WASHINGTON, Feb 16: The limited writ and perceived corruption of the Karzai government are helping sustain a Taliban insurgency and feeding pessimism about Afghanistan’s stability, says a US congressional report.The report --- Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and US Policy -– has been prepared for members and committees of the US Congress.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is running for re-election in the fall of 2009, but he faces some loss of public confidence and fluid coalitions of potentially strong election opponents.
At the same time, US and Afghan officials are shifting towards promoting local governing bodies and security initiatives as a complement to efforts to build central government capabilities.
“Some Afghans are said to be losing faith in the government and in Mr Karzai’s leadership, to the point where his re-election appears increasingly uncertain,” observes the report’s author Kenneth Katzman.
The report points out that civilian casualties resulting from US and Nato operations also undermine President Karzai’s popularity.
Following an August 21, 2008, air strike that killed 90 civilians near Herat city, the Afghan cabinet called for bringing foreign forces under Afghan law, replacing a 2001 interim “status of forces agreement” with the US-led coalition.
The report notes that the issue of official corruption has become a key US agenda item as Mr Karzai’s leadership image becomes tarnished.
The report quotes Thomas Schweich, the Bush administration’s Coordinator for Counter-Narcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan, as suggesting that “to build political support, President Karzai is deliberately tolerating officials in his government who are allegedly involved in the narcotics trade.”
The congressional study also quotes a New York Times report saying that a brother of President Karzai, Kandahar provincial council chief Ahmad Wali Karzai, is involved in narcotics trafficking.
The report notes that several high officials, despite very low official government salaries, have acquired ornate properties in west Kabul since 2002, and it apparently is a widespread view in Afghanistan that obtaining government services or assistance routinely requires onerous bribes.
Transparency International, a German organisation that assesses governmental corruption worldwide, ranked Afghanistan in 2008 as 176th out of 180 countries ranked in terms of government corruption.
US policy has been to extend the authority and encourage reform, “predicated on the observation that weak and corrupt governance is causing some Afghans to acquiesce to Taliban insurgents as providers of stability and credible justice,” the report adds.
The report notes that US President Barack Obama has been more publicly critical of Mr Karzai’s shortcomings than was the Bush Administration.
The report also notes that “in the interests of political harmony, Mr Karzai has indulged faction leaders with appointments and tolerated corruption.”
President Karzai, however, argues that compromises with faction leaders and tribes are needed to keep the government intact as he focuses on fighting “unrepentant” Taliban insurgents.
To try to address the criticism, in August 2008 President Karzai, with reported US prodding, set up the “High Office of Oversight for the Implementation of Anti-Corruption Strategy” with the power to investigate the police, courts, and the attorney general’s office, and to catalogue the overseas assets of Afghan officials.