 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Hungry Afghanistan faces prospect of drought in 2011
By Missy Ryan
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Afghanistan could face a serious drought in 2011 that would make millions of poor go hungry and fuel instability as foreign troops seek to reverse surging violence in the battle against the Taliban.
Security firms face possible fines in Afghanistan
Thu Feb 10, 1:50 pm ET
KABUL (AFP) – Private security firms operating in Afghanistan will in future face fines for breaking their operating rules, President Hamid Karzai's office said Thursday, the latest tightening of measures against them.
Afghanistan suicide bomber kills district governor, 6 others
The Taliban claims responsibility for the suicide bomb attack in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, the latest signal that the insurgency is able to strike far from its traditional strongholds.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times February 11, 2011
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed a district governor and six other people Thursday in a northern province of Afghanistan that has become increasingly emblematic of the Taliban movement's ability to strike far from its traditional strongholds in the south and east.
Merkel Gives Testimony on 2009 Airstrike in Afghanistan
By JUDY DEMPSEY The New York Times February 10, 2011
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany appeared Thursday evening before a special parliamentary committee seeking to clarify the circumstances behind a German-ordered airstrike in Afghanistan that killed at least 91 people, the majority Afghan civilians, in September 2009.
Are Afghans being kept in the dark on Egypt?
Global Post By Jean MacKenzie 10/02/2011
KABUL - Egypt’s crisis is downplayed in Kabul, where popular uprisings make many nervous.
Mired in the endless, stagnating crisis that is Afghanistan, it is hard not to feel a spark of jealousy at the storm of national pride and energy that has engulfed Egypt over the past week.
Kabul grocery bombing said to target French diplomats
By Josh Boak Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 10, 2011; 8:28 AM
KABUL - The Afghan National Security Directorate said Thursday that an imprisoned Taliban fighter masterminded a suicide bombing last month at a Kabul grocery store that killed eight people.
'Battle acupuncture' used to heal concussed US soldiers in Afghanistan
Saeed Shah Sydney Morning Herald February 12, 2011
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan: The US military is applying an ancient Chinese healing technique to the top modern battlefield injury for American soldiers, with results that doctors here say are ''off the charts''.
Afghan government finances more open
By Abdol Wahed Faramarz Asia Times - Feb 11 01:00am.
Afghanistan has made significant advances in opening up government finances to public scrutiny, but serious concerns still remain about administrative corruption, according to experts.
Afghan Woman’s Portrait Wins Top Photo Prize
VOA News February 11, 2011
A chilling portrait of an Afghan woman whose ears and nose were sliced off by her husband as punishment for leaving him has won the top World Press Photo prize. Photographer Jodi Bieber won the prize Friday for her portrait taken for Time magazine.
Another War Photographer Wounded in Afghanistan
By C.J. CHIVERS The New York Times February 11, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — A British photographer on a foot patrol with Afghan and American soldiers in southern Afghanistan was gravely wounded this week when he stepped on a makeshift bomb, military officials and his family said.
Should the US be talking to the Taliban?
Global Post By Jean MacKenzie 10/02/2011
KABUL - A new report faults US strategy in Afghanistan of fusing Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A new study released Monday by New York University’s Center on International Cooperation hints that U.S. strategy on Afghanistan needs a major rethink. First and foremost, the authors say, we need to identify the enemy we claim to be fighting.
Karzai Condemns Afghan Girl Murder in North
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 10 February 2011
President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the murder of a young girl by local warlords in northern Takhar province, a statement from Karzai's Office said.
Iran Ready To Set Up Joint TV Station With Tajikistan, Afghanistan
February 11, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
DUSHANBE -- Iran's ambassador to Tajikistan says he has the equipment needed to open the long-planned, joint Tajik-Afghan-Iranian television station if Tajik officials will allow it to be installed, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
12 Afghan airmen graduate from basic intelligence course: NATO
KABUL, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A dozen of Afghan airmen including a woman have graduated from basic airman intelligence course inside the country, a statement of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) received here Friday said.
Arnold Fields, charged with targeting Afghan fraud, came under fire himself
By Jason Horowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 10, 2011
The day before Arnold Fields left his position as the government's top official for detecting and preventing the waste of taxpayer money in Afghanistan, he serenaded his staff with one last song.
Back to Top
Hungry Afghanistan faces prospect of drought in 2011
By Missy Ryan
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Afghanistan could face a serious drought in 2011 that would make millions of poor go hungry and fuel instability as foreign troops seek to reverse surging violence in the battle against the Taliban.
Low rainfall early in the wet season will likely threaten Afghanistan's irrigated harvest, U.S. forecasts show, which with a surge in global grain prices could be devastating for a nation already ranked as having the world's worst food security.
U.S. officials are concerned drought, which could be averted if rain and snow fall heavily in coming weeks, could further destabilize Afghanistan as Washington races to prove it can turn back a tenacious Taliban before an initial withdrawal in July.
"Many Afghans live right on the edge of starvation and without necessary water there will be communities that will be on the move, seeking pasture and agricultural work in other areas," a senior U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity.
"That has potential to put pressure on society ... While who sends the rain has nothing to do with your politics, the Taliban can say the government is not providing for (them)," he said. Afghanistan's population is about 30 million.
Afghanistan needs about 5.2 million metric tons of wheat, the staple crop, a year. This year, the agriculture minister says the country will need to import, or receive donations, to cover about a fifth of that amount.
Once an important regional producer of raisins and other fruit, Afghanistan watched its vineyards become minefields during years of war between warlords, mujahideen and Soviet invaders.
Last year, consultants Maplecroft listed Afghanistan as the world's most food insecure country. Two thirds of Afghans are considered food insecure, meaning they don't have enough food, or the right kind of food, to eat, or are teetering on the brink.
"A shock to the system like drought, conflict displacement or natural disaster can push those people into food insecurity," said Challiss McDonough, spokeswoman for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Kabul.
The U.S. forecast said poor early rains had meant less winter wheat, Afghanistan's most reliable, resilient cereal crop, had been planted and that germination was low.
Major food shortages can be avoided, the report said, "if regional trade flows function normally and higher than normal food assistance can be coordinated and implemented."
That is a big if for a nation now in its tenth year of conflict since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. Roads and other infrastructure needed to transport crops and food, shattered by decades of conflict, are also plagued by homemade bombs.
VULNERABLE
While a surge in U.S. troops last year helped drive Taliban fighters out of parts of southern Afghanistan, violence in 2010 hit its highest level since the Taliban government was toppled and militants are taking the fight to once-quiet areas.
The bloodshed has turned Afghans like Khayatullah, a father of seven who abandoned his tiny farm in Ghazni province over a year ago, into refugees even less able to feed themselves.
Khayatullah, who earns $3-$4 a day when he can find work as a day laborer in the capital Kabul, stands in the freezing mud along with dozens of others queuing for a 50-kg bag of wheat WFP provides him once a month during winter and early spring.
"I'd go back to Ghazni if there was work and security," said Khayatullah, wrapped in a worn blanket against the winter cold. "But I don't think that's going to happen any time soon."
Fresh in the memory of many Afghans is the crisis of 2008, when a surge in global prices combined with local drought to push an additional 5 million people into hunger.
That year, aid groups say, many Afghans were forced to spend more than three-quarters of their meager incomes on food.
Now global wheat prices have shot up to their highest levels since 2008 after key producer Russia suffered a disastrous harvest in 2010 and banned grain exports. Global grains prices have risen further in early 2011 because of concerns about weather damage to crops in Australia and Argentina.
Such crises tend to last longer in nations such as Afghanistan, land-locked and lacking proper roads. Local wheat prices that peaked during 2008 have not returned to pre-crisis levels and have been trending upwards again since last summer.
Food prices here can also spike locally due to the violence, which makes transport more risky and more expensive.
HOPING FOR BEST, BRACING FOR WORST
Yet there is time for things to turn around. Mohammad Asif Rahimi, Afghanistan's agriculture minister, said it was too early to say what the impact of poor early rains would be on harvests.
"If we get regular rainfall between now and the end of March, rain-fed and irrigated cereals will be fine," he said.
After strong harvests in 2009 and 2010 -- around 4.5 million metric tons -- Afghanistan could face a wheat shortfall of up to 1.2 million metric tons this year, Rahimi said.
"We are watching this, but not predicting any catastrophic scenario," a U.S. agriculture expert said.
The Afghan government is planning to buy 200,000 metric tons of wheat on world markets, which it can sell or dole out if needed.
Yet drought would also make donations even more important. WFP, backed by donors such as the United States and Canada, is monitoring the situation and Afghan officials are also expecting India to donate 250,000 metric tons of wheat.
But aid shipments, trucked to Kabul from distant ports on poor, dangerous roads, are slow to arrive at best. Last year, the WFP lost about 22,000 metric tons of Afghanistan food aid that were being trucked in during Pakistan's historic floods.
Neither does aid reach many Afghans in need, like those who are unable to get registration cards for monthly handouts.
As Afghanistan tries to look beyond the current fighting, officials say donor help to improve irrigation and water management will be key to boosting food security in the long run.
"Nothing is more important in Afghanistan than water. If we can do one thing in Afghanistan, it should be water, water, water," the U.S. agriculture expert said.
(Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in HAMBURG; Editing by Paul Tait and Miral Fahmy)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Security firms face possible fines in Afghanistan
Thu Feb 10, 1:50 pm ET
KABUL (AFP) – Private security firms operating in Afghanistan will in future face fines for breaking their operating rules, President Hamid Karzai's office said Thursday, the latest tightening of measures against them.
In August, Karzai ordered that all private security firms -- many of which are foreign-owned and provide guards for embassies, NGOs and businesses in violence-hit Afghanistan -- be banned.
But he later rowed back on this under pressure from his Western allies, who said the firms were necessary to provide adequate security in the country, whose own police and military are still being built up.
"The interior minister presented a plan regarding fining private security companies that unlawfully recruit foreign staff, unlawfully import armoured vehicles from outside the country, or distribute illegal weapons," a statement from Karzai's office said, after a meeting of the National Security Council.
"After a wide review of this law, the security council approved it and it was decided that in the near future, President Karzai will issue an order by which all the companies that act unlawfully will be countered seriously."
A limited number of licensed private security firms are still allowed to function in Afghanistan.
However, Karzai's office said on Thursday that seven companies owned by government ministers were being abolished.
But it also indicated that employees of these companies were likely to end up being recruited by the Afghan interior ministry.
Karzai says that private security companies hold back the development of the Afghan police and accuses them of security violations and corruption.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan suicide bomber kills district governor, 6 others
The Taliban claims responsibility for the suicide bomb attack in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, the latest signal that the insurgency is able to strike far from its traditional strongholds.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times February 11, 2011
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed a district governor and six other people Thursday in a northern province of Afghanistan that has become increasingly emblematic of the Taliban movement's ability to strike far from its traditional strongholds in the south and east.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the district of Chardara in Kunduz province, where the insurgency is well entrenched. A spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, called the slain official, Wahid Omarkhel, an "active member of the stooge government" who was closely connected to "foreign invaders."
Assassinations like this one make it extremely difficult for the Afghan government to recruit and retain qualified officials in areas that are considered Taliban strongholds. Insurgents routinely send "night letters" warning those connected to the central government or the Western military to quit their jobs or risk being targeted.
Omarkhel was known to have cordial ties with NATO forces in the area and had been threatened previously, associates said. The U.S. Embassy condemned the killing, calling it a "senseless and cowardly act against a committed civil servant."
Both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the administration of President Hamid Karzai say it is essential to extend the reach of government services in order to win people's loyalty. But in districts such as Chardara, the insurgency has created what amounts to a shadow government, complete with Islamic courts and a system of tax collection.
The bomber managed to make his way directly into Omarkhel's office, according to Abdul Rahman Aqtaash, the deputy provincial police chief, even though most ranking public servants observe stringent security measures. The six others killed in the attack were visitors, he said.
At midday, the receiving rooms of any official of Omarkhel's standing are usually filled with tribal elders and various petitioners, particularly on a Thursday, the last day of the workweek. In addition to those killed, seven people were injured, police said.
The attack pointed up the difficulties the NATO force faces in trying to maintain stability in parts of Afghanistan where there are not heavy concentrations of Western troops. Most of the U.S. troops who arrived in the last year as part of the military buildup ordered by President Obama have been deployed in the south, considered the main Taliban stronghold, and in the east, near the Pakistan border, where fighters from the Pakistan-based Haqqani network are most active.
Kunduz province was relatively peaceful until about two years ago, but several different insurgent groups have since moved in, making it one of the more dangerous parts of the country and giving the Taliban a springboard for attacks across a wide swath of the north.
laura.king@latimes.com
Back to Top
Back to Top
Merkel Gives Testimony on 2009 Airstrike in Afghanistan
By JUDY DEMPSEY The New York Times February 10, 2011
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany appeared Thursday evening before a special parliamentary committee seeking to clarify the circumstances behind a German-ordered airstrike in Afghanistan that killed at least 91 people, the majority Afghan civilians, in September 2009.
Mrs. Merkel is the last witness to be called to testify in the inquiry into the bombings, which left Germany shaken. The inquiry has already lasted 14 months and involved 40 witnesses.
Members of the panel were seeking to establish just when the Chancellery was first informed about the bombings, what details Mrs. Merkel’s office gave to the public and whether or not there was any attempt to cover up the numbers of civilian casualties — or indeed if the Chancellery had been told by the Defense Ministry about the extent of the casualties.
“All claims that the federal government did not have any interest in a complete explanation and that because of the election campaign in 2009, I might even have been covering something up, are baseless,” Mrs. Merkel said in her opening statement.
“This was a complete communications disaster,” said Omid Nouripour, security expert for the opposition Greens party who is involved in the inquiry.
“We want the chancellor to explain what she knew, when she knew it and how she communicated the information,” Mr. Nouripour added minutes before the inquiry proceeding began Thursday.
Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, it is certain that the lines of communication between German and NATO forces on the ground in Afghanistan, and between those forces and the German government, will be overhauled, security experts said.
Above all, the German Defense Ministry and the Chancellery will be required to be more transparent in keeping the public informed, especially about the war in Afghanistan, which is highly unpopular.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foreign minister at the time of the Kunduz bombings, told the inquiry Thursday that his ministry “had few possibilities to investigate on the ground.”
Mr. Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, said he thought at the time that the fatalities in Kunduz would be “decisive for the future engagement of the German armed forces in Afghanistan.” It was a prescient remark. Last month, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to begin the withdrawal of the country’s 4,700 troops later this year. Mrs. Merkel was scheduled to speak after Mr. Steinmeier.
What the inquiry also wants to establish is why the full impact of the 2009 bombings was made known only over several days and not immediately. The public was informed that U.S. fighter planes had dropped two 225-kilogram, or 500-pound, bombs on two fuel trucks during the night of Sept. 3, 2009. The trucks had been hijacked by the Taliban, and the fuel was supposed to be for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. There was no or very little mention of civilian casualties.
The trucks became stuck in a sandbank along the Kunduz River. Villagers rushed out to help the Taliban or help themselves to fuel, according to the inquiry. The NATO commander in the region, Col. Georg Klein, a German, according to the inquiry, called in U.S. fighters to bomb the trucks. Colonel Klein failed to consult with his military superiors at the time, fearing an imminent attack on a nearby army camp.
The political fallout in Berlin has already been considerable.
Franz Josef Jung, who was defense minister at the time of the bombings before moving on to become labor minister in Mrs. Merkel’s second coalition government, initially insisted that only “terrorist Taliban” had been killed.
Mrs. Merkel on Thursday distanced herself from Mr. Jung’s remarks.
Mr. Jung, who was succeeded by Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, was soon afterward forced to resign as labor minister and leave the government altogether.
Mr. Guttenberg, who had been criticized by the opposition for making decisions too hastily rather than taking responsibility for mistakes, immediately blamed the top brass of the armed forces for the poor communication channels.
Mr. Guttenberg fired the chief of staff, Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhand, and the state secretary in the Defense Ministry, Peter Wichert. He claimed that they had withheld vital documents and that he had lost trust in them.
Even so, Mr. Guttenberg, as soon as he had been informed, said the airstrikes had been “appropriate” despite the heavy loss of civilian life. Days later, he changed his mind, declaring that the strikes had been “inappropriate” and should never have taken place.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 11, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune..
Back to Top
Back to Top
Are Afghans being kept in the dark on Egypt?
Global Post By Jean MacKenzie 10/02/2011
KABUL - Egypt’s crisis is downplayed in Kabul, where popular uprisings make many nervous.
Mired in the endless, stagnating crisis that is Afghanistan, it is hard not to feel a spark of jealousy at the storm of national pride and energy that has engulfed Egypt over the past week.
Like most of the universe, I have been glued to the television for the past week. I have worried and rejoiced with CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera in their nearly round-the-clock reporting from Cairo, Alexandria and other flashpoints.
But the Afghan media has been sparing in its footage of the remarkable events unfolding just a few countries away. The evening news programs have given the revolution a bit of exposure, but nothing like the gushing plaudits emanating from the Western outlets.
With good reason.
The sight of a million or more people pouring out on the streets to demand the end to a hated regime is likely to cause a bit of excitement among the population and more than a little heartburn in the presidential palace.
I spent Wednesday trying to convince some Afghan media colleagues to do a piece on the reaction in Kabul to the Cairo uprising. It was surprisingly hard going.
“Just ask people what they think about the events in Egypt,” I urged. “Do man-in-the-street interviews.”
The editor of a local news agency looked at me incredulously.
“This is not a good story to do,” he said flatly. “If we ask people if they want change, of course they’ll say yes. Everybody wants change here. We should not give them any ideas.”
I was astounded at his attitude. In my other life as a journalism trainer, I have spent years trying to instill the idea that giving people ideas, or at least encouraging them to think, is one of the principle roles of a professional media.
But then I understood him, albeit reluctantly — after three decades of war, the prospects of a peaceful demonstration involving large numbers of Afghans are practically nil. The country is a powder keg of ethnic, political and social tension. The smallest spark could set off a conflagration that would sweep away any final hopes that the country is on the road to stability, democracy and prosperity.
It has been a particularly difficult week in Afghanistan, unreported and unremarked in the shadow of Egypt’s more spectacular and uplifting events.
Last weekend an explosion in a supermarket frequented by foreigners killed 14 people and ripped from the international community any last illusions of security. Most of my friends in embassies and major international organizations are still locked down, and I have to confess that I was a bit nervous yesterday as I was picking up cheese and toothpaste at the sister store of the one that was destroyed.
The Afghan government is once again in upheaval, something that will undoubtedly shock no one. The senate is in revolt against the president, since Hamid Karzai has not yet appointed the one-third of the upper chamber that he is supposed to by law. The senators went ahead without the absent colleagues and elected a speaker, something that a constitutional oversight committee insists is against the law.
Rumors have been flying that Karzai’s own vice presidents have been fanning the flames of the senators’ resentment, although the august body denies that there is any major tension between it and the executive.
The lower house has been engaged in a travesty of democracy as the parliamentarians attempt to elect their own speaker. There are persistent reports from highly credible sources that Karzai’s people have been sprinkling money with a lavish hand in support of the president’s preferred candidate, Abdul Rassul Sayyaf.
Sayyaf would be a strange choice indeed — he has been implicated in some of the worst atrocities of the civil-war period, and has been named as a war criminal by several international bodies, including Human Rights Watch.
But he is an ethnic Pashtun, with the clout to bring his wayward colleagues to heel. His main rival was a Tajik, Younus Qanuni, who served as speaker of the last parliament.
Four rounds of voting and several days of debate have failed to produce a winner; on Saturday the crisis will enter its second week.
Other recent bombshells include revelations that losses at Kabul Bank, the corrupt venture that enriched some of Afghanistan’s best-connected families, could amount to close to a billion dollars. Bailing out the bank could put a major dent in Afghanistan’s meager GDP, unless Uncle Sam can be convinced to absorb the blow.
Private security firms are being disbanded at a startling rate, for reasons which are far from clear. Some companies are being shut down for failing to report the correct number of vehicles they own, while others, accused of murder and mayhem, remain untouched.
Perhaps most worrying of all, the U.S. government’s own Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has issued a report saying that the aid effort in the country is a shambles.
But who wants more bad news from Afghanistan? Fatigue has set in, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to drum up popular interest in this small, dysfunctional country whose fate has nevertheless drawn in much of the rest of the world.
As a journalist, I am frankly green with envy at colleagues who are covering what is unquestionably the biggest story in the world right now. A friend of mine, a radio journalist who had recently shifted from Kabul to Cairo, was complaining late last summer that her new assignment was just a tad well, boring.
“It is much harder to get on the air from Egypt,” she fretted, reflecting on her years at the center of the Afghanistan whirlwind.
I’m willing to bet that she hasn’t had that problem lately. Egypt is almost completely occupying the hearts, minds, eyes and ears of media consumers everywhere.
In the meantime, Afghanistan continues its lazy but deliberate downward spiral. It will be a long, hard slog until 2014, when responsibility shifts away from the international community to Afghanistan’s own resources.
If the current trends continue, most of it will take place outside the relentless media scrutiny that Afghanistan has enjoyed up until just recently.
Cairo, anyone?
Back to Top
Back to Top
Kabul grocery bombing said to target French diplomats
By Josh Boak Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 10, 2011; 8:28 AM
KABUL - The Afghan National Security Directorate said Thursday that an imprisoned Taliban fighter masterminded a suicide bombing last month at a Kabul grocery store that killed eight people.
Talib Jan, 45, plotted the attack from Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, where he has been incarcerated for the past three years, the directorate said.
Correcting initial reports that the attack targeted the head of the U.S. security contractor formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, directorate spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said the plan was to assassinate two French diplomats.
In connection with the attack, the directorate arrested Muhammad Khan, a 33-year-old Kabul resident who described at a news conference how he drove the bomber into Afghanistan from the tribal region of Pakistan.
Khan, 33, shuffled past a scrum of cameras, wearing handcuffs, a bright orange prison uniform and a tired face.
In a monotone voice, he admitted to having previously planted explosives along a road and bridge traveled by troops in the U.S.-led coalition. However, Khan said he had been unaware that his passenger, Muhammad Shoib, was a suicide bomber.
"When I heard some innocent civilians were killed, I felt so bad," Khan said. "I want the president of Afghanistan, the people and the government authorities to forgive me."
Khan said he crossed into Pakistan with a Taliban commander named Muhammad Shah at the request of two Afghans, who offered him $300 to negotiate the release of two French journalists kidnapped by the Taliban in late 2009.
One of those men worked for the French Embassy in Kabul, he said. They allegedly told him that the Afghan government would not arrest him if the negotiations ended badly.
A spokesman for the French Embassy said the Afghan government had not informed them that their diplomats were the targets of the attack or that an employee is allegedly connected to the plot.
Khan returned to Kabul empty-handed, but he had agreed to give Shoib a ride into the city.
On Jan. 28, the Taliban commander phoned Khan to let him know that he and Shoib had arrived at the Finest, a supermarket that caters to expatriates. Shoib started the attack with gunfire and ended it with a deadly explosion.
Khan said foreign and Afghan government agents raided his house and arrested him the next day. He figured they tracked him down by intercepting the phone call from the Taliban commander.
Special correspondent Habib Zohori contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
'Battle acupuncture' used to heal concussed US soldiers in Afghanistan
Saeed Shah Sydney Morning Herald February 12, 2011
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan: The US military is applying an ancient Chinese healing technique to the top modern battlefield injury for American soldiers, with results that doctors here say are ''off the charts''.
Battlefield acupuncture'', developed by an air force physician, Colonel Richard Niemtzow, is helping heal soldiers with concussions so they can return more quickly to the front.
At Camp Leatherneck, a huge Marine Corps base in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, a military doctor's consulting room has dim little Christmas lights arranged across the ceiling and new age music playing.
Advertisement: Story continues below Commander Keith Stuessi asks his patients to relax in his darkened chamber and then gently inserts hair-thin needles. He uses acupuncture to treat concussions, also known as mild brain trauma. ''I'm seeing pretty incredible results,'' said Commander Stuessi. ''In my heart I think this will, down the road, become one of the standards of care.''
Homemade bombs called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are the leading killer of coalition soldiers in the Afghan war. Even those without visible injury, but who were close to a blast, can feel the pressure wave from the explosion rush through their bodies. A concussion is caused by the pressure wave travelling through the brain, without anything necessarily hitting the head.
Some are knocked unconscious and ruptured eardrums are common. Even those who don't black out can have the same debilitating after-effects: dizziness, loss of balance, ringing in the ear, crushing insomnia, an aversion to light and a pounding headache. It typically takes two weeks to recover from the concussion, Commander Stuessi said.
Gunnery Sergeant Williams, 36, was 10 days in from a concussion he received in Musa Qala, in the north of Helmand, when he arrived in Commander Stuessi's office. Climbing down off a roof during a mission to set up a new patrol base, a soldier one metre in front of him stepped on an IED - and had to have both legs amputated below the knee.
Williams was knocked unconscious for about 10 seconds, and sustained a Grade III concussion, the most severe, but he was otherwise unhurt. Others realised something was wrong when he started talking nonsense, and he was airlifted to a hospital.
Commander Stuessi suggested he try acupuncture. ''I was willing to try anything to get back [to duty],'' Sergeant Williams said. ''That night, I slept for about 10 hours, and when I woke, the headache wasn't as severe.''
Sergeant Williams has had four sessions and is sleeping well. Sleep is the most important cure for concussion.
Scientific studies on acupuncture have not been able to prove its effectiveness. But Commander Stuessi isn't alone in using it in the US military. The navy alone has now trained about 50 doctors in acupuncture, he said. The air force, for instance, uses the technique to dampen the pain on the long flights for evacuating wounded soldiers back to the US.
Commander Stuessi thought it worked by adjusting the ''neural pathways'' in the body. ''It's like rewiring a computer; you're hitting certain nerves in the body. So instead of sending up a pain signal to the brain, they send up a signal saying everything's OK. It's almost like faking out the brain.''
The National Institutes of Health is examining acupuncture as a means of speeding recovery for soldiers. Last week in Washington, Defence Department personnel met researchers and members of the Institutes of Health's National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to discuss the military's continued exploration of acupuncture
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan government finances more open
By Abdol Wahed Faramarz Asia Times - Feb 11 01:00am.
Afghanistan has made significant advances in opening up government finances to public scrutiny, but serious concerns still remain about administrative corruption, according to experts.
The country's rating on an annual international survey of budget transparency - which scores countries from zero to 100 - has risen to 21 in 2010 from eight in 2008. Of the 94 countries monitored by the Open Budget Index, Afghanistan was ranked 73rd, 15 places higher than in 2006.
"Although lagging behind most of the 94 countries surveyed, Afghanistan has shown an important effort to increase budget transparency to provide citizens the opportunity to hold the government accountable for its management of public funds," according to Integrity Watch Afghanistan, IWA, an anti-corruption watchdog.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development defines budget transparency as the "full disclosure of all relevant fiscal information in a timely and systematic manner".
At the Kabul Conference in July 2010, international donors committed themselves to channel 50% of their assistance through the Afghan government if it met certain criteria, including the introduction of transparency mechanisms and a reduction in corruption.
Although the Ministry of Finance produces most of the key budget documents, some of them are not published on time due to staff resources and shifting donor priorities, according to IWA.
Mohammad Mostafa Mastur, the deputy minister of finance, said the progress on budget transparency was due to efforts by the ministry to prepare, provide and publish budgetary documents, including documented yearly cash flow, mid-year and end-of-year reports and the budgetary audit.
"Previously, we did not publish these documents, although we had them available, because we were not aware of the international budgetary laws," he said.
Mastur said budget transparency would help with the battle against corruption. "When there is no secrecy about the work of government officials, it will create fear among them and prevent them from bribery and from embezzling the government budget.”
However, improved transparency alone was not enough to tackle corruption, which is estimated to cost around US$1 billion a year, he said.
Administrative corruption remains one of the major challenges faced by the government of President Hamid Karzai and a source of much friction with the international community. In 2010, Transparency International, to which IWA is affiliated, deemed Afghanistan the most corrupt country after Somalia.
IWA director Yama Torabi noted that bribery appeared to be on the rise, pointing to a 2010 IWA national survey which indicated it had doubled since 2007.
Abdul Aziz Aryayi, a senior official in the government's anti-corruption commission, the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption, said that although the improvement in transparency was a positive sign "it is a matter of concern that low-level administrative corruption has increased in the country".
Aryayi said that over the last year his commission had identified 200 cases of alleged corruption and had referred them to the attorney general's office. The cases involved "high and low-ranking government officials."
He said the commission was working on a number of different fronts to combat corruption, including legal reforms, service provision simplification, better coordination between government bodies and the setting up of three commission branches in the provinces.
But many ordinary Afghans believe that the problem of corruption is too entrenched for such measures to make much difference.
Shamsollah, a resident of Kabul city, said foreign donors should demand greater accountability from those who received their funds, adding that while budget transparency could prevent corruption by low-level government officials, it would be harder to tackle that among more powerful figures such as former mujahideen commanders.
"In fact, the government is made of such individuals," he said. "Unless the rule of law is not strengthened, the chaos will continue."
Abdul Wahed Faramarz is an IWPR-trained journalist.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan Woman’s Portrait Wins Top Photo Prize
VOA News February 11, 2011
A chilling portrait of an Afghan woman whose ears and nose were sliced off by her husband as punishment for leaving him has won the top World Press Photo prize. Photographer Jodi Bieber won the prize Friday for her portrait taken for Time magazine.
News of the prize followed a story in a prominent U.S. newspaper that Afghanistan is considering new rules that would require women to seek permission from a government panel to live in a shelter.
The New York Times reports that under the proposed rules, if the panel denies a woman permission for refuge in a shelter, the panel would then determine if the woman should be sent to jail or back home, where the newspaper says she would “be at risk of a beating or even death.”
The newspaper reports the proposed rules would also require a woman to undergo a physical exam that could include a “virginity test.”
The New York Times says Afghanistan's 14 shelters currently funded by international organizations, private donors and Western governments would be subjected to “direct government control” under the new rules being drafted by the Women's Affairs Ministry.
Manizha Naderi, the director of Women for Afghan Women, which runs three shelters and five family counseling centers in Afghanistan, told the newspaper she is not sure why the government is considering the new rules, but suspects it is – in her words – “to appease the Taliban.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Another War Photographer Wounded in Afghanistan
By C.J. CHIVERS The New York Times February 11, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — A British photographer on a foot patrol with Afghan and American soldiers in southern Afghanistan was gravely wounded this week when he stepped on a makeshift bomb, military officials and his family said.
The photographer, Giles Duley, was working on Feb. 7 beside soldiers from the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment near the village of Sangsar in rural Kandahar Province when he stepped on a pressure-plate that detonated a hidden explosive charge, according to the American military.
Mr. Duley, 39, was the second photographer to suffer multiple amputations while covering the military campaign in Kandahar since last fall.
He lost one leg below the knee, one leg above the knee and his left arm was severed above the elbow, according to his brother, David Duley. A finger on his right hand was fractured and he had other superficial wounds.
But he did not suffer internal injuries or a head wound, his brother said by telephone, and has been conscious and lucid while undergoing treatment in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England. No one else was wounded in the blast.
A freelancer associated with the Camera Press agency in London, Mr. Duley was formerly a fashion and music photographer, shooting for GQ and Esquire and other magazines. He had in recent years shifted his focus to humanitarian causes.
He has worked in Africa, Asia, Ukraine and elsewhere, documenting suffering and seeking “inspiring stories of the human spirit, stories that would otherwise remain untold in an era of commercialized media and news,” according to a written statement from his family and agency.
One his photographs, of a woman in Southern Sudan delivering a stillborn child, was a 2010 prize winner in the Prix de la Photographie Paris. His Web site described his editorial philosophy. “My photographs remind us of our humanity and of the need for understanding and compassion if we want a peaceful world and a just one.”
Mr. Duley had been in Afghanistan less than two weeks when he was wounded, and was covering military operations for the first time. The statement said that he had traveled to Afghanistan in late January intending “to cover the plight of bomb victims, but an opportunity presented itself to join front-line action with the U.S. Army; an offer that the true photojournalist within him couldn’t resist.”
His brother said he had a clear view of the risks. “He was fully aware of where he was going and what he was getting himself into,” he said.
Sangsar, the village where the Taliban reorganized in the 1990’s and began its spread through much of Afghanistan, lies in an impoverished agricultural zone along the Arghandab River basin.
Since last year, the area has been the focus of a large American-led offensive to subdue the insurgency and develop an Afghan government presence in one of the regions where the Taliban has been strongest.
The American and Afghan patrol was clearing a compound when Mr. Duley stepped on the pressure plate, according to Lt. Col. Michael D. Wirt, an Army doctor at Patrol Base Wilson, an American outpost near Sangsar.
Soldiers applied three tourniquets to his wounds and stabilized him, Colonel Wirt said. He was evacuated by a Black Hawk medevac helicopter and flown to the NATO military hospital at Kandahar Air Field.
David Bowering, a Canadian photographer traveling with the medevac crew, said that Mr. Duley, though in terrible physical condition when the helicopter arrived, “put up a good battle.”
“He was coherent most of the way,” he said. “He answered questions.”
In late October, Joao Silva, a photographer working for The New York Times, stepped on an anti-personnel landmine in another village near the Arghandab River. He lost both legs and suffered other wounds.
Earlier this week, after being fitted with prosthetic legs, Mr. Silva took his first steps.
David Duley said that his brother, consistent with his demeanor on the helicopter flight, was “surprising everyone with his resilience and humor.” He was awake on Thursday, and had been talking, joking and flirting with a nurse.
Mr. Duley had planned to start his own quarterly journal, tentatively titled Document, his brother said, and added that Mr. Duley, like Mr. Silva, has already said he will resume his work.
“Giles is a triple amputee, but he is still a photographer,” he said. “He still intends to do what he does. This is not going to stop him.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Should the US be talking to the Taliban?
Global Post By Jean MacKenzie 10/02/2011
KABUL - A new report faults US strategy in Afghanistan of fusing Taliban and Al Qaeda.
A new study released Monday by New York University’s Center on International Cooperation hints that U.S. strategy on Afghanistan needs a major rethink. First and foremost, the authors say, we need to identify the enemy we claim to be fighting.
“Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan,” as the report is called, fundamentally challenges the assumptions that lie at the heart of U.S. policy: that by fighting the Taliban we are punishing the forces that perpetrated Sept. 11, and consequently making our homeland safer.
In U.S. President Barack Obama’s first Afghanistan policy speech in 2009, he announced a “clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
That being the case, say authors Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, the United States and its allies may have been engaged in a slight case of overkill for much of the past 10 years. In the process they ignored overtures that might have short-circuited the Afghan insurgency and made it possible to help establish a more peaceful, stable state in this volatile region.
The study, released under the aegis of eminent Afghan expert Dr. Barnett Rubin, will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers in the halls of power and academe.
The basic premise of the study is that the Taliban are a different group — ideologically, strategically and tactically — from Al Qaeda. Fusing the two has made it almost impossible for the international community to conduct anything approaching productive negotiations with the Taliban — no one wants to be seen to engage with the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center and knocked a wall out of the Pentagon, killing over 3,000 civilians.
But according to van Linchoten and Kuehn, “the Taliban leaders do not seem to have had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bin Laden effectively manipulated the Taliban, using their lack of international experience to advance his own goals.”
This is hardly received wisdom among the American punditry.
Bruce Reidel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an influential advisor on Afghanistan within the Obama administration, dismissed any suggestion that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are marching to different drummers.
In a new report he co-authored with Michael O’Hanlon, also of the Brookings Institution, he argued:
“Those who assert that the Afghan Taliban may no longer have sympathy for these other extremists base their hopes on a thin reed. Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden continue to work together to send terrorists to the United States, as illustrated by the foiled 2009 New York metro attack planned for the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks The Taliban were active recruiters for an Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland.”
Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and CNN’s security affairs analyst, has long argued that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have fused.
But van Linschoten and Kuehn muster some compelling arguments to the contrary. They document considerable friction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda both before and after Sept. 11, and also give chapter and verse of the Taliban’s overtures to the Afghan government in late 2001 and early 2002.
“This was an important moment for the Taliban leadership; if they had been given some assurance that they would not be arrested upon returning to Afghanistan they would have come, but neither the Afghan government nor their international sponsors saw any reason to engage with the Taliban at that time — they considered them a spent force.”
The war of attrition now being waged in southern Afghanistan is also a mistake, the authors argue. While U.S. military officials publicly insist that body counts are not the sole or even the best metric of success, it is reports of Taliban deaths that clog the wires at the press center of NATO’s International Joint Command.
Briefs on Taliban fighters or facilitators who have been “neutralized,” “dispatched,” “overcome,” or “killed” are issued several times a day.
The massive punch is taking its toll, say the Taliban with whom van Linschoten and Kuehn have been speaking. But it might not ultimately be good news for the U.S. forces. While the mid-level Taliban commanders have been all but wiped out, their places are being taken by a younger, more radical, more ideological group.
“These newer generations are potentially a more serious threat,” the authors argue. “This generation of commanders is more ideologically motivated and less nationalistic than previous generations it is not interested in negotiations or compromise with foreigners they are citizens of jihad.”
These younger fighters might also be more inclined to accept the blandishments of Al Qaeda, whose help they will need if they are to have any hope of chasing the foreigners out of their homeland.
“Al Qaeda operatives have been known to seek out direct contact with such younger field commanders inside Afghanistan Where the old leadership speaks of a fight against foreign invaders, the new generation is adopting the discourse of fighting against infidel crusaders.”
So the international troops are in a sense creating the very enemy they will have to defeat. The authors dub the war in Afghanistan “an avoidable insurgency” and urge the international community to open talks with the Taliban before it is too late.
“Many Taliban leaders of the older generation are still potential partners for a negotiated settlement,” they conclude.
This study might be seen by some as an apologia for the Taliban, or a hopelessly rosy view of the insurgency.
But both van Linschoten and Kuehn have spent years in Afghanistan, much of it in the southern city of Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban and still its ideological heartland.
They have conducted hundreds of interviews with Taliban members, officials, ordinary Afghans, as well as international experts on the movement. They edited “My Life With the Taliban,” the autobiography of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.
The present study is a condensation of what will become a book-length treatment of the subject. They found that when they began their research, they could not easily stop.
“Every tidbit in the study is a chapter in the book,” Kuehn said.
But all the talk is probably academic at this point, something that both van Linschoten and Kuehn acknowledge.
“The window of opportunity has been closing for years already,” van Linschoten said. “It would be speculation to guess whether it has now firmly slammed shut I don't mean to say that a change would not be possible. There are things that the U.S. could change in terms of their political and military strategy, even though massive alterations don't seem likely.”
But if neither side is willing to budge, the future could be grim indeed, the authors said.
“In the end, past experience, the proven track record of regional actors and members of the insurgency and the Afghan government, and current U.S. policy suggest that a wide-ranging set of talks is ultimately unrealistic as a possibility for the near-term Afghan political calendar. In that case, internationals would do well to begin preparing for possible scenarios which would involve the movement of large numbers of Afghans outside and inside the country, as well as escalated conflict environments.”
In other words, civil war.
But it is still not too late to examine what the international community is doing in Afghanistan, the authors said.
“Most aspects of current policies — especially our base assumptions — could benefit from us stopping to pause for a moment and reconsidering point by point what the evidence for each argument is,” van Linchoten said.
In this he echoes recent remarks by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is breaking away from the Obama administration’s position on Afghanistan.
As the senator told the Boston Globe over the weekend, "What I don't want is to be party to a policy that continues simply because it is there and in place That would be like Vietnam. And that is what I am determined to try to prevent."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Karzai Condemns Afghan Girl Murder in North
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 10 February 2011
President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the murder of a young girl by local warlords in northern Takhar province, a statement from Karzai's Office said.
At a national security session, President Karzai instructed Interior Ministry, National Directorate of Security and local officials in northern Takhar province to arrest those behind the murder.
Local warlords in northern Takhar province recently shot a girl dead and abducted her sister with no apparent reason.
National Security Council ordered security forces to provide the family of the victim with a safe place.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission also condemned the murder.
Human rights situation is said to be very vulnerable in the remote provinces.
Husband of the murdered girl has reportedly been arrested in Rustaq district, the place where the incident happened, and sentenced to 17 years in jail.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Iran Ready To Set Up Joint TV Station With Tajikistan, Afghanistan
February 11, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
DUSHANBE -- Iran's ambassador to Tajikistan says he has the equipment needed to open the long-planned, joint Tajik-Afghan-Iranian television station if Tajik officials will allow it to be installed, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
Iranian diplomat Ali Asghar Sherdust said the new station could begin broadcasting some three weeks after the equipment is set up in a Dushanbe office.
Sherdust said the station could be ready in time to cover a meeting of the Tajik, Afghan, and Iranian leaders scheduled for Dushanbe during the annual Norouz celebration on March 21.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon agreed to set up the TV station at a meeting in Dushanbe in July 2006. The three countries' people share cultural similarities and the majority of people in each country speak Persian.
But Afghanistan showed little interest in the Persian-language TV project, as Kabul has a much more vibrant media environment than the other two countries and also has two official languages. Afghanistan and Tajikistan were also concerned about the costs involved in establishing the station.
Asadullo Rahmonov, the head of Tajikistan's Committee on TV and Radio, told RFE/RL that Tajik officials would need at least two months to install the equipment and could not guarantee that the joint TV station could cover the Norouz meeting of the three leaders in Dushanbe.
Tajikistan analyst Rajabi Mirzo told RFE/RL today he has doubts that such a TV station could be successful because the three countries have such "absolutely different ideologies."
Tajik journalist Zafar Sufi said he agrees with Mirzo and added that Iranian officials would not be happy watching the types of songs and dances that are often shown on Tajik TV. He added that Tajik authorities who disallow some women from wearing the hijab would be unhappy seeing TV anchors wearing Islamic head scarves, as all Iranian and many Afghan women journalists do.
Tajikistan recently decreased its contacts with Muslim countries when it ordered hundreds of young Tajik men to return home from Islamic schools and universities abroad where they were studying, including many in Iran.
Tajik authorities also stopped Tajik teachers from visiting Iran and taking part in special courses for learning the Persian alphabet. And last week, Tajik Air decreased the number of flights it makes to Iranian cities.
Back to Top
Back to Top
12 Afghan airmen graduate from basic intelligence course: NATO
KABUL, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A dozen of Afghan airmen including a woman have graduated from basic airman intelligence course inside the country, a statement of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) received here Friday said.
"Twelve members of the Afghan Air Force, including the first female student and two civilians, graduated from the basic airman intelligence course at Pohantoon-e-Hawayee, the Afghan Air Force's "Big Air School", February. 3," the statement added.
Each of the graduates completed 210 hours of classroom instruction covering more than 50 topics, the statement further said.
"Topics range from critical thinking and analysis, mission planning, classified information protection and security, to the creation and delivery of a professional military intelligence brief in support of Afghanistan Air Force flying operations," the statement quoted Lee Marsters, Afghan Air Force Intelligence adviser, with the NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan Advisory Group as saying.
Marsters said the training was conducted because there was a need to develop a professional intelligence capability in Afghanistan air force.
"Without these skills, the Afghan Air Force cannot be a part of NATO. This is only the second four month course that has been taught. Other intelligence courses being taught by coalition partners were not capable of addressing Intelligence Support to air operations," Marsters noted in the statement.
"Additionally, it gives the Afghan Air Force the ability to work with other nations on the level that NATO operates," the statement quoted Marsters as saying.
Afghan air force at present is made up of a Corpse with several Russian-made helicopters and transport planes provided by some nations contributed troops to Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led ISAF.
However, Afghan air force has no jet fighters and Afghan government has been emphasizing for proper equipment of its air force to independently safeguards the country's boundaries after completion of transferring security responsibility from NATO-led troops to Afghan security forces.
The process of taking security charges from NATO-led troops by Afghan forces begins in March 21 this year and would be completed by the end of 2014, according to Afghan and NATO officials.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Arnold Fields, charged with targeting Afghan fraud, came under fire himself
By Jason Horowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 10, 2011
The day before Arnold Fields left his position as the government's top official for detecting and preventing the waste of taxpayer money in Afghanistan, he serenaded his staff with one last song.
"Thank you all for your service," retired Maj. Gen. Fields said at a farewell luncheon in Crystal City after completing 100 push-ups and playing the final chord of "The Impossible Dream" on his guitar. "And remember the mission."
Fields, a decorated Marine combat veteran who, at 64, has military posture, bifocal glasses and a gentlemanly manner, resigned from his position atop the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) last month in the wake of a scathing peer review and a brutal congressional hearing at which senators called for his head. On the morning of Feb. 3, he sat in a freshly wallpapered corner office amid packed boxes, polished furniture and his guitar case to discuss what went wrong and what lay ahead.
"There is a certain amount of relief," Fields acknowledged, blaming political pressures and a lack of early funding for debilitating his leadership. "I'm going to be frank with you, sir. Much of this that I have experienced in this capacity, I did not expect."
In a war where countering corruption is critical to success, the watchdog agency tasked with examining the more than $56 billion in Afghan reconstruction funding is, according to some of its own officials, in need of oversight. Accusations of influence-buying, internal debate over whether auditors should put dollar figures on waste and arguments about which reconstruction projects deserved investigation led to the formation of bitter factions and intense office politics.
"I don't feel that I was set up to fail," said Fields, "but I don't feel that I was set up for success."
On June 12, 2008, President George W. Bush appointed Fields, who commanded a Marine infantry battalion in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm and had a role in the reconstruction effort there.
Former national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones, who called Fields "a great leader who rose to the rank of major general and raised his hand to serve his country again," said that he wondered why the Bush administration chose Fields for the job.
"The missing piece is what led them to hire him," Jones said. "Why wouldn't you get an accountant, or someone who has been a businessman, rather than a field Marine? You would have looked for somebody with a more technical background in major financial issues. It's an odd fit."
Within SIGAR, Fields is widely considered an honest and decent soldier deeply committed to the oversight mission. The general consensus is that indecision, an inability to forcefully articulate SIGAR's case to its critics on the Hill, a lack of experience navigating Washington's competing political agendas and internecine conflicts cost him dearly. The distractions kept the watchdog agency from keeping as close an eye as possible on the government's reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Transition of power
Last Friday, President Obama named Fields's deputy, Herb Richardson, to replace him as the acting inspector general.
Richardson, a 61-year-old former FBI special agent who served as principal deputy inspector general at the Department of Energy, has gained a reputation within SIGAR for consolidating power, leading with a firm hand and exercising control. A former champion rower who has assumed a more bureaucratic build, Richardson leaned back in his chair during a Feb. 3 interview and spoke with evident relish of his reputation as agency strongman.
Appointed by a government oversight council on Nov. 8 to conduct what he called a "top-to-bottom review" of the organization, Richardson said he now planned to chart a more muscular and effective course for the agency.
While Richardson has many admirers within SIGAR who welcomed his no-nonsense approach, not everyone is onboard. Most notable among his critics is the inspector general's special adviser Peter Kaivon Saleh, a gregarious veteran of Afghanistan policy who the Richardson faction accused of having exercised a Svengali-like influence over the general.
On Jan. 12, the rift between Richardson and Saleh broke into the open after the two top officials accompanied Fields to a meeting in the Rayburn offices of Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio).
In the meeting, according to several participants, Saleh talked about a June 2010 letter obtained by a SIGAR staffer from the Afghan attorney general to the Ministry of Public Works, which reported that an $8 million hospital in Khost remained uninhabited, had structural damage covered with patching material and needed to be rebuilt. He also mentioned another lead, that the Takhar province health ministry had recently reported to their superiors that employees from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) came to check on two health centers built with American funds but found nothing.
"It was a shocking story," Kucinich said.
After the meeting, Richardson grew angry at Saleh for bringing up these issues without having any proof to back them up.
"It was certainly something I'd be interested in knowing more about," said Richardson, whose supporters said that Saleh had a track record of unsubstantiated claims. He then said to Saleh, " 'Do you have any supporting documentation you can give me, because if this is a problem I need to look at it.' And I didn't get any."
In an interview, Saleh, who speaks Farsi, said that he had, indeed, provided supporting evidence of the alleged fraud, along with his translations of the documents, to Fields, who, he said, "assured me that Richardson received the documentation."
Saleh added, "I remain dismayed that Mr. Richardson has never bothered to discuss with me those cases, or many others that I am aware of, regarding waste, fraud and abuse in Afghanistan."
Rising concerns
The problems at SIGAR started early.
Fields said he had his "hands tied and my feet tied" by a delay in initial funding that made it difficult for him to staff up, especially considering the relatively small pool of qualified applicants willing to spend time in Kabul. The departments of Defense and State were far from generous in providing staff, as the office's enabling legislation suggested they do. The chief auditor only came on in January 2009.
And then Joseph Schmitz entered the picture.
A dozen years ago, Schmitz's closest brush with controversy had come as brother to Mary Kay Letourneau, the Washington state teacher whose affair with a 12-year-old student landed her in prison and on tabloid front pages.
In the years following the scandal, Schmitz climbed the government ranks and became the Defense Department's inspector general. In July 2005, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) informed Schmitz of an investigation into whether he had blocked two criminal investigations. When Schmitz left his position as inspector general shortly thereafter, he did so under a cloud, but a 2006 investigation under the auspices of the President's and Executive Councils on Integrity and Efficiency concluded that Schmitz had committed "no wrongdoing."
In January 2009, he joined the D.C. office of the independent risk-management group Freeh Group International Solutions, run by former FBI director Louis Freeh.
According to Schmitz, he and Freeh met with SIGAR officials, including Fields, in the fall of that year to discuss how they could quickly boost the watchdog's maligned investigative capability. The Freeh Group said it ultimately backed out for logistical reasons. In July 2010, a peer review deemed SIGAR's investigative unit substandard, creating the possibility that Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. could strip the agency of its investigative authority. At that point, Richardson says, the Freeh Group referred them to Schmitz. Patti Bescript, a managing director for the Freeh Group, said that Schmitz's formal association with the company had concluded on April 30 of that year, and that there was no such referral or recommendation to SIGAR.
If everyone involved wants distance from Schmitz's hiring, they want even more from the details of his no-bid contract, priced at a level that required fewer signatures - and less oversight - for approval. According to Schmitz, SIGAR leadership told him the agency needed someone to come onboard quickly and conduct an independent assessment, and asked him if he could price the contract under $100,000. "There was something about they could do a sole source if it was under $100,000," Schmitz said.
Richardson said Schmitz initially asked for more than $300,000, a figure of which Schmitz said he "cannot find any record." Richardson said the final $95,000 had to do with reducing cost, not oversight. "There was no collusion," Richardson said.
Schmitz sent letters notifying the members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on contracting oversight about his contract and inviting them to raise any concerns. Five days later they did, and a conference call was arranged for 4 p.m. Minutes before it started, the senators made public a letter calling on Obama to remove Fields. The letter cited the Schmitz contract as a cause for alarm.
SIGAR officials canceled the conference call.
'Murder board'
Fields's prospects for maintaining command of SIGAR looked bleak, and it quickly became apparent that his make-or-break moment would be an upcoming hearing before the subcommittee. Fields needed to be ready.
"We prepared what is called a murder board," Fields said.
On Nov. 15, a dozen staffers filed into Fields's sunny corner office at 9:30 a.m. to play the roles of hostile senators and prepare him with a barrage of questions. The staff had compiled a 40-page document, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, which included anticipated questions and proposed answers, addressing everything from the agency's "terrible turnover rate" to Fields's definition of "acceptable leadership." The plan was to accentuate the positive. Since its inception, SIGAR had performed investigative and audit work in 22 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, conducted 34 audits and analyzed the construction of multiple Afghan police stations. The watchdog had launched an audit of USAID's $60 million cash-for-work program in Kabul, and prompted the Department of Defense to deploy more contracting officers to Afghanistan.
But as Fields sat behind his mahogany desk facing a panel of role-playing staffers, one name kept coming up again and again: Schmitz.
"Why did you hire Schmitz?" Richardson, playing the part of inquisitor, demanded. Fields floundered in his response, according to multiple staffers who were present. Several SIGAR officials suggested that Fields avoid mentioning Schmitz by name and only refer to an independent "company." With the staff looking on, Richardson then urged Fields to say that he hired Schmitz because SIGAR needed to compensate for its gaps by tapping outside expertise. In an interview, Richardson acknowledged that his suggestion put "blame on the head of investigations as being weak."
During the mock interrogation, the head of investigations, Raymond DiNunzio, countered that Fields should simply tell the truth: Fields hired Schmitz because the contractor's professional association with ex-FBI director Freeh would convey an aura of credibility and professionalism to Holder and help preserve their powers. (DiNunzio declined to comment.) The suggestion, which smacked of influence-buying, prompted a nervous exchange of looks among staffers in the room.
Richardson, who was himself trying to figure out exactly what had happened, pressed Fields as to whether he had paid Schmitz $95,000 only to skirt rules that would have triggered greater oversight if the contract had surpassed $100,000. At that point, Bill Sharp, the contracts officer, interjected to explain that keeping the contract below $100,000 eased its approval. The advisers urged Fields to make clear that Schmitz set the fee and not the other way around.
Staffers who were present said the meeting confirmed their worst suspicions about the bad practices and questionable motives of the agency's leadership. The entire exercise, according to one of those in attendance, amounted to a "sick-to-your-stomach moment."
Congressional hearing
On Nov. 18, wearing a red tie and pinstriped suit, Fields marched into Room 428 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The congressional hearing was enemy territory. A chart on the dais showed that SIGAR, for which Congress had appropriated $46.2 million, had returned only $8 million to taxpayers. Fields opened by remarking, "I would say that it's a pleasure, but I would be telling a lie if I were to say so."
Then he went off script.
"My leadership has been referred to as 'inept.' That's the first time, senator, that in all my life, a man of 64 years of age, who has supported this federal government for 41 straight years - of which 34 have been as a military officer. I don't even allow my own auditors to refer to the people in Afghanistan as 'inept' because it's too general a statement for any human being."
That did not keep Sen. Claire McCaskill, the subcommittee's chair, from eviscerating him. The Missouri Democrat accused Fields of not understanding the basics of auditing. She chided him for not using risk assessment to prioritize the agency's watchdog work. She excoriated him for granting Schmitz a no-bid contract.
"It looked like you were trying to hire someone to help influence the attorney general of the United States," she said. "As opposed to fixing the problem."
Fields did make a point to correct McCaskill, though, when she said the contract was worth $100,000.
"No, Senator," he said. "The contract was worth $95,000."
"Well, you know, I got to tell you the truth," McCaskill concluded. "Once again, I do not mean to be cruel. I do not mean to - this is not fun for me either. It's - it's very uncomfortable to say that I don't think that you're the right person for this job, General Fields - that I don't think you were the right person for this job."
Sitting in his office, dressed in the same suit and tie as on his subcommittee appearance, Fields considered that painful suggestion: that he was not the right man for the job. After first characterizing the position as "much more to me a common-sense job than it is a technical-skill job," he later allowed that appointing "someone with auditing skills would have an advantage."
To Fields's chagrin, SIGAR auditors demonstrated philosophical opposition to putting dollar amounts on waste. In some cases they said it was impossible. In others, they argued that there was simply no money to report.
In November, auditors declared that $190 million of military funding had been put to better use because of SIGAR's work. If the number had come out sooner, Fields said, "It certainly would have helped." (The office of Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has questioned whether SIGAR played a meaningful role in identifying the $190 million.)
There is a rare consensus throughout SIGAR that Fields suffered for his lack of relationships on the Hill. There's less unanimity regarding the reason for it, and the explanations highlight the Richardson/Saleh divide.
On Jan. 7, when Fields's situation looked gloomy, Kristen Gilley, SIGAR's congressional liaison, proposed in an e-mail obtained by The Post that the SIGAR staff sit down with their most powerful critic, McCaskill.
"There is no sense to meeting with McCaskill. Especially with the IG out of town!" Saleh wrote, referring to Fields.
When he read the e-mail, Saleh said that he had long advocated that Fields build a better relationship with McCaskill and other senators on the subcommittee, but that the congressional liaison failed to do so. Instead, he said, SIGAR staffers often visited the Hill without Fields's knowledge, and that he suspected them of undercutting the general.
Even as such infighting raged, Fields sought to keep spirits up.
In preparation for last year's Christmas party, Fields assembled a "SIGAR chorus" to entertain the watchdog group's employees with an Afghanistan-themed version of "Jingle Bells":
A day or two ago/I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Inspector Fields/Was seated by my side
We headed towards Kabul/To help the good cheer flow
And soon we were in Kandahar
Where rockets come and go . . . OH!
"Music has been a part of my life," said Fields, a bass-baritone, who was clearly hurt to hear that several staffers did not appreciate his pastime. "I forced no one to listen," he said. "Nor to necessarily be present for any event at which I have elected to use music as a way of communicating to my staff."
'Where to fall'
On Jan. 3, his job in danger, Fields fired John Brummet, the head of audits, and DiNunzio, the head of investigations, saying he wanted "new blood."
"That was my call," Richardson said.
The day after the firings, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the president's top Afghan policy adviser, called Fields to the White House. The meeting was interrupted, and Lute rescheduled for Friday, Jan. 7.
Minutes before the meeting, Fields busied himself with a briefing book he had ordered to help make his case, demanding brighter colors and bolder bullet points. But the briefing book didn't help.
In their discussion, Fields said the White House suggested he consider his situation in the context of the major personnel changes imminent at the highest level of military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan.
"The dynamic of the discussion was, 'In light of other folks moving on . . . senior leaders associated with management in Afghanistan,' " Fields said, before reciting some wisdom inherited from his mother. "You don't have to throw me down to show me where to fall."
Back in the office on Monday, Jan. 10, he read the White House version of his resignation on a government Web site.
Then he sang "The Long and Winding Road."
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).