mismanagement in Afghanistan

I want the Afghan government to succeed. I want the sacrifices in blood and treasure of the United States and other nations to succeed in nurturing  a country with security and human rights.

But I have worried all along that our nation-building plans were unsustainable, with too large a military force, too expensive a government, and too fragile an economy.

It is very hard to justify more of the same in terms of U.S. aid when these are the results,according to a new report on the Afghan National Police by the Special Inspector General:

Today, SIGAR released an audit of U.S.-funded salary payments for the Afghan National Police (ANP), which total $1.3 billion.

The audit found:

--The U.S. is spending over $300 million annually for ANP salaries with little assurance that these funds are going to active police personnel or that the amounts paid are correct.

--There are almost twice as many ANP identification cards in circulation as there are active police personnel.

--After 9 years of effort, an electronic human resources system has still not been successfully implemented.

--Reports have disclosed inflated police rosters, payments being made to more police personnel than are authorized in particular locations, and police personnel receiving inflated salaries.

--20% of ANP personnel are at risk of not receiving their full salaries because they are paid in cash by an MOI-appointed trusted agent, where as much as half of these payments are possibly diverted.

--U.S. officials confirmed that over the past year they accepted, without question, all personnel totals provided by the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MOI).

--UNDP's independent monitoring agent may have artificially inflated the percentage of successfully verified ANP personnel from 59% to as much as 84%.

--As U.S. forces draw down, the U.S. government will have increasingly limited visibility over ANP data collection
processes.