Friday October 5, 2001

WASHINGTON - President Bush committed $320 million in humanitarian aid to the "poor souls" of Afghanistan yesterday as he and allies from Mexico to Qatar moved ahead with plans against terrorists sheltered by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.

"In our anger, we must never forget we're a compassionate people," the president said.

Hundreds 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. Fear of a U.S.-led 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 Pakistan and

nearby Iran, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in the coming months, the United Nations estimates.

Bush sought once more to assuage suspicion in the region that his is a campaign against Muslims in general.

"This is not a war between our world and their world," he said. "It is a war to save the world."

The 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.

"We will fight evil, but in order to overcome evil, the great goodness of America must come forth and shine forth. And one way to do so is to help the poor souls in Afghanistan," Bush said.

The humanitarian campaign will also include military airdrops of supplies, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters as he rounded up support in the Middle East and Central Asia.

At the White House, Mexican President Vicente Fox pledged his country's "commitment all the way."

Fox, who was last here for a state visit six days before the terrorist attacks, said Mexico would cooperate on whatever border, customs and migration matters are necessary to counter terrorism.

"Whatever it is, we will be coordinating, participating, collaborating," Fox said.

For Bush, the statement appeared to resolve recent mixed messages from the Mexican government on the extent of its support as the United States goes after the al-Qaida terrorist network and Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"It's comforting to know that our friend to the south is going to be a friend in good times and in tough times," Bush said.

On the phone, in person, and over lunch, he pressed his counterterrorism campaign and underscored that he holds the Taliban responsible for delivering bin Laden to justice.

"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."

Bush 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."

Earlier yesterday, 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.

Meanwhile, 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.