace," Cheney said. "Freedom still has enemies here in Afghanistan, and you are here to make those enemies miserable."
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