The following excerpt contains Boucher's comment from his October 29 briefing:

QUESTION: There have been a number of folks talking about the military campaign and the political campaign in Afghanistan being out of sync, stories and commentary and so forth, to the effect that the military campaign needed to be put on a parallel track with efforts to make sure there was something political ready to come in once the military portion against the Taliban was over.

Can you comment on the state of the political half of that question, as to what's going on now, as to whether you feel like you're making any progress in that effort?

MR. BOUCHER: I think it's recognized by many that we need to develop a certain momentum on the political side, and indeed we are developing a certain momentum on the political side. The Afghan parties have been meeting with each other. Several groups have gotten together with the King -- the former King in Rome -- to coalesce into planning for a broad-based government in the future. There have been other meetings at other locations, as you know.

We have appointed a special representative for the Secretary of State to pursue these issues, Ambassador Haass. The United Nations has a special representative for the Secretary General, Mr. Brahimi, who is out in the region right now having meetings. So I think there is developing a certain momentum on the issue of moving forward with a broad-based government in Afghanistan. Naturally, the Afghan parties need to do this themselves; it's going to be their country, their government, and we are not seeking to dictate how or who should do that.

But we have consistently encouraged all the parties to start getting together and start planning and that appears to be what they are doing. And to the extent we can help with that, we will.