Afghanistan Weekly Reader: Afghanistan Drawdown Will Cost Billions
While there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what the U.S. presence to Afghanistan will look like after 2014, the U.S. took a step towards clarifying its commitment this week by designating Afghanistan a major non-NATO ally. International donors also committed to $16 billion in development aid to Afghanistan over the next four years at the international aid conference in Tokyo this Sunday. Both announcements ensure that the U.S. will be sending billions of taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan even as troop levels go down. And the drawdown itself will come at a high price. According to Pentagon officials, moving U.S. troops and equipment out of Afghanistan will cost billions of dollars, on top of more than $500 billion already spent on the Afghanistan war.
From ASG
7/9/12
U.S. Commits to Billions in Afghanistan Aid
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
The U.S. seems to be making a feeble attempt – very feeble; only in Afghanistan could $16 billion over four years be considered a cut – to stem the flow of aid dollars to Afghanistan. But what’s missing is an attempt to improve accountability in Afghanistan aid.
ARTICLES
7/10/12
Afghan exit will cost U.S. billions, Pentagon’s No. 2 says
USA Today by Tom Vanden Brook
Moving the mountain of U.S. military gear out of Afghanistan after more than a decade of war will cost billions of dollars and prove far more difficult than last year’s withdrawal from Iraq.
7/7/12
Pentagon cuts $1 billion from funding for Afghanistan’s national security forces
The Hill’s Defcon by Carlo Munoz
The Defense Department has decided to siphon off $1 billion from Pentagon accounts dedicated to building up Afghanistan’s national security forces and shift those dollars to other military priorities.
7/11/12
Why Building Stuff in Afghanistan Costs So Much
Time’s Battleland by Mark Thompson
Here’s part of the reason we’re spending so much money in Afghanistan. Just take a look at some of the pieces of a solicitation seeking a Swiss-Army-Knife complex to house a Ministry of Interior Supply Point, Fire Department, and Uniformed Police District Headquarters, in Nimroz province in the southwestern corner of the country.
OPINION
7/11/12
Is corruption the cost of saving Afghanistan?
The Globe and Mail by Roland Paris
Why should we continue to provide billions of dollars to a regime and country where corruption is not just a problem but an integral part of the governing system?
