Sunday, March 21, 2010
Afghanistan police
If the successful development of an independent, effective and trustworthy police force in Afghanistan is key to the U.S. pulling out of the country, American troops have a long wait ahead of them. An investigation by ProPublica and Newsweek has revealed the expensive mess that is the Afghan police force, recipient of $6 billion, is nowhere near being ready to take on the job that Kabul and Washington need.
For starters, most trainees can’t hit the side of a barn with a semi-automatic rifle. Worse, corruption is rampant among the force. In Helmand province, police are the biggest supplier of ammunition to the Taliban. Police superiors accept flimsy excuses for why officers go through so many bullets, allowing the illegal trade to persist.
“We are still at zero,” said Captain Mohammad Moqim, an eight-year veteran of the force, who shakes his head in disgust at the men he has to train. “They don’t listen, are undisciplined, and will never be real policemen.”
Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who leads the program to improve Afghanistan’s security forces, told ProPublica and Newsweek, “The people of Marja will tell you that one of their greatest fears was the police coming back. You constantly hear these stories about who was worse: the Afghan police that were there or the Taliban.”
Another problem is determining just how many Afghan police officers are really on the payroll. The Government Accountability Office has reportedly said the Department of Defense doesn’t trust the numbers given to it by Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry. The official United States government figure appears to be about 95,000, yet a recent estimate by the International Crisis Group put the number at 56,000.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
$6 Billion Later, Afghan Cops Aren’t Ready to Serve (by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica; Mark Hosenball and Ron Moreau, Newsweek)
How Many Cops on the Beat? (by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica)
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