U.S. tax money goes to Taliban

Posted By Colum Lynch Thursday, September 30, 2010 - 5:32 PM Share

A prominent U.S. contractor in Afghanistan may have inadvertently funneled millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Taliban insurgents in the form of bribes and protection money, according to a review by the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The suspected payments were allegedly made by Afghan subcontractors of Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a company based in Bethesda, Maryland that carries out USAID reconstruction projects in some of Afghanistan's most remote and risky war zones. Afghan representatives of the company in Jalalabad are also under investigation for charging kickbacks to Afghan companies in exchange for USAID contracts, according to the report.

A spokesman for the company said that it has fired 17 Afghan employees who operated at or near the company's Jalalabad office, and restored greater international auditing and oversight over the operations.

"We're doing outstanding, mission-critical development work right at the tip of the spear, and we're proud of it," said DAI President and CEO James Boomgard. "And DAI is leading the way in addressing those problems. Without giving up on our commitment to support U.S. Government efforts even in the most unstable regions of Afghanistan, we have, when necessary, closed down projects entirely, stopped working in problem areas, fired employees -- and done so in a very public, very accountable way, not through the back door -- and continually tightened monitoring and accounting procedures."

The review began with an examination of the costs of a British security company, Edinburgh International, on three USAID projects operated by Development Alternatives. The report found "no indication that Edinburgh International had misused funds to pay the Taliban or others in exchange for protection," noting that it had "employed a strong system of controls over cash transactions."

However, U.S. and DAI officials "expressed concerns that insurgents may have extorted protection payments" amounting to as much $5.2 million in 2009 from Afghan representatives carrying out projects in remote areas under the USAID-funded Local Governance and Community Development program.

The program is designed to show residents in contested regions of Afghanistan that the U.S.-backed government is capable of providing basic services. An indication of the dangers of working in the region, DAI officials said, came Sunday, when a female British employee of the company, together with three Afghan nationals, were abducted between Jalalabad and Kunar province.

While the report does not assert that DAI's international officials paid any money to the Taliban, it cites lax oversight, noting that many projects are subjected to virtually no monitoring. "Neither USAID nor DAI could provide reasonable assurance of preventing USAID funds from going to the Taliban or others in exchange for protection while trying to implement community development projects in a war zone and in insurgency stronghold areas where little or no monitoring can be conducted," the report stated.

In response to the report, USAID's Afghanistan director, Earl W. Gast, said the U.S. agency has instructed DAI to tighten up its financial controls, but he vowed to continue the program in contested areas, noting that it is "designed to turn communities away from the insurgency and towards the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan."

"The core operational aspects of the program include working in unstable areas that pose risk," he added. "USAID is accountable for deploying its stabilization programs and field staff as far forward as possible in partnership with our U.S. civil military partners on the ground, to contribute to ultimate victory over the insurgency."

Gastquestioned the strength of some  of the evidence the Inspector General has presented to demonstrate that the practices are endemic in USAID programs, and he said the Inspector General did not provide supporting documentation for its allegations that fraud occurred in Jalalabad."This report riddled with ‘may haves', ‘likelies' and ‘mights'," said Steven O'Connor, a spokesman for DAI. "It's all very speculative." The Inspector General's report countered that it does not release evidence that could compromise ongoing fraud investigations.

The Inspector General's probe was triggered after a series of online and newspaper articles  -- including this piece in Global Post -- documented the diversion of millions of dollars in U.S. aid money to the Taliban. But DAI insisted that it took the initiative in bringing the corruption case in Jalalabad to the attention of the investigators. "Where there are problems or suspected problems," said Boomgard, "it is DAI that has brought them to USAID's and the Inspector General's attention -- showing collaboration that has been, in their words, ‘superb.'"

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EXPLORE:SOUTH ASIA, AFGHANISTAN
 

ONLOOKER

6:04 PM ET

September 30, 2010

U.S. tax money goes to Taliban

inadvertently ?. I wonder what adjective would have been used if, instead of being USAID, this was the UN?

 

ROBERTSGT40

10:19 AM ET

October 1, 2010

Inadvertently?

Yeah, and the other couple of trillion went to GE, Boeing, Haliburton, Blackwater, congress, banksters and on and on. We will have wars w/o end until the profit is removed.

 

MARTY MARTEL

6:16 PM ET

September 30, 2010

U.S. finances the death of its own troops

Aside from such mistaken handover of US tax money to Taliban, as Matt Waldman narrated in his ‘The sun in the sky‘ report dated 6/13/2010, “support for the Afghan Taliban is ‘official Pakistani ISI policy’ and is backed at the highest levels of Pakistan’s civilian administration. Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude. There is thus a strong case that the ISI orchestrates, sustains and shapes the overall insurgent campaign in Afghanistan.”

The ISI is said to compensate families of suicide bombers to the tune of 200,000 Pakistani rupees, claims the report. Thus US aid to bankrupt Pakistan finances the death of US/NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. So in a way, US is financing the death of its own troops in Afghanistan.

But US government and news media intentionally continue to ignore Taliban’s Pakistani connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/10, corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/10 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/10 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

Afghan President Karzai told a news conference in Kabul on 7/29/2010 after WikiLeaks leaks, “The time has come for our international allies to know that the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s homes and villages. But rather this war is in the sanctuaries, funding centers and training places of terrorism which are in Pakistan. Our international allies have the ability to destroy these Pakistani sanctuaries, but the question is why they are not doing it?“

Even Afghanistan’s national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta has asked the same question in a Washington Post article on 8/23/2010: “While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists’ main mentor (Pakistan) continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified? Despite facing a growing domestic terror threat, Pakistan “continues to provide sanctuary and support to the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the Hekmatyar group and Al Qaeda. Dismantling the terrorist infrastructure “requires confronting the state of Pakistan that still sees terrorism as a strategic asset and foreign policy tool”.

But poor Karzai’s call to his Western allies ‘to destroy Islamist militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan’ is falling on deaf ears in Washington where powers to be are hell bent on sacrificing Afghanistan to mollycoddle Pakistan.

 

VINEYCB1

9:37 PM ET

September 30, 2010

U.S. tax money goes to Taliban

Readers of The Washington Post who take a look at the comments columns must be aware that I have been saying for a very long time that Mr Bush made a historic error in accepting Pakistan as an ally in the war against terror right from 2001 onwards as soon as he decided to respond to 9/11 with a US-led invasion of Afghanistan. To my way of thinking Pakistan has been playing a double game from day one: it has pretended to have been cooperating with the Allies while in fact Pakistan was and still remains state sponsor of terror as an instrument of its official policies. Pakistan supported, trained, financed, and guided the Afghan Taliban at every step even when Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE were the only States that recognized the Taliban government of Afghanistan before 9/11.
Pakistan was totally successful in making fools of two presidents, Mr Bush and Mr Obama, and although the latter is said now to have recognized that “the cancer is in Pakistan”, he seems to be doing little to call Pakistan to account. Pakistan has gone to the extreme of blocking supply lines to Allied troops in Afghanistan, and here we are still debating the question. A self-respecting US president should have ordered the 150 strikes against terrorist training camps NOW and bring home to Pakistan that it is in no position to stand up to the US and the Allies. But there seems to be no such decision at any level of the US administration. Bob Woodward’s revelations are merely leaks as a mild word of caution to Pakistan, about which Pakistan could not care less.
My guess is that Pakistan will get away with all its misdemeanours and that US taxpayer’s money shall keep on flowing to the Afghan Taliban, the TTP, the Haqqani network, the Taliban shura in Quetta, and Al Qaeda in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands. It is sad to see that there are no self-respecting men in the US foreign policy establishment.
V. C. Bhutani, vineycb1@vsnl.com, Delhi, India, Oct 1 2010, 0702 IST

 

ARYABHAT

3:42 AM ET

October 1, 2010

ISI = Taliban

When US govt. supports and finances the Parents & Caretakes of Taliban - ISI, one way or other, Taliban gets US Tax payers money!

Only when ISI is demolished and ALL training camps in Pakistan bombed, there may be some hope of peace.

Else, be ready for stoning of women in Times Square!

 

Longtime Washington Post correspondent Colum Lynch reports on all things United Nations for Turtle Bay.

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