Author: AP
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 8, 2010
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Afghan-contractors-fund-Taliban-says-US-Senate-report/articleshow/6710684.cms
Heavy US reliance on private security in Afghanistan has helped to line the
pockets of the Taliban because contractors often do not vet local recruits
and wind up hiring warlords and thugs, Senate investigators said on Thursday.
The finding, in a report by the Senate Armed
Services Committee, follows a separate congressional inquiry in June that
concluded trucking contractors pay tens of millions of dollars a year to local
warlords for convoy protection.
Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate panel,
said he is worried the United States is unknowingly fostering the growth of
Taliban-linked militias at a time when Kabul is struggling to recruit its
own soldiers and police officers.
"Almost all are Afghans. Almost all are
armed," Levin, a Democrat, said of the fleet of young men working under
US contracts.
"We need to shut off the spigot of US
dollars flowing into the pockets of warlords and power brokers who act contrary
to our interests and contribute to the corruption that weakens the support
of the Afghan people for their government," he said.
The Defense Department does not necessarily
disagree but warns that firing the estimated 26,000 private security personnel
operating in Afghanistan in the near future is not practical.
In recent months, US forces in Afghanistan
pledged to increase their oversight of security contractors and set up two
task forces to look into allegations of misconduct and to track the money
spent, particularly among lower-level subcontractors.
The Defense Contract Management Agency has
increased the number of auditors and support staff in the region by some 300
percent since 2007. In September, Gen. David Petraeus, the top war commander
in Afghanistan, directed his staff to consider the impact that contract spending
has on military operations.
Military officials and Republicans on the
Senate Armed Services Committee warn that ending the practice of hiring local
guards could worsen the security situation in Afghanistan.
They say providing young Afghan men with employment
can prevent them from joining the ranks of Taliban fighters. Bringing in foreign
workers to do jobs Afghans can do is likely to foster resentment.
Also, contract security forces fill an immediate
need at a time when US forces are focused on operations, commanders say.
"As the security environment in Afghanistan
improves, our need for (private security contractors) will diminish,"
Petraeus told the Senate panel in July. "But in the meantime, we will
use legal, licensed and controlled (companies) to accomplish appropriate missions."
Levin says he is not suggesting that the United
States stop using private security contractors altogether. But, he adds, the
US must reduce the number of local security guards and improve the vetting
process of new hires if there's any hope of reversing a trend that he says
damages the US mission in Afghanistan.
His report represents the broadest look at
Defense Department security contracts so far, with a review of 125 of these
agreements between 2007 and 2009.
The review concludes there were "systemic
failures" in the management of the contracts, including "widespread"
failures "to adequately vet, train and supervise armed security personnel."
The panel's report highlights two cases in
which security contracting firms ArmorGroup and EOD Technology relied on personnel
linked to the Taliban.
Last week, EOD Technology was one of eight
security firms hired by the State Department under a $10 billion contract
to provide protection for diplomats.
A statement released by EOD Technology said
the Lenoir City, Tennessee-based company had been encouraged to hire local
Afghans and that it provided the names of its employees to the military for
screening. The company said the military has never made it aware of any problems
with its handling of the contract.
In the case of ArmorGroup, the Senate panel
says the company repeatedly relied on warlords to find local guards, including
the uncle of a known Taliban commander. The uncle, nicknamed "Mr. White"
by ArmorGroup after a character in the violent movie, "Reservoir Dogs,"
eventually was killed after a US raid that uncovered a cache of weapons, including
anti-tank land mines.
ArmorGroup, based in near Washington in Virginia,
lost a separate contract this year protecting the US Embassy in Kabul after
allegations surfaced that guards engaged in lewd behavior and sexual misconduct
at their living quarters.
Susan Pitcher, a spokeswoman for Wackenhut
Services, ArmorGroup's parent company, said the company only engaged workers
from local villages upon the "recommendation and encouragement"
of US special operations troops.
Pitcher said that ArmorGroup stayed in "close
contact" with the military personnel "to ensure that the company
was constantly acting in harmony with, and in support of, US military interests
and desires."
The allegation that contractors rely on warlords
for local hiring is not new. Last June, a Democratic House of Representatives
investigation led by Massachusetts Rep. John Tierney concluded that trucking
companies had "little choice" but to pay local warlords "in
what amounts to a vast protection racket."
Army criminal investigators are examining
the allegations, specifically looking at whether companies hired under a $2
billion Pentagon contract to transport food, water, fuel and ammunition to
troops were paying up to $4 million a week to insurgent groups.
In August, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced
that private security contractors would have to cease operations by the end
of the year. The workers, he said, would have to either join the government
security forces or stop work because they were undermining Afghanistan's police
and army and contributing to corruption.
US officials responded that they shared the
goal but wanted to move slowly enough that military efforts were not harmed.
Levin says he blames lost money to the Taliban
on a lack of government oversight until this year. He previously has blamed
the Bush administration for not devoting enough resources to the war in general.
Led by Arizona Sen. John McCain, committee
Republicans endorsed the investigative findings in a voice vote last month.
In a statement included in the report, however, the Republicans said Levin's
investigation "falls short of providing a more robust discussion of how
slim our options were at the time."
