US indirectly paying Afghan warlords, Taliban: Report

WASHINGTON - The US military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban, according to US Congressional investigators.

The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion transport contract, to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defence Department regulations, the Washington Post reported Tuesday citing a Congressional report.

This “dramatically undermine” larger US objectives of curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance in Afghanistan, said the report, adding the Defence Department is well aware that some of the money paid to contractors winds up in the hands of warlords and insurgents.

Military logisticians on the ground are focused on getting supplies where they are needed and have “virtually no understanding of how security is actually provided” for the local truck convoys that transport more than 70 percent of all goods and materials used by US troops”.

Alarms raised by prime trucking contractors were met by the military “with indifference and inaction”, the influential US daily said citing the report.

“The findings of this report range from sobering to shocking,” John Tierney, Democratic chairman of the national security subcommittee of a key House panel on government reform, wrote in an introduction to the 79-page report, titled ‘Warlord, Inc., Extortion and Corruption Along the US Supply Chain in Afghanistan’.

The report found no direct evidence of payoffs to the Taliban, but one trucking programme manager estimated that $1.6 million to $2 million per week goes to the insurgents.

Most of the eight companies approved for the contract are Afghan-owned, but they serve largely as brokers for subcontractors that provide the trucks and security for the convoys, which often contain hundreds of vehicles, it said.

According to the Congressional report, the US officers charged with supervising the deliveries never travel off bases to determine how the system works or to ensure that US laws and regulations are followed.

Among its recommendations, the report calls on the military to establish “a direct line of authority and accountability over the private security companies that guard the supply chain” and to provide “the personnel and resources required to manage and oversee its trucking and security contracts in Afghanistan”.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)