Up to $1 Billion in U.S. Aid Winds Up In Taliban Coffers By Ed Barnes Published October 22, 2010 | FoxNews.com As much as $1 billion in U.S. aid has been diverted from programs meant to stabilize Afghanistan and has wound up in the hands of the Taliban and other insurgency groups, war analysts and government auditors say. In fact, they say, graft has gotten so bad that the U.S. government estimates that only about 10 percent of the aid budget actually reaches the people in Afghanistan who need it. "Right now corruption is more important than the politics," Michael Thibault, co-chairman of Congress' independent and bipartisan Wartime Commission on Contracting, told FoxNews.com. "I have been there seven times in the last year and the estimates I have been told are that 20 to 40 percent of the aid funding goes to corruption." "The problem," he said, "is the Afghan culture and the subcontracting practices of the companies that do business there." In the past few weeks investigations by the U.S. Senate and the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have focused on how guard services that surround U.S. bases have been compromised by the Taliban, jeopardizing the safety of American troops, and how one company, DAI of Bethesda, Md., involved in rehabilitation was forced to pay $5 million in protection money to Taliban-connected groups. But those familiar with the country say the scale of the corruption is far wider. Virtually every transaction in Afghanistan involves some degree of payoff, says Christine Fair of Georgetown Universitys Center for Peace and Security Studies. Everyone is getting a piece of the money. If you want to get a clinic built, you have to make sure everyone in the village is paid off. It is now the cost of doing business in Afghanistan, she explained, attributing much of the most serious corruption to the lack of a security footprint by U.S. troops. For example, without the U.S. military guarding major transport routes, the safety of supply convoys and other key transportation has been left up to private companies. And that, she says, has formalized a massive protection industry that is run, in many but not all cases, by the Taliban. "We should be surprised not that convoys are attacked, but by how few get attacked," Fair said. That is the same assessment that Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, gave to President Obama more than a year ago, according to Bob Woodwards book, Obamas Wars. All the contractors for development projects pay the Taliban for protection and use of the roads, so American and coalition dollars help finance the Taliban, Woodward wrote. Fair explained that the practice has become so deeply ingrained in the economic life of the country that it is often a crucial element in events that appear not to be related to corruption. She cited as an example the recent closing of the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan in the Khyber tribal agency. That closing, which blocked a key military supply route, was generally perceived as a dispute with Pakistan over the killing of four Pakistani soldiers by an American drone strike. But, said Fair, In reality it was a re-negotiation of the protection rates along the route to Kabul, the Afghan capital. The border closing and the burning of supply trucks allowed drivers, contractors and everyone in the chain of corruption to up their rates because of new hazards, she said. One consequence of the widespread corruption has been to encourage peaceful areas to take up arms -- not because they have a political agenda, but to get a part of the graft money. According to Barmak Pazhwak, a senior project officer with the United States Institute for Peace, when peaceful villages see the money that flows into restive ones, they quickly figure out that a few well-timed incidents will bring them money. For years the north has been relatively quiet as American operations focused on the southern part of the county, but recently there has been a lot of activity in the northern provinces, Pazhwak said. They have learned what attracts the money. Told of Fair's analysis, Thibault said, "I agree with her." But there really is no way to know exactly how much money has been diverted, experts say, because the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) makes sure accounting practices do not pick it up and because of the structure of the subcontracting system. As Thibauld has noted, subcontractors usually build in somewhere between 20 and 40 percent markup for payoffs. And that money never shows up on the books of the major contractors. But with more than $50 billion in U.S. aid money already spent, the diverted corruption costs would likely equal the amount of estimated graft generated by the countrys $4-billion-a-year poppy crop. It is amazing," Fair said. "Every agency in Afghanistan has to file detailed reports except USAID, which does not report 'overhead' on its books. It is deliberate obfuscation. But she said it probably doesnt matter. In the long term, allowing the corruption is bad, but in the short term it helps maintain the status quo. Why aren't the Taliban hitting more convoys? Only the economic system of graft explains why. "But the current military philosophy of 'clear, hold, build and transfer,'" means there is little reason to change the system now, she said. Isnt that aiding and abetting the enemy of the United States?? No wonder we cant win... WTF is wrong with him?? Doesnt he know this makes no sense?? Source
What a totally bogus title. Really, you should be ashamed of yourself. Either that or we should all feel sorry for you. On the other hand, GWB directly gave the Taliban nearly a $billion shorty before 9/11
Its not a bogus title. Base security can be handled by our troops. We dont need to hand out billions in US tax payer dollars. Do you have some kinda proof, bush gave a billion dollars to mulla omar and the the taliban?
Although Bush demonstrated that paying our enemies to not fight us can be effective...... The possible Billion Dollars you are talking about was originally given to the Afghans....and they spent the money on Taliban interests. This was direct aid to Afghanistan that was diverted.....not aid to the Taliban.
You poor American guys just don't get it do you? The Afghanistan war is a business. The Taliban are smart businessmen. Every convoy into Afghanistan pays protection money to the Taliban. The Afghan army and police pay the Taliban protection money. The Taliban take a cut of every dollar in aid. Please stay in Afghanistan America! We like you!
This is the most insightful comment in this thread so far. It's part of the reason that trying to nation-build in Afghanistan is futile.
I look forward to the day when ignorant Americans realize that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was never about terrorism. The Bush administration and Fox News suckered you guys real good.
Yes it is a bogus title. So I guess I'll just feel sorry for you. Bush gave the Taliban $43 million (not nearly $billion) in direct aid and also humanitarian money. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3556
um... Yeah he did, didnt you read the article??? Its "protection" money for Appeasement... We'd definitely be able to kill the enemy faster if he didnt give tribute to the Taliban. I recommend fake convoys backed by helicopter gunships, and maybe even a Spectre or two...
Show me where this figure is only from the Obama administration.... It looks to me like they are talking about all 8 years of war there, of which the vast majority was under Bush and the republican administration. So, yes, you are lying.
I agree with BVWC about spending the money killing terrorists that had a hand in 9/11. As for the comments from the usual suspects, really, I get a laugh out of those that think the USA is in Afghanistan for war profiteering or other nutty conspiracy theories. Bush did not dupe anyone. I as one of those supposedly duped citizens am happy that the talabin etc is getting just rewards from uncle sam for murdering thousands of our (and even their own Muslim) civilians. We should not stop rewarding the terrorists until we have eliminated seven times the number they have killed in various terrorist attacks. Anyway~ If the usual suspects think Bush duped the US citizens (somehow), let em think it. Its nothing compared to the truly duped radical Muslim etc suicide bombers are! For sacrificing themselves the Islamic terrorists are promised sex for their death and leaving their mom a good family name, dude, they must not get any loving at all while on earth, and I can tell them on good authority they will get none after their death, unless its satan giving it to them in an NC manner! Even when they manage to do a real atrocity like 9/11, the revenge of the USA is far worse for them than it the 9/11 was for us ! They get to permanently die for such a waste of life. What did 9/11 change for the radical Muslims the terrorist Arabs and other ME terrorist types? Nothing but pain for their own people. Oh the terrorists got a hell of a lot more of what they were trying to get rid of. The USA military in more countries, and this time the US military is shooting their asses off for killing innocent people. Like tater salad says if they kill us we kill them back. We must have done something right, there was no other 9/11 style attacks after we revenged them by wiping out Al queada and most of the Taliban leaders. So I say if the dumbasses are stupid enough to try another 9/11 style attack bring it on. Maybe a few nukes would convince them that terrorism does not pay. reva
[video=youtube;OXZP8ZXFOzA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXZP8ZXFOzA[/video] Sure looks like he did.
