CHAPTER ELEVEN A Growing Cancer
A FEW YEARS after the fall of the Taliban regime, a joke began to work its way through Afghan intellectual circles. An Afghan goes in to see the minister of interior. “Minister,” he pleads, “you need to fix the growing corruption problem in our government. The people are becoming increasingly frustrated with government officials who are corrupt and self-serving.” After listening carefully, the minister responds: “You have convinced me there is a problem. Now how much money will you give me to fix it?”
Afghan faith in their government waned as they became concerned about skyrocketing corruption and incompetence. Senior U.S. officials were acutely aware of these problems. Lieutenant General David Barno argued that a critical pillar in counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan was “good governance,” which included the provision of essential services to the population.1 International organizations such as the World Bank were equally keen to support governance. One World Bank assessment emphasized “investments in physical infrastructure (especially roads, water systems, and electricity), agriculture, securing land and property arrangements, creating a healthy business climate with access to skills and capital, good governance, health, and education.”2
The problem was not that Afghan and international leaders failed to understand the importance of governance and its impact on the insurgency. Virtually everyone paid lip service to governance. Rather, it was prioritizing governance over other efforts and translating this into reality. “Most people complained about policy,” explained Ronald Neumann, reflecting on his tenure as U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan over coffee one day in downtown Washington, DC. “But what we lacked was an ability to implement [it].”3 The challenge, he told me, was like Aesop’s fable “Belling the Cat.” A group of mice called together a committee to consider how to protect themselves from a cat that was harrassing them. The best solution, one mouse proposed, was to bell the cat, which was met with general applause. But this left one key question: Who would put the bell around the cat’s neck? “This was a question of implementation,” argued Neumann. “Since there were no volunteers, the policy was useless.”4
In a 2004 public-opinion poll conducted by the Asia Foundation, Afghans responded that two of the biggest problems in their local areas were the lack of jobs and the lack of electricity.5 Over the course of the next two years, jobs and electricity would remain the most significant infrastructure problems, in addition to access to water.6 U.S. government polls—most of which were not released publicly—showed similar results. In one survey conducted between August 30 and September 9, 2006, by the U.S. State Department, Afghans who supported the Taliban complained that they had little access to clean water and employment.7
There was international assistance to fix these problems, but it didn’t always reach its intended targets. One study found that the primary beneficiaries of assistance were “the urban elite.”8 This triggered deep-seated frustration and resentment among the rural population. There’s no doubt that the Afghan government suffered from a number of systemic problems and had difficulty attracting and retaining skilled professionals with management and administrative experience. Weak administration and lack of control in some provinces made tax policy and administration virtually impossible. In many rural areas, the government made no effort to collect taxes. In 2004, the World Bank warned of “a distant and hostile central administration that cannot provide pay or guidance to its staff in the provinces and districts in a timely manner.” It concluded that Afghan government personnel “at the provincial and district levels urgently need the resources and support necessary to do their jobs. In turn, mechanisms are needed at all levels of government to ensure that real accountability…is built into the administrative system.”9
Fixing the Dam Problem
By 2005, only 6 percent of the Afghan population had access to power from the electricity grid.10 Those who did have power suffered through low voltage, intermittent supply, and blackouts. The dire situation reflected a lack of investment by the Afghan government and the international community, as well as insufficient maintenance. In addition to grossly insufficient generation capacity (which was augmented by power imported from neighboring countries), the system was plagued by inadequate transmission, poor distribution, and lack of backup equipment. Most efforts focused on bringing electricity to urban areas of the country, not to rural areas in danger of succumbing to the Taliban.
Ambitiously, the Afghan government set a goal to increase coverage of the electricity grid in urban areas to 90 percent by 2015.11 For those rich enough to buy generators, electricity was not a problem; their needs were met by the Afghan economy’s dominant informal sector. A large portion of the electricity supply, for example, was provided by small-scale generators. “The bulk of Afghans,” reported the World Bank, however, “still do not have reliable electric power supply and clean water. Thus the situation that prevailed in the 1970s and during the long period of conflict—basic social services not reaching most of Afghanistan’s people—has not yet been fundamentally changed, with the only partial exception being primary education, which actually improved considerably after the U.S. arrived in 2001.”12
Numerous government efforts to increase electricity ground to a halt. In 2002, for example, President Karzai’s cabinet explored the possibility of importing electricity into Kabul from Uzbekistan, which already supplied electric power to the northern area around Mazar-e-Sharif, supplementing a small local gas-fired power plant. Kabul received minimal electricity from three hydroelectric power dams: the 100-megawatt Naghlu Dam, the 66-megawatt Mahi Par Dam, and the 2 2-megawatt Sarobi Dam. Due to a lack of water flow on the Kabul River, however, only the Naghlu Dam was operational year-round.13 The Uzbek government had agreed in principle to provide energy to Afghanistan, but it requested in return that the Afghan government help pay for refurbishing and constructing transmission lines on a short stretch of land in Uzbekistan near the Afghan border. Debate in the cabinet stalled, and no decision was taken until 2004. By 2007, for bureaucratic reasons, electricity had still not been exported from Uzbekistan to Kabul, and the transmission lines from Uzbekistan to the Afghan border had still not been built.14
Of the Afghan power projects, few were as important as the Helmand Province’s Kajaki Dam, built in the 1950s with funding from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The dam sits near the head of the Helmand River, fifty-five miles northwest of Kandahar City, surrounded by rolling hills and some of Afghanistan’s most fertile land. In 1975, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) commissioned the installation of two 16.5-megawatt generating units in a powerhouse constructed at the base of the dam.15 Twenty-six years later, U.S. aircraft bombed the Kajaki Dam powerhouse during the early stages of Operation Enduring Freedom. Transmission lines were also hit by a U.S. airstrike in November 2001, but they were repaired the following year. Over the next several years, the United States led efforts to rebuild the dam, but in 2006, the Taliban began a series of attacks on transmission lines, periodically cutting off power to Kandahar. With each outage, NATO began to recognize more fully the dam’s strategic importance and defended it more carefully. In reponse, the Taliban stepped up their campaign.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer noted that “when the turbine in that dam is [installed], it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses. It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people. The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to stop it from going forward.”16
But protecting the dam was extraordinarily difficult, and the effort nearly collapsed several times. Perhaps the closest call was in 2006. USAID had contracted refurbishment of the dam’s turbines to the Louis Berger Group, a U.S.-based company that specialized in the planning, design, and construction management of highways, dams, and other infrastructure. Louis Berger subcontracted security for the dam to U.S. Protection and Investigations (USPI), a private company involved in armed
escort and security protection in such countries as Nigeria, Algeria, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia. USPI, in turn, hired local Afghans to stand guard.
In the fall of 2006, the security situation at Kajaki became increasingly tenuous as the Taliban laid siege to the dam and Afghan security guards began to mutiny. The Taliban had intimidated local Afghans and threatened to kill anyone who cooperated with NATO, and the frightened police stopped showing up for work. Afghan engineers and American security contractors at the dam began to grow desperate; they had little food and other materials, since trucks couldn’t get through to resupply the few workers who remained. USAID personnel asked NATO for an emergency resupply. One NATO official said, “The situation was dire. If any more Afghan security officials had departed, USAID was going to pull out. There was no security. The dam was being attacked with recoilless rifles, rockets, and mortars.”17
Security of the dam was a frequent subject of discussion between Ambassador Neumann and General David Richards, head of the NATO International Security Assistance Force. “The basic problem was that our understanding of the situation on the ground was different, and worse, than ISAF’s understanding,” acknowledged Neumann. He took a trip to the dam with Brigadier General Stephen Layfield, ISAF’s deputy commander for security, on August 28, 2006, to assess the situation. They discovered that “the Taliban controlled everything around the dam and security was worse than ISAF thought because of the lack of ANA and desertions from the local security force. After that trip, U.S. Embassy and ISAF understanding of the situation seemed to improve.”18
Nevertheless, British forces operating in Helmand Province refused to provide security, since they were already bogged down elsewhere in combat operations against Taliban and other fighters. In desperation, Michelle Parker, the NATO USAID development adviser, went to General Richards and pleaded for help. Richards, who had served three tours in the British Army in Northern Ireland, was a keen student of military history. He came through. Combat resupply reached the Kajaki Dam in thirty-six hours, though the lack of security complicated the mission. A lumbering Chinook, the versatile, twin-engine heavy-lift helicopter used by the U.S. military, had to turn around on the initial trip into the dam and enlist armed Apache AH-64 helicopter escorts because of attacks from Taliban ground forces. Fully resupplied, the dam now needed security, so General Richards ordered a platoon of British troops to protect it.19
The struggle to rebuild the dam, to provide electricity to parts of southern Afghanistan, and to counter local frustration highlights one of the core paradoxes of reconstruction in Afghanistan. How do you build infrastructure and deliver key services in a deteriorating security environment? Two years later, in September 2008, a convoy of 4,000 Coalition troops, 100 vehicles, and helicopter and airplane escorts fought their way through Taliban-controlled areas to deliver a new turbine to the Kajaki Dam. The turbine was flown into Kandahar Airfield and escorted 110 miles to the dam site.
Several Canadian International Development Agency officials lamented the difficulties of reconstruction in a war zone. One official, based out of Kandahar Province, told me: “Our biggest challenge is security. Virtually all non-governmental organizations have left the province because of the insurgency, except for a few pockets in urban areas such as Kandahar city…. The Canadian government, like the U.S. and British governments, faces extraordinary challenges in convincing civilians from development agencies to come here. It is too dangerous. The result,” he acknowledged, almost apologetically, “is that the military is stuck with reconstruction.”20
Operational Primacy
Just months after the crisis at the Kajaki Dam, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, as commander of Combined Forces Command—Afghanistan, commissioned a major new strategic assessment. Dubbed Operational Primacy, it identified provinces ready to assume and sustain Afghan leadership, including leadership from the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army. The purpose of the study was to examine whether—and when—Afghan provinces could function “either alone or with minimal international assistance” to establish security and govern the population.21 The title of the study irked some Afghans, including Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak, who interpreted it to mean abandonment. In developing this analytic tool, the U.S. military worked closely with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the government of Afghanistan (especially the Ministries of Defense and Interior), the United Nations, and several nongovernmental organizations. The Operational Primacy assessment asked a series of questions: Do the people accept the government of Afghanistan? Do the people believe the government will meet their needs? How capable are the appointed and elected officials? How well can the government administer?
The results were troubling, though not surprising. Perhaps the biggest shortcoming was in reconstruction. The study found that numerous reconstruction programs “need the attention, buy-in, and assistance of the [Government of Afghanistan],” but that they were “confusing, uncoordinated, and create[d] staff redundancie”22 According to internal memos, international involvement in providing essential services to rural areas was deeply challenging. There were also challenges with U.S. and NATO Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), which often consisted of between 60 and 100 civilians and soldiers deployed to operating bases to perform small reconstruction projects or provide security for others involved in reconstruction. A separate Pentagon report found that the major national reconstruction programs “were poorly coordinated with US-led PRTs. Lack of coordination limited the ability of the US-led PRT to align these programs to support the broader stabilization and reconstruction strategy. Additionally, nationally implemented donor programs had limited geographic reach.”23
As the situation began to destabilize, the federal government grew more concerned. In 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked Marin Strmecki to go to Afghanistan and assess the state of governance and the insurgency. Rumsfeld sent one of his “snowflakes” arguing that part of the Taliban’s success in Afghanistan was due to poor governance in the south, so he needed an assessment of Afghan governance and an analysis of possible solutions. Strmecki spent two weeks in Afghanistan, where he interviewed Afghan, U.S., NATO, and other allied government officials about the deteriorating security environment. He confirmed that one of the primary drivers was poor governance, particularly in southern Afghanistan, that created a power vacuum into which insurgents could move. He also reported that the region was controlled by corrupt or ineffective governors and district administrators, and patrolled by corrupt and incompetent police. He concluded that the Afghan government, in close cooperation with the international community, should systematically assess the capability of these officials province by province and district by district. It should replace ineffective or corrupt officials and appoint individuals who could win the support and confidence of local communities.24
But little of Strmecki’s assessment was ever implemented. No senior U.S. government official took decisive action, and President Karzai did not appear to see governance as an acute concern—or, at the very least, he was unwilling to take the risks involved with removing corrupt or incompetent officials.
These challenges not only had a debilitating impact on stabilization efforts but also strengthened the hand of insurgents. The absence of governance in rural areas and the lack of progress in key services—especially employment, electricity, and water—caused growing frustration among the Afghan population. The Taliban was quick to use U.S. and Afghan failures in its recruitment propaganda, which created a band of “swing villages” in eastern, southern, and western Afghanistan, an area dominated by Pashtuns. Given sustained security and assistance, villages across this swath of territory might have sided with the Afghan government, but without that help, it moved toward the insurgents. Zabol Province was a good example. “The economy is the key solution,” noted Dalbar Ayman, the governor of Zabol. “If it is good, there will be no Taliban. But now, I cannot even support my brothers in Zabol with a piece of bread.”25
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br /> Across greater parts of the south, local groups began to support the Taliban. An internal United Nations study examined the Musa Qala area of Helmand, a Taliban stronghold: “Government capacity is virtually non-existent in most areas of Helmand. The limited level of government activity in Musa Qala reflects a similar level across the province.” It added that “the population and the Shura clearly want more assistance,” and that this was a significant factor fueling the insurgency.26 Michael Semple, the deputy European Union Special Representative for Afghanistan, told me after returning from a trip to the south: “The local population in these areas are revolting against the government. The Taliban move into areas where there is already unhappiness with the government’s performance, send night letters, and intimidate the population.” This was, he said, a standard “bed and breakfast guide” to Taliban operations. “Often, there is no government response.”27 The Taliban strategy was straightforward. They approached local tribes and commanders at the village and district levels. Sometimes they were well received because of common tribal affinities or, especially, because locals had given up on the Afghan government. Where they weren’t well received, they resorted to brutal tactics and intimidation. They also targeted weak points, such as undermanned district police stations.28 In some cases, Afghan National Police forces directly supported Taliban operations against NATO or Afghan forces.29
Among the most important factors was poverty. A memo produced by the Afghan government, the United States, and other international actors concluded that widespread poverty and the lack of essential services to rural areas “make people more susceptible to indoctrination and mean that the life of a fighter may be the only attractive option available.”30 A separate United Nations study found that “government corruption and poor governance increases the attraction for the Taliban in the population.” It continued that “ongoing trends point to a further attrition of the government’s ability to project good governance and hint at a further isolation of the political leadership of Afghanistan and the international community from the population.”31 This concern was reiterated in internal Afghan documents, such as The National Military Strategy, which noted in 2005 that if key essential services were “not provided quickly, the people will be more vulnerable to extremist elements claiming to offer a better alternative.”32
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