The anticorruption campaign against Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration has become a web even more tangled because crooked elements within the Karzai regime are being paid off by the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), according to Afghan and American officials.
We learn something new every day covering the corruption investigations in Kabul. Earlier this year we learned that Mr. Karzai’s family had their fingerprints on Taliban blood and drug money:
On Jan. 14 a U.S.-trained special task force raided the headquarters of money transfer company New Ansari Exchange and discovered that New Ansari was helping to launder profits from the illicit opium trade and moved Taliban money that had been earned through extortion and drug trafficking. The crime unit also found links between the money transfers and some of the most powerful political and business figures in the country, including relatives of Mr. Karzai.
Much of the New Ansari cash was primarily being couriered from Kabul and Kandahar to Dubai, where many Afghan officials maintain second homes and live in splendor.
This week alone currency counters were being installed at the Kabul airport to trace bills to see if billions of dollars of foreign aid was being diverted to feed the drug trade. Authorities also want to eliminate the practice of allowing government officials and other well-connected figures from boarding planes with suitcases packed with undeclared cash.
We also saw President Karzai commit what could potentially be classified as an abuse of power when he directly intervened to win the quick release of senior aide Mohammad Zia Salehi who had been arrested for soliciting a bribe to impede an American-backed investigation of New Ansari. The corruption case against Salehi is wider than previously thought and Karzai wanted to prevent Salehi from spilling his guts to investigators
And in a not-too-transparent effort to consolidate power and control anticorruption forces that threaten Karzai’s power, the government announced new rules to rein in American-backed enforcement agencies. Meanwhile a former American ambassador to Kabul admitted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai relied on corruption to survive politically.
It appeared as if the noose had been tightening around the Karzai clan, but this latest revelation has made bringing down the Karzai regime that much more difficult.
The aforementioned Karzai aide, Mr. Salehi, who heads Afghanistan’s National Security Council, has been on the C.I.A. payroll for years in a role that is still unclear, officials in D.C. and Kabul said on Wednesday. Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti in a New York Times piece point out the dilemma the U.S. has now put themselves in:
Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Mr. Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it.
It appears the U.S. is leery to get too involved trying to stop corruption in Afghanistan because they want to focus on making progress on the military and reconstruction fronts.
“Fighting corruption is the very definition of mission creep,” one Obama administration official said.
It seems the White House doesn’t exactly “get it.” The rampant corruption coursing through the Karzai administration is the single biggest obstacle to success in Afghanistan. How bad is it? It is so pervasive that a majority of Afghans would welcome the return of the Taliban’s Islamic fascism.
General David Petraeus’s military strategy relies first and foremost on winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan citizenry – without the support of the local populace there is no counterinsurgency. Herein lies the conundrum, because unless corruption is eradicated the U.S. will never gain the trust and support of Afghans.
The biggest obstacle of all is the Karzai family which is being protected by the C.I.A, especially the President’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council and a kingpin who has his hands deep in the opium drug trade.
An American official said the practice of paying off government officials was sensible, although some may turn out to be “unsavory”:
“If we decide as a country that we’ll never deal with anyone in Afghanistan who might down the road — and certainly not at our behest — put his hand in the till, we can all come home right now,” the American official said. “If you want intelligence in a war zone, you’re not going to get it from Mother Teresa or Mary Poppins.”
Many Afghan anticorruption officials and political figures could predict that Karzai was going to ensure Salehi was freed. “Karzai will protect him,” one politician said, “because by going after him, you are opening the gates.”
The Obama administration has even considered extradition to bring these high-level corrupt officials to justice, partly because Afghan prosecutors are in the Karzai family’s crosshairs.
“They are all just doing their jobs,” one Western official said. “They are scared for their lives. They are scared for their families. If it continues, they will eventually give up the fight.”
Other Karzai Corruption Articles:
Karzai relies on corruption for survival according to former ambassador
Corruption in Kabul: Noose tightens around Karzai regime
Karzai's corrupt sibling compromises the mission in Afghanistan
CIA and KGB solution for Afghanistan: Get Rid of Karzai
Afghanistan's Opium War: Corrupt government officials empower Taliban
Government corruption doubles as Afghans turn to Taliban for justice and public services
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