U.S. Ambassador Seeks More Money for Afghanistan Reconstruction

By Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The United States will not meet its goals in Afghanistan without a major increase in planned spending on development and civilian reconstruction next year, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul has told the State Department.

In a cable sent to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry said an additional $2.5 billion in nonmilitary spending will be needed for 2010, about 60 percent more than the amount President Obama has requested from Congress. The increase is needed "if we are to show progress in the next 14 months," Eikenberry wrote in the cable, according to sources who have seen it.

Obama has asked for $68 billion in Defense Department spending in Afghanistan next year, an amount that for the first time would exceed U.S. military expenditures in Iraq. Spending on civilian governance and development programs has doubled under the Obama administration, to $200 million a month -- equal to the monthly rate in Iraq during the zenith of spending on nonmilitary projects there.

The State Department has reacted cautiously to Eikenberry's assessment, sent to Clinton in late June, even as senior officials say the administration is prepared to spend what is needed to succeed. The 2010 budget includes about $4.1 billion in State Department funding for nonmilitary purposes.

With massive amounts of money already flowing into Afghanistan, there are concerns about the country's ability to absorb it and the administration's ability to implement its programs, according to Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew.

"Right now, there is about $6 billion in the pipeline," including 2009 appropriations and a supplemental war-spending bill passed in June, Lew said in an interview. "We have a lot of money to spend right now. . . . We're not running out anytime soon."

Congress, currently on its August recess, would probably have similar concerns about whether the money could be effectively used.

"We've spent a lot of money there, not to great effect," a senior Senate staffer said. "We need to have a much clearer idea of what our goals are and what we can realistically achieve. It's premature to talk about dramatically increasing the budget."

Eikenberry, the staffer noted, is a retired three-star Army general and a former U.S. commander in Afghanistan who is used to working with far larger sums of Pentagon money.

Since 2001, the United States has spent $38 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan, more than half of it on training and equipping Afghan security forces.

Obama's strategy will bring the U.S. military force in Afghanistan to 68,000 troops by the end of this year and will almost certainly include further troop increases next year. But the president has described U.S. military involvement as only one leg of a "three-legged stool" that includes development and competent governance.

Although spending on civilian programs pales beside the military budget, Obama has pledged substantial increases in U.S. civilian personnel and development funds, focusing on agricultural development and rule of law. The size of the U.S. Embassy is scheduled to grow this year to 976 U.S. government civilians in Kabul and outside the capital, from 562 at the end of 2008.

Eikenberry's $2.5 billion request includes an additional $572 million for the expanded agriculture program. U.S. Marines, who this summer launched an offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, are working with civilian officials to try to persuade farmers there not to plant opium poppy this year. The program includes the supply of seeds and fertilizers for alternative crops, loans to farmers, and payment for work on roads and irrigation ditches.

Among the other elements of the request are an additional $521 million for stabilization efforts in conflict zones; $450 million in economic assistance funneled through the United Nations in Afghanistan; $190 million for roads, schools and civil aviation; $194 million for local government development; and $106 million in economic grants.

Lew said the State Department is working closely with the embassy to parse the request. "Frankly, at the level at which a request is made," he said, "we often go through this back-and-forth, adjusting to realities, the timing . . . in terms of absorptive capacity and all the issues around getting money out and used. Congress has to approve it.

"If the question is, did [the embassy] do a lot of good, thoughtful work, the answer is yes," Lew said. "Do we at this point have a definitive view of what their needs are? We're still working on it."

U.S. Officials See Karzai Rival Ghani as Potential Chief Executive

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 11, 2009

KABUL, Aug. 10 -- Senior American officials are expressing renewed interest in a post-election plan for Afghanistan that would establish a chief executive to serve beneath President Hamid Karzai if he wins a second term next week, Afghan officials said Monday.

The latest U.S. overtures have focused on Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister who is challenging Karzai for the presidency. A campaign aide to Ghani said Monday that both Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry and regional envoy Richard C. Holbrooke had made recent visits to explore the idea, a sign that the United States might be interested in an Afghan government with a more technocratic bent.

American officials have grown increasingly disenchanted with Karzai's leadership over the past five years, amid rising Taliban violence, rampant corruption and an ineffective bureaucracy. The idea of a chief executive for Afghanistan has circulated before in recent months, and speculation at one point arose that former U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan American, was in the running.

Ghani, a former finance minister with a doctorate from Columbia University, has worked for the World Bank and has a reputation as a competent technocrat. His work on Afghanistan's currency and budget during his time as a finance minister has drawn positive reviews, although colleagues have sometimes found him abrasive. As one of the main challengers to Karzai, who is the clear front-runner, Ghani has no plans to drop out of the race before the Aug. 20 election. He has been actively campaigning for president and plans to visit six provinces in the next eight days.

"I've been approached repeatedly; the offer is on the table. I have not accepted it," Ghani told reporters over the weekend, according to Reuters. He has not ruled out a position in the government if he loses.

Ongoing Negotiations

A spokesman for Karzai, Wahid Omar, would not confirm the specific offer from Karzai, but said there have been ongoing negotiations between the two campaigns. "Karzai does believe it is a good idea that someone like Ghani joins the team, and as a result the future government would be a stronger government," he said.

An Afghan official familiar with the negotiations said that Ghani expressed willingness to serve in a Karzai government, but that he wanted power to implement his own programs. The official, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, said negotiations on the issue were ongoing.

In a poll released Monday, Karzai led with 45 percent of the vote among decided voters, compared with 25 percent for Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister. The U.S.-government-funded poll by Glevum Associates, conducted July 8-19, had Ghani fourth, with 4 percent of the vote.

During the campaign, Karzai has courted support from warlords, such as his running mate, Marshal Mohammed Fahim, the powerful Tajik leader, and Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an Uzbek commander accused of slaughtering Taliban prisoners in 2001. American officials have said they are concerned that important jobs after the election may be given away in patronage without a focus on competence.

An Antidote to Karzai?

Some see Ghani as a modern managerial antidote to Karzai, who is known more as a dealmaker among rival factions.

"Karzai doesn't think in terms of growth in GDP in Afghanistan, unemployment, more services or security," said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research & Policy Studies. "He's a consensus builder. As long as he could win a consensus of important power brokers, he thinks he's a very successful man."

The jockeying came amid further violence in Afghanistan, which has intensified ahead of the elections.

Taliban fighters using assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the governor's office and police headquarters in Logar province, killing at least six people, according to Afghan officials.

The attack set off hours of urban combat in the provincial capital of Pul-e-Alam, about 40 miles south of Kabul.

About half a dozen Taliban fighters staged their attack from a building adjacent to the governor's compound, firing automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades beginning about noon. A car bomb also exploded during the fighting, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman, while others described evidence of a suicide bombing. Din Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for Logar's governor, said two policemen died along with four Taliban members.

"It was very serious fighting. We could hear a lot of machine-gun fire," said Abdul Hakim Suliamankhel, head of the provincial council in Logar. "The people are really scared now."

The Afghan National Police led the counterattack against the Taliban, eventually surrounding and entering the building, which they found rigged with explosives, according to a U.S. military statement. The police killed three Taliban fighters inside the building, Darwish said.

Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.