Poverty high in war-torn nation

from WABC

The U.S. is still fighting a war in Afghanistan as we've seen this week in Jim Dolan's reports from that country.

Now, we have a different kind of look at Afghanistan -- one of the poorest countries in the world where per capita income is less than $1000 a year.

But as Jim reports, the Afghan people are suffering more than they have to.

It's a nation of wrenching poverty, where roads are a rugged dirt pathways and homes are mud huts carved from an unforgiving hillside, where a cementary passes for a playground.

The power is carried through lines that look like so much macrame hung on a pole, in a nation where need cries out at every turn. Alternatives are few and deadly.

Heavily armed security patrols the homes of Afghan Parliament member Mahmoud Galani. And when he travels to his own provence, he doesn't bother calling the police.

"We actually call the tribal elders and chieftains of the area to meet us in the central city," he said.

It's not that the government doesn't have some money.

"The ministers, they are so incompetent ... even they cannot use their budget to choose how they are," he said.

He may be right. Remember the roads? Last year just 67 percent of the road building budget ever got used. It still sits in the central bank somewhere. Forty five percent of the dam building money got used.

In fact, 43 percent of the Afghan budget never got spent last year because the government couldn't figure out how to spend it -- in a nation where need is everywhere.

Still, some here blame Pakistan for the rise in the Taliban.