A test of commitment.

Byline: The Register-Guard

On a visit to the war-ravaged capital of Afghanistan this week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell received a gentle but urgent reminder from the country's interim leader, Hamid Karzai. ``In all our meetings with the Afghan people, they ask us - `Is the United States committed? Will they stay with us?' ' Karzai told Powell.

Powell responded by pledging that the United States will make "a significant contribution" to the estimated $15 billion cost of rebuilding Afghanistan's shattered infrastructure and institutions.

It's doubtful Powell needed much convincing from Karzai after his visit to Afghanistan, where the government's physical infrastructure, including offices, electricity and telephones, is in shambles. It could hardly have escaped Powell's notice that Karzai had to use couriers to confer with his Cabinet because there are no operative phones - or that government officials work in offices that have no glass in their building windows or doors.

A recent study by the World Bank ranked Afghanistan as one of the poorest countries in the world, the result of more than two decades of war, economic mismanagement and, more recently, devastating drought. The nation's key institutions - its central bank, treasury, tax collection and customs, statistics, civil service, law and order and judicial systems - have either been destroyed or are on the brink. The same is true of the nation's basic infrastructure - roads, bridges, irrigation canals, telecommunications, electricity and markets.

The nation's economy has been destroyed. Armed brigands and toll-charging warlords have made the main roads nearly unusable for commerce. Crop production and livestock production are a fraction of what they were in the mid-1990s, and predictions of continued drought and an absence of seeds and tools make recovery prospects look bleak.

The gravity of the situation is best illustrated by health statistics. Afghans' life expectancy is now 41 years. U.N. officials estimate that 257 of every 1,000 children die before they're 5. (In high-income nations, the comparable figure is around six children out of every 1,000.)

On Monday, Powell is scheduled to join 60 foreign ministers and international organizations in Tokyo for a U.N. conference on Afghan reconstruction. It's imperative that the United Nations quickly provide the money needed for reconstruction. If it doesn't, the world will certainly witness the collapse of Afghanistan's interim government and a slide back into the chaos that made the country a breeding ground for terrorists.

The United States has pledged $320 million in aid to Afghanistan, but it should be prepared to pay much more - at least the 25 percent it traditionally has provided for major global relief efforts. The Bush administration should keep in mind that the United States might have kept terrorism from taking root if it had come to the country's assistance after the end of Soviet occupation.

U.S. officials should be prepared to commit to long-term assistance, knowing that popular support for Afghan aid may fade in the years to come. International relief agencies say it typically takes a nation as long to recover from a conflict as the amount of time the conflict lasted. In Afghanistan, that's more than 20 years.

Karzai's reminder to Powell during his Kabul visit was no doubt prompted by the secretary's failure to mention a specific dollar figure in his general pledge of support.

As one U.N. observer later shrewdly observed, ``Reassurance is good - cash is better.''