While American soldiers are fighting and dying to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, U.S. tax dollars are winding up in the hands of the enemy as a result of relying on foreign contractors to help move supplies around the country.

 

A six-month investigation by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs found that U.S.-hired contractors have paid bribes to the Taliban so that American convoys can get to their destinations without coming under attack. The committee focused on a $2.16 billion contract (the Host Nation Trucking [HNT] deal) which was divided among ten companies (including two joint ventures): four American, four from Afghanistan and two based in Dubai.

 

According to the report, “The principal private security subcontractors on the HNT contract are warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority. Providing ‘protection’ services for the U.S. supply chain empowers these warlords with money, legitimacy, and a raison d’etre for their private armies.”

 

CBS News reported the investigation turned up “damning evidence of the complete lack of oversight from the U.S. military and other agencies at the sub-contractor level” as well as “anecdotal evidence from the eight contracting companies that payoffs were being made to the Taliban to keep the convoys on the roads.”

 

Representative John Tierney (D-Massachusetts), the subcommittee’s chairman, wrote in the report that the findings ranged “from sobering to shocking.”

 

“In short, the Department of Defense designed a contract that put responsibility for the security of vital U.S. supplies on contractors and their unaccountable security providers. This arrangement has fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others. Not only does the system run afoul of the department’s own rules and regulations mandated by Congress, it also appears to risk undermining the U.S. strategy for achieving its goals in Afghanistan,” added Tierney.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

U.S. Tax Dollars Fueling Afghan Insurgency (by Lara Logan, CBS News)

Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan (House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs) (pdf)