US hopes to pledge more for Afghans Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is hoping to pledge almost $4 billion in additional aid for Afghanistan at an international donors conference to be held in Paris in June, a U.S. official said Tuesday. --- International donors have pledged about $32.7 billion in reconstruction funds for Afghanistan since 2001, of which $21 billion has come from the United States.

But more manpower is still needed to fill gaps in the force and international assistance to Afghanistan has been criticized as wasteful, with one umbrella group of aid agencies estimating that 40 percent of donations go to salaries of highly paid foreign experts.