U.S. construction projects in Afghanistan challenged by inspector general’s report

[mia]

Source: Washington Post

U.S. initiative to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on construction projects in Afghanistan, originally pitched as a vital tool in the military campaign against the Taliban, is running so far behind schedule that it will not yield benefits until most U.S. combat forces have departed the country, according to a government inspection report to be released Monday....

The report, by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, also concludes that the Afghan government will not have the money or skill to maintain many of the projects, creating an “expectations gap” among the population that could harm overall stabilization efforts....

The study calls into question a fundamental premise of the U.S. strategy to counter the Taliban insurgency — that expensive new roads and power plants can be funded and constructed quickly enough to help turn the tide of war — and it poses a sobering, counterintuitive question for policymakers in Washington: whether the massive influx of American spending in Afghanistan is actually making problems worse....

Although the United States has spent almost $90 billion on Afghan reconstruction and development over the past decade, such examinations traditionally had not been conducted by the special inspector general’s office, which was more interested in contracting waste and fraud. This report was approved by a new inspector, former federal prosecutor John F. Sopko, who took charge of the office this month. He has vowed to scrutinize how projects are conceptualized and designed, not just how they are implemented.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-construction-projects-in-afghanistan-challenged-by-inspector-generals-report/2012/07/29/gJQAZuLSJX_story.html

[Berlum]

1. Didn't Chimpy's Republican minions start this bOOndoGGle ClusterWank?

[Hubert Flottz]

5. Republicans are big on those bridges to nowhere!

Bush made all these big plans before Cheney and Rummy told him to "back it down a little Georgie, Afghanistan is the wrong war." Cheney and Rummy said they'd ran out of good targets to bomb in Afghanistan and that the gang of terrorists that had taken down the Twin Towers had fled the B52 raids in Afghanistan and had moved in with Saddam in Iraq, who was about ready to launch atomic warheads and "Drones" to who knows where.

What has America really gotten out of the money the GOP has spent/wasted since 2001? A bad name, empty pockets and a bloody nose.

All I can say is, you'd damned well best be gathering up all the Duct Tape and Plastic Sheathing you can find, If another hair triggered Go Go GOPer gets in the Oval Office!

[arcane1]

2. $90 billion into KBR and Shaw money black holes

[mia]

4. What about these construction projects that are yet to be built?

I wonder if these contracts will be withdrawn if the proposed defense spending cuts go through.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. This is a huge boondoggle. The only winners in this misbegotten war...

...are the contractors getting fat off the US taxpayer.

I just read Rajiv Chandrashekaran's "Little America" about the US effort in Afghanistan. Very depressing. Battles of egos, battles of bureaucracies, the Marines doing their own thing and wasting resources on unpopulated villages, USAID spending money like crazy on useless projects because it doesn't want to get less money next year.

Smedley Butler had it right: War is a racket.

[mia]

6. USAID spending money like crazy on useless projects...

Many years ago I visited a friend who worked for the USAID program in Mexico. I traveled around with her while she worked for a couple of days. I commented about how wonderful it was that the US was training people on how to make cheese (in this particular case). She said: "We're providing training for people who will be buying machinery and materials from US companies."

From other experiences I've had since then, I've come to believe that the USAID program can often be a way that our country creates a dependency for our goods.
Loans to poor countries can only be repaid (if ever) by the taking of that country's natural resources.

I wonder who is getting what from Afghanistan.

[jakeXT]

7. DOD, U.S. Agencies Help Afghanistan Exploit Mineral Wealth

DOD, U.S. Agencies Help Afghanistan Exploit Mineral Wealth

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2012 – Officials from the Defense Department and the U.S. Geological Survey gathered this month at Afghanistan’s U.S. Embassy to unveil what the director of a DOD task force called a “treasure map” of the nation’s mineral resources.

At the event, James Bullion of the Defense Department’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, or TFBSO, shared the podium with USGS Director Marcia McNutt, who described a new remote-sensing technology that has made it possible, for the first time, she said, to map more than 70 percent of the country’s surface and identify potential high-value deposits of copper, gold, iron, and other minerals.

DOD officials and USGS scientists work as partners in this initiative with the Afghanistan government and scientists and engineers from the Afghan Ministry of Mines and the Afghan Geological Survey.

“The task force is a Defense Department organization charged to help spur and grow the private-sector economy in Afghanistan, … and clearly, the mineral and oil and gas extractive areas are critical to that effort,” Bullion said.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=117330

[mia]

8. Helping to "rebuild the nation’s natural resource sector....Opportunities in the mineral sector."

Scientists from USGS began working in Afghanistan in 2004, when the agency was asked to help rebuild the nation’s natural resource sector, McNutt said. The geological data USGS scientists found was 50 to 75 years old, originating from the late 1960s when a Soviet mission for about 10 years helped the Afghan government with geological mapping.

From August to October 2007, NASA contributed its mid-wing, long-range WB-57 aircraft to fly the USGS hyperspectral instrument over Afghanistan, mapping more than 70 percent of the country. In 2009, USGS and the DOD task force became partners and worked closely, Bullion said, to help to get the hyperspectral data into a format that mining companies could use to evaluate opportunities in the mineral sector.

Thanks for the link.

[Scurrilous]

9. Unlocking:

Last edited Mon Jul 30, 2012, 09:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Earlier thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014180451

[mia]

10. New York Times Article posted by ALP227

U.S. Fund to Rebuild Afghanistan Is Criticized
Source: NYT

Two years ago, as the final pieces of the Obama administration’s troop surge were moving into place in southern Afghanistan, American officials identified a handful of infrastructure projects that they hoped would build popular support for the Afghan government in the Taliban’s heartland.

The Pentagon and State Department secured $400 million from Congress for what was christened the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund and drew up plans for seven projects, five of them aimed at increasing the electricity supply in southern Afghanistan to light shops and power factories. The projects were to be completed by mid-2013, just as the NATO combat mission was to wind down.

Yet as the remaining surge forces prepare to leave Afghanistan, significant work on five of the seven projects has not yet begun and is unlikely to be completed until well after the NATO mission ends in 2014, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the government agency charged with documenting how billions of dollars in American reconstruction funds are being spent.

As a result, a program that was intended to bring soldiers and civilians together to buttress the Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy could end up undercutting it, according to the report, which is to be released Monday.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/world/asia/us-fund-to-rebuild-afghanistan-is-criticized.html

[Rhiannon12866]

11. Unlocked after OP's request

Last edited Mon Jul 30, 2012, 10:20 PM - Edit history (1)

[mia]

12. NPR Broadcast

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/07/30/157587420/afghan-reconstruction-projects-may-be-counterproductive-report-warns

Afghan Reconstruction Projects May Be 'Counterproductive,' Report Warns

The rising hopes but still-daunting challenges facing the people of Afghanistan and their allies, most notably the U.S., were underscored again this morning by two new stories:

— The recently departed U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, told Morning Edition host Renee Montagne that he does not think Afghans will suffer through another devasting, multi-party civil war after U.S. combat forces are gone in 2014.

Afghans, Crocker said, have "been there and done that. ... No one wants to go back to that." Instead, he said, major politicians from various ethnic groups want to have a voice in their nation's affairs — but not at the point of a gun. And, said Crocker, because the Taliban and its allies "are equal opportunity killers" who victimize all groups, they have "actually been a unifying factor" in Afghanistan.