ASG Blog
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Billions of aid dollars, no solution to Afghanistan’s security problems
Published: August 23rd, 2012
“Green on blue” attacks — attacks by Afghan police and military trainees against U.S. forces — are on the rise. In the past two weeks alone, ten U.S. troops have died at the hands of their Afghan allies. Insider attacks accounted for 32% of U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan this month.
The uptick in insider attacks is just the most recent sign that U.S. efforts to build local security forces in Afghanistan — efforts that cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each year — are foundering.
Ten years and billions of dollars after the U.S. embarked on efforts to improve Afghanistan’s security forces, corruption is still a big problem. Afghan military and police have been accused of participating in a wide range of criminal activities, from accepting bribes to drug trafficking to selling donor-provided equipment.
Corruption is just one of many roadblocks for U.S. efforts to build capable security forces in Afghanistan. Low literacy is another. According to LtGen. William Caldwell, head of the ISAF training mission in Afghanistan, the literacy rate for Afghan security force recruits is about 14 percent. Illiterate recruits find performing routine security tasks, like checking IDs, difficult.
The many obstacles U.S. trainers face in Afghanistan have limited the success of the program. LtGen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has said that few Afghan security units, “probably one percent,” can operate without support from the U.S. and allies.
Limited evidence of success hasn’t stopped the U.S. from pouring billions into efforts to build up the Afghan security forces. In fact, the U.S. has spent over $52 billion on security aid to Afghanistan from 2002 through 2012.
Most of that total (about $50 billion) went directly to the Department of Defense efforts to train and equip the Afghan Army and Police. The Department of State also contributes to Afghan security efforts through Foreign Military Financing and International Military Education and Training, programs that cost more than $1 billion over the past ten years.
Each year, efforts to improve Afghanistan’s security capabilities cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars. The U.S. contributed $11.2 billion in 2012. The budget request for 2013 is $5.8 billion. As the ANSF program shifts from building up to sustaining the force, costs will decline further, to an estimated $4.1 billion per year after 2014.
Even that amount is unaffordable for Afghanistan, which relies on foreign aid for about 90 percent of its budget. the The IMF estimates that Afghanistan will not be able to finance its own security spending until at least 2023.
Ten years and more than $52 billion later, Americans are realizing that the our Afghanistan policy was based less on an understanding of U.S. strategic interests and more on the belief that by spending billions we could reshape Afghanistan. The only question is whether policymakers will realize it too, or whether they will continue to spend billions of dollars on an unnecessary war while underinvesting in more important national security priorities.
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Afghanistan Weekly Reader: Americans Strongly Favor Ending the War
Published: August 16th, 2012
A series of bombings that left least 43 dead made Tuesday the deadliest day for Afghan civilians this year. As security concerns continue, the US and allies work to address the growing trend of “green on blue” attacks. Meanwhile, according to recent polls by ABC/The Washington Post and the New York Times/CBS, two in three Americans believes the war has not been worth fighting, and close to 70% says the U.S. should not be involved in Afghanistan. The American public, strongly in favor of ending the war, is starting to question the presidential candidates’ silence on Afghanistan policy.
From ASG
8/14/12
Policymakers Ignoring Public Opinion on Afghanistan War
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
This year, every week of war in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $2 billion. War costs are going down, but not fast enough. Policymakers should take their cue from the public and work to end wasteful war spending.ARTICLES
8/14/12
Leon Panetta: There’s a war going on
Politico by Stephanie Gaskell and Philip Ewing
Neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan mentioned the war in Afghanistan during their big running mate roll-out in Virginia Saturday. Barack Obama gives it only a brief mention in his own stump speeches.
Leon Panetta seems to have had enough.OPINION
8/13/12
Have Obama and Romney Forgotten Afghanistan?
The New Yorker by Dexter Filkins
After eleven years, more than four-hundred billion dollars spent and two thousand Americans dead, this is what we’ve built: a deeply dysfunctional, predatory Afghan state that seems incapable of standing on its own – even when we’re there. What happens when we’re not? You can bet that, whoever the President is, he’ll be talking about it then.8/14/12
Why isn’t anyone talking about Afghanistan?
Foreign Policy by Stephen M. Walt
Even those who continued to defend the effort usually had to admit that success was going to require a decade or more of additional commitment and hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid. Yet our national security apparatus couldn’t reach the conclusion to withdraw without first escalating the war, and without wasting more soldiers’ lives and a few hundred billion more dollars.8/16/12
How Not to Reconstruct Iraq, Afghanistan – or America
The Huffington Post by Peter Van Buren
Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad, while allowing its own infrastructure to crumble untended? Why do we even think of that as “policy”? -
Policymakers Ignoring Public Opinion on Afghanistan War
Published: August 14th, 2012
Washington Post editor Jackson Diehl’s op-ed “Obama and Romney are ignoring the Afghanistan war” made quite a splash.
“Here’s some news that both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would like you to ignore: Tens of thousands of American soldiers are at war this summer in Afghanistan,” Diehl wrote, concluding that both presidential candidates find talking about the war “uncomfortable and politically unprofitable.”
The candidates silence on the Afghanistan war shows how out of touch they and other policymakers are with the American public. Americans have strong opinions on Afghanistan, and the latest polls show it.
According to a July poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, two-thirds of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan has not been worth the costs.
Support for the war has declined steadily over the past several years. Five years ago, over half of poll respondents said the war has been worth fighting, compared to only one in three this year.
The belief that the costs of the war outweigh the benefits is stronger among Democrats and Independents, but a majority of Republicans (58%) agree, according to the Chicago Council poll.
There’s more behind the decline in public support than war-weariness. Americans aren’t tired simply because the war has been long; they’re tired of spending billions of dollars on a war that no longer advances vital U.S. security interests.
Counting only direct war costs, the U.S. has spent over $550 billion on the Afghanistan war since 2001. The effect on the economy has been devastating. “For more than a decade now, we’ve waged war as if it were free,” writes The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, “keeping our wars off the budget and, rather than paying for them as they were fought, slapping them on the national credit card.”
Increasing the federal debt has an effect on every American. Take interest rates, for example. According to Brown University and the Watson Institute’s’ Costs of War Project, the average homebuyer had to make $600 more in mortgage payments because war borrowing has driven up interest rates.
This year, every week of war in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $2 billion. War costs are going down, but not fast enough. Policymakers should take their cue from the public and work to end wasteful war spending.
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Afghanistan Weekly Reader: Policymakers Silent on $500 Billion War
Published: August 9th, 2012
The Afghanistan Parliament voted this weekend to dismiss the Ministers of Defense and the Interior. The implications of the political shakeup are still unclear. U.S. officials insist the transition to local security forces will proceed as planned, but the Afghan President is reportedly “scrambling to find a replacement” for the defense minister, who officially resigned Tuesday. The Afghanistan war is in the U.S. spotlight as many Americans are starting to question policymakers’ silence on a war that has cost over $500 billion.
From ASG
8/7/12
Pentagon Lowers the Standard for Afghan Forces
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
After ten years and more than $50 billion in security aid the U.S. is no closer to success in combating corruption and developing stable local security forces. Worse, the Pentagon may be trying to cover up the failure.ARTICLES
8/7/12
Afghan defense minister quits, hands Karzai a security headache
Reuters by Mirwais Harooni and Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi
Karzai faced constraints in finding a replacement who could maintain ethnic harmony in his inner circle, while also needing to win over lawmakers whose backing he needs to deliver a corruption crackdown promised to Western donors.8/8/12
UN: Afghan Civilian Deaths Down but Trend Eroding
Associated Press by Heidi Vogt
Afghan civilian deaths dropped 22 percent in the first six months of 2012 compared with a year ago, but the number of civilians killed in targeted assassinations surged, the United Nations said in a report released Wednesday.OPINION
8/3/12
Obama and Romney are ignoring the Afghanistan war
Washington Post by Jackson Diehl
Here’s some news that both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would like you to ignore: Tens of thousands of American soldiers are at war this summer in Afghanistan.8/7/12
War waste problems not yet resolved
Reporter-Herald Editorial
On the to-do list for whoever wins the presidential election in November should be a concentrated effort with Congress to improve the accountability of U.S. government spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. -
Pentagon Lowers the Standard for Afghan Forces
Published: August 7th, 2012
The spotlight was on the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) last week as experts testified before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on corruption in Afghanistan and the implications for developing effective army and police forces.
No surprises came out of the hearing. The Congressional Research Service’s Kenneth Katzman detailed examples of corruption in the ANSF, from demanding bribes to revenue embezzlement to selling U.S. and other donor-provided equipment.
Afghanistan’s corruption problem isn’t new. The real story here is the failed U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. After ten years and more than $50 billion in security aid the U.S. is no closer to success in combating corruption and developing stable local security forces. Worse, the Pentagon may be trying to cover up the failure.
U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan have been inconsistent and ineffective. As Brookings scholar Vanda Felbab-Brown explained it at the recent hearing, “I see U.S. policy over the decade oscillating between ignoring corruption because of its sheer size, because focus has been far more on the military side than on the political aspect of the effort, and then embracing goals that are unrealistic, [saying] ‘we’re going to wipe out corruption.’”
Lack of an effective plan for combating corruption hasn’t stopped the U.S. from spending billions to train and equip the Afghan security force. The running total is $52 billion, including over $11 billion in 2012.
The cost of maintaining the Afghan security forces is expected to drop sharply over the coming years, but not enough for Afghanistan to be able to pay for it. The IMF estimates that Afghanistan will not be able to finance its own security spending until at least 2023. Till then, international donors will be picking up the tab.
$50 billion is a lot of money for a program that might not even be working. Of course, it’s hard to judge how effective U.S. efforts to train Afghan forces have been because the Pentagon keeps changing the tools used to assess the performance of ANSF units.
The Government Accountability Office notes that within the last year the Department of Defense eliminated the highest ANSF capability rating. Instead of “independent”—meaning local forces can operate without assistance from coalition forces—the highest rating is now “independent with advisors,” meaning a unit can execute its mission and call for coalition forces when necessary.
In 2011, no Afghan units were rated independent. In 2012, 7% of army units and 9% of police units were rated “independent with advisors,” the new highest level of capability.
In other words, even by at lower standards, less than 10% of the force that has cost $50 billion U.S taxpayer dollars can operate semi-independently.
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Afghanistan Weekly Reader: U.S. Has Spent $90 Billion on Afghan Aid
Published: August 2nd, 2012
The evidence of the counterproductive U.S. strategy in Afghanistan continued to pile up this week. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released a quarterly report that found the U.S. has spent almost $90 billion on Afghanistan aid since 2001. SIGAR also investigated programs funded through the Department of Defense’s Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund, and found that the projects are so far behind schedule that they may not show results until after U.S. troops have left the country. Even worse, SIGAR concluded that the concept behind the reconstruction projects is fundamentally flawed. By pouring money into Afghan aid, the U.S. may have created a culture of entitlement.
From ASG
7/31/12
US Taxpayers Bankrolling Abuses at Afghan Hospital
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
The case of the Afghan hospital is particularly disturbing because the consequences are clear and painful. This is just one example of the corruption in aid to Afghanistan. If $185 million missed the mark, what about the rest of the more than $30 billion in humanitarian and development aid that the U.S. has sent to Afghanistan over the past ten years?8/1/12
The Counterproductive US Strategy in Afghanistan
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
For U.S. planners, winning hearts and minds meant spending billions on unsustainable aid projects. That didn’t win hearts and minds, but it did create a culture of entitlement.ARTICLES
7/30/12
U.S. construction projects in Afghanistan challenged by inspector general’s report
Washington Post by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
A U.S. initiative to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on construction projects in Afghanistan, originally pitched as a vital tool in the military campaign against the Taliban, is running so far behind schedule that it will not yield benefits until most U.S. combat forces have departed the country, according to a government inspection report.7/29/12
U.S. Says Afghans Abandoned Police Bases
Wall Street Journal by Nathan Hodge
Inspectors from a U.S. government watchdog agency discovered that several American-funded border police bases in Afghanistan have been largely abandoned or left unoccupied, raising questions about the coming hand-over of security duties to local forces.7/28/12
Retiring Envoy to Afghanistan Exhorts U.S to Heed Its Past
New York Times by Alissa J. Rubin
The American diplomat most associated with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan says that American policy makers need to learn the lessons of the recent past as they weigh military options for the future, including for Syria and IranOPINION
7/31/12
New Republican voices changing the party’s standard rhetoric on war
Seattle Times by Bruce Ramsey
The three candidates quoted here — Baumgartner, Driscoll and Matthews — sound a different tone. They speak from experience. They know war. Whether any of them will win in November I don’t know. The odds are against all of them. But if they don’t change Congress, at least they are changing the conversation in their own party. Regarding war, the Republican Party needs to get beyond the slogan, “Support our troops.”7/31/12
Mission Failure: Afghanistan
Tomdispatch by Tom Engelhardt
In 2012 – and twice last week – Afghan soldiers, policemen, or security guards, largely in units being trained or mentored by the U.S. or its NATO allies, have turned their guns on those mentors, the people who are funding, supporting, and teaching them, and pulled the trigger. -
The Counterproductive US Strategy in Afghanistan
Published: August 1st, 2012
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction was established by Congress in 2008 “promote economy and efficiency of U.S.-funded reconstruction programs in Afghanistan.” Overseeing the billions of dollars the U.S. spends in Afghanistan each year keeps SIGAR busy.
The Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund, the subject of SIGAR’s latest audit report, is the perfect example of the kind of waste and mismanagement that keeps the government watchdog in business.
The Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund was created in fiscal year 2011. Before then long-term, large scale infrastructure projects were improperly funded through the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program, an account intended for small, short projects.
Congress appropriated $400 million for the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund (AIF) in 2011 and 2012, for a total of $800 million. The goal of the projects funded under AIF was to support the COIN strategy—that is, to win hearts and minds.
The SIGAR investigation into AIF found a number of significant problems. First, most of the infrastructure projects examined are 6 to 15 months behind schedule. Worse, SIGAR finds that “the scale of most projects means that these agencies will not achieve the planned contributions to the COIN strategy described in the fiscal year 2011 congressional notification for several years.”
The real damning conclusion, however, is this: “In some instances, these projects may result in adverse COIN effects because they create an expectations gap among the affected population or lack citizen support.” [emphasis added]
In other words, the massive amounts of aid the U.S. has sent to Afghanistan may actually be counterproductive.
The SIGAR report captures the fundamental problem with the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. That strategy is not informed by an understanding of Afghan culture, politics, or history. It’s not even informed by human nature.
For U.S. planners, winning hearts and minds meant spending billions on unsustainable aid projects. That didn’t win hearts and minds, but it did create a culture of entitlement.
Now, when it’s clear that the strategy isn’t working, international donors are pulling their dollars. The aid bubble is about to burst. The culture of entitlement will give way to simple resentment.
It’s too late to get back the many years and billions of dollars the U.S. has wasted on an ill-conceived strategy in Afghanistan. But it’s not too late to craft a strategy for moving forward—a strategy that takes into account U.S. strategic interests in Afghanistan and makes limited aid dollars more effective.
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US Taxpayers Bankrolling Abuses at Afghan Hospital
Published: July 31st, 2012
Last fall the Wall Street Journal broke the story of abuses and corruption at Afghanistan’s military hospital. “Injured soldiers were routinely dying of simple infections and even starving to death as some corrupt doctors and nurses demanded bribes for food and the most basic of care,” the story read.
If the systemic abuse at the hospital weren’t bad enough, a U.S. official may have prevented an investigation into the hospital, according to witnesses at a congressional hearing last week.
“The evidence is clear to me that General Caldwell had the request [for an investigation] withdrawn and postponed until after the election,” retired Colonel Gerald Carozza testified at the hearing. “Then, after the election, [Gen. Caldwell] tried to intimidate his subordinates into a consensus that it need not move forward at all.”
Not only were U.S. officials possibly complicit in the cover-up, the hospital was partly funded by U.S.aid dollars—meaning, U.S. taxpayers have been bankrolling the hospital that witnesses describe as ‘Auschwitz-like’.
Exactly how much the U.S. has spent on the hospital and related medical programs is unclear. The widely-cited figure is $185 million in 9 years, but retired Colonel Schuyler Geller, former Command Surgeon for the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan places the figure much higher.
“My team discovered early on that no reliable accounting of dollars spent existed prior to 2007, but we had been mentoring medics since 2003 and the Daoud Khan Hospital since 2005,” Col. Geller testified. “Considerably more than $185 million has been utilized in the development of the Afghan Army health system by many donor nations. The U.S. had spent $153 million just on medical supplies and medicine from 2007-2010 with over $42 million in pharmaceuticals delivered in 2010 alone.”
Col. Geller’s testimony goes on to detail other U.S. aid streams routinely diverted to criminal private networks.
The case of the Afghan hospital is particularly disturbing because the consequences are clear and painful. This is just one example of the corruption in aid to Afghanistan. If $185 million missed the mark, what about the rest of the more than $30 billion in humanitarian and development aid that the U.S. has sent to Afghanistan over the past ten years?
A former senior auditor for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction estimates that only 15 percent of Afghan aid makes it to the intended recipient. The rest—85 percent, or $25 billion—is lost to waste, corruption, and overhead costs.
While billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars fund criminal networks in Afghanistan, hospitals here in the U.S. are hurting. In Louisiana, for example, a $329 million budget shortfall is forcing the public hospital system to cut patient services. Hospitals expect a reduction of 79,000 outpatient visits and 12,400 fewer days of in-hospital care.
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Afghanistan Weekly Reader: The House Supports Another Year of War at $90 Billion
Published: July 26th, 2012
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to spend $88.5 billion on the Afghanistan war next year, shooting down efforts to cut back on war costs. This week, in a show of oversight, Congress held two hearings on Afghanistan. The testimony offered at the hearings was sobering. In the first, experts spoke on allegations that U.S. military commanders tried “to put a better face on the Afghan war” by covering up abuses at an Afghan hospital. At the second hearing, witnesses argued that despite over ten years and $50 billion, U.S. efforts to train the Afghan security forces are faltering. Moreover, in an effort to cover up the lack of success, the Pentagon lowered the standards used to measure Afghan forces’ progress.
From ASG
7/24/12
Afghan withdrawal not even close to halfway done
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
If you read only the news headlines, you missed the big Afghanistan story this week. The Associated Press headline reads: “US Afghan withdrawal halfway done.” The first paragraph clarifies that withdrawal planned for this summer is halfway done. That means that 23,000 U.S. troops will be home by fall. 68,000 will remain in Afghanistan.ARTICLES
7/25/12
As Afghan Security Forces Training Flounders, Pentagon Alters Progress Levels, Hearing Testimony Shows
Huffington Post by Greg Rosalsky
After more than a decade and nearly $50 billion spent on building the Afghan National Security Forces, the Pentagon is still struggling to adequately train them and has lowered the standards used to assess their progress, security experts told Congress Tuesday.7/24/12
U.S. Builds Afghan Air Base, but Where Are the Planes?
Wall Street Journal by Nathan Hodge
The budding Afghan air force was supposed to receive $355 million worth of planes custom-made for fighting guerrillas well ahead of the U.S. withdrawal in 2014. Equipped with machine guns, missiles and bombs, those reliable, rugged turboprop aircraft are cheaper to operate and easier to maintain than fighter jets.
The Afghans won’t get the planes on time.7/25/12
Afghan war: Did US commanders cover up ‘horrific’ conditions at hospital?
CS Monitor by Anne Mulrine
Are Americans getting a clear picture of just how war in Afghanistan is going? In bracing testimony before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee this week, top US military officials warned that they are not.OPINION
7/18/12
All quiet on the war front
LA Times by Doyle McManus
Here’s an important fact you haven’t heard much about in the presidential campaign: The armed forces of the United States are at war in at least four countries, and that number could increase any day. -
Afghan withdrawal not even close to halfway done
Published: July 24th, 2012
If you read only the news headlines, you missed the big Afghanistan story this week. The Associated Press headline reads: “US Afghan withdrawal halfway done.” The first paragraph clarifies that withdrawal planned for this summer is halfway done. That means that 23,000 U.S. troops will be home by fall. 68,000 will remain in Afghanistan.
In other words, by the end of the summer we’ll be back down to the same number of troops in Afghanistan that were stationed there when President Obama announced the surge in December 2009.
The administration has yet to announce the next steps in the Afghanistan drawdown. The NATO combat mission will end in 2014, but that doesn’t mean all of those 68,000 U.S. troops (plus 40,000 from NATO allies) will come home.
General John Allen, commander of the U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, has consistently emphasized that combat operations will continue right up through December 31, 2014. He has also noted that “we’re probably going to see some post-2014 military presence — some U.S. presence and a NATO presence.”
The two big unanswered questions are how many combat troops will be in Afghanistan on December 31, 2014, and how many non-combat troops will stay after January 1, 2015?
The answers will have serious economic consequences. If military leaders like Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti have their way, 68,000 troops will stay for the first part of of 2013, maybe longer. If policymakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham have their way, 20,000 troops may stay after 2014.
Maintaining this kind of presence in Afghanistan will only add to the already costly war. The Pentagon’s war budget request for 2013 is $88.5 billion. If Congress approves the request, war costs since will be close to $650 billion.
Maintaining troop levels after 2014 will be expensive. Sustaining 20,000 troops could cost $25 billion each year. Adding in security assistance and humanitarian and economic aid at about $8 billion per year (a conservative estimate given Afghanistan aid trends), and the Afghanistan war will continue to cost over $30 billion each year for years to come.
There are better uses for taxpayer dollars than an endless war in Afghanistan. American taxpayers certainly think so. A majority of Americans believes the war has not been worth the costs, according to a recent poll. We can only wonder why policymakers aren’t listening to the public and bringing U.S. troops — and tax dollars — home.
