SUNDAY, AUGUST 15, 2010
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The World
Kerry: Congress wary about corruption in Afghanistan Senator to take up issue
Salehi is out on bail, and pros-
with Karzai during his trip to Kabul this week
by Karen DeYoung and Joshua Partlow
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), one of the most stalwart backers of the U.S. strategy in Afghani- stan, says Congress is growing in- creasingly concerned about cor- ruption in that country and that he plans to raise the issue directly with President Hamid Karzai during a visit to Kabul this week. “The strongest message Presi- dent Karzai could send is one that elevates the credibility of his gov- ernment, and that he is to be viewed as a genuine reformer,” Kerry said in an interview. “Right now, he is not, and we have to be concerned about this.” The worries have been prompt- ed by a series of congressional, military and independent reports documenting graft and bribery at every level in Afghanistan, prob- lems that have grown worse as the cost of the war has escalated. President Obama raised the cor- ruption issue during an hour- long videoconference with Karzai on Friday, the White House said. Senior administration officials
have been especially concerned about Karzai’s move earlier this month to assert control over U.S.- backed investigations into high- level government corruption. Karzai accused the Major Crimes Task Force and Special In- vestigative Unit of operating out- side the Afghan constitution and violating the civil rights of some of the several dozen officials they have targeted, and said he would issue a decree outlining new reg- ulations for the bodies. U.S. and British legal and law enforcement teams working with the task forces have worried that Karzai might move to abolish them altogether, although a draft law circulated in recent days ap- pears directed at setting rules for their operations. Two separate units operate within the Major Crimes Task Force, one made up of Afghan na- tional security directorate offi- cers mentored by the British, and the other aided by the FBI. Their combined case load is about 150, and their goal is to have 200 in- vestigators on staff within a year. The apparent cause of Karzai’s displeasure was the arrest of a senior official, presidential na- tional security aide Mohammad Zia Salehi, on charges that he had solicited bribes to help block a probe of a Kabul-based financial firm suspected of helping politi- cally connected Afghans transfer money out of the country.
ecutors have until early next month to file an indictment against him. It was unclear whether Karzai was most con- cerned about what he told Secre- tary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was rough treatment of Salehi during the arrest, which law enforcement officials denied, or another aspect of the case. One former Afghan official said Kar- zai aides had convinced the presi- dent, a Pashtun, that the task forces were ethnically biased against Pashtuns in his govern- ment.
A senior U.S. official shrugged in frustration at the suggestion, saying that “the easiest way to mobilize support in Afghanistan” is via “nationalism and xenopho- bia.” Western officials working with Afghan investigators and pros- ecutors have become increasingly anxious about their safety. “It’s certainly been a difficult period for our investigators because of all the rumors that were flying around that [Karzai] wanted to disband” the task forces, said a Western source who was not au- thorized to speak publicly about their efforts. “They’re working cases, they’re putting themselves in difficult positions, in danger in some cases,” the source said. Kerry, who has developed a close relationship with Karzai and was instrumental in per- suading him to accept interna- tional findings of flaws in his re- election vote last fall, said he spoke to the Afghan president this week about the corruption is- sue “but the telephone is not the place” for deeper discussions. Kerry, chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, said that growing congressional concern about the war is based far more on Afghan corruption and lack of effective governance than on the U.S. military’s failure to make dramatic inroads in the fight against the Taliban. “Almost every analysis under- scores the fact that the biggest single recruitment tool for the Taliban and the biggest single factor undermining [Afghan] government support is corrup- tion,” said Kerry, who will also visit Pakistan during his trip. “The governance problems are more significant than anything else.”
Congress and the American public are worried, the senator said, “and they ought to be wor- ried.”
A House appropriations sub-
committee has suspended con- sideration of the administration’s nonmilitary
assistance request
for Afghanistan pending what its chairman, Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), said is evidence that Karzai has not acted on anti-
6 security workers slain in Iraq, 5 at checkpoints
Attacks seem intended to sap confidence as U.S. troops depart
by Saad Abdul-Kadir
baghdad — Gunmen killed six Iraqi security personnel Satur- day, including a pair of sleeping policemen who were shot and set on fire, at a time of persistent de- bate over whether Iraqi forces can protect the country as U.S. troops leave. The early-morning shootings
at Baghdad checkpoints demon- strated the insurgents’ apparent aim to weaken confidence in the government and aggravate sec- tarian tension as all but 50,000 U.S. troops head home by the end of this month. In the first attack, gunmen armed with silenced pistols killed two policemen asleep in their pa- trol car at a security checkpoint in the Shiite-dominated New Baghdad neighborhood, said an officer with the federal police in Baghdad. The assailants then set the car on fire and fled, he said. A half-hour later, a drive-by shooting at a checkpoint killed two more policemen in the Amil area, another Shiite neighbor- hood, in southwestern Baghdad, two other police officials said. About the same time, gunmen
attacked a checkpoint staffed by government-backed Sunni fight- ers from groups known as Awak- ening Councils in the mostly Shi- ite Shaab district in the capital’s northeast. One of the fighters was killed, and two were injured, the police officials said. Hours later, a bomb attached to a policeman’s personal car killed the driver and wounded two pas- sengers, who were also police- men, officials said. The blast oc- curred outside Tikrit, Saddam
Hussein’s home town about 90 miles north of Baghdad. As the number of U.S. soldiers dwindles at a rate of about 4,000 a week, insurgents have stepped up attacks on Iraqi security forces, demonstrating remaining vulnerabilities. Checkpoints con- tinue to be easy targets, and traf- fic police — many of whom are unarmed — have also been slain in recent weeks. Last year, President Obama or- dered all but 50,000 U.S. troops to leave Iraq by Aug. 31 as part of his campaign promise to end what he once termed “a dumb war.” Under a security agreement between both nations, all U.S. troops are to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.
But fears that Iraq’s security forces won’t be able to fend for themselves have been voiced more urgently as the end-of-the- month deadline nears. This week, Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari, who commands Iraq’s military, repeated his warning that his army may not be ready to defend the nation until 2020. The general has said for months that it may be necessary for U.S. forces to remain in Iraq until his soldiers can take full control of security, but the timing of his statement this week was widely seen as a veiled plea for the American military to recon- sider its departure. A spokesman for the Iraqi gov- ernment said Saturday that Iraqi security forces will be ready to defend the nation by the end of 2011. “Iraq does not need a con- stant American military presence or bases in Iraq,” Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement. Iraqi civilians also are coming
under attack. A bomb attached to a car in the Amil area of Baghdad exploded Saturday morning, in- juring the driver and three by- standers, officials said. — Associated Press
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corruption promises. The administration has said re-
peatedly that there is no military solution to the war and that it will require a political outcome. “If you accept that as a reality, rather than an aphorism,” Kerry said, “then you have to make these other things work. And right now they’re not working. That’s the bottom line.” On the military front, Kerry said he will spend “a lot of time”
with Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and travel with him to Helmand province in southwest Afghanistan, where a Marine offensive that began in February has made disappoint- ing progress. As U.S. troop levels reach 100,000, nearly double what they were when Obama took office, Kerry said the moment is ap- proaching for judgments on
Partlow reported from Kabul.
whether the strategy is working. Petraeus’s predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, told him late last year that this December would be time enough to know, Kerry said, and that a promised administration review at that time would be crucial for Con- gress.
deyoungk@washpost.com partlowj@washpost.com
Sen. John F. Kerry is troubled by governance problems.
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