Some Takeaways From the Pentagon’s Afghanistan Minerals Briefing
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3. Beyond getting the stuff out of the ground, there needs to be a legal framework “to facilitate transparent, anti-corrupt transactions for some of these mineral deposits” to get foreign investment in, Brinkley said.
The U.S. is going to help the Afghans develop it. So that looks like a clear thumb on the scale. (Though who knows: Iraq ultimately ended up rewarding oil companies from nations that didn’t participate in the invasion and occupation.)4. Speaking of.
“We hope that as early as late this year, there will begin to be tenders offered for public bid, at which time American companies, international companies, anyone interested will be able to bid on these processes,” Brinkley said. “And what’s important then is, we want those companies to know that there will be internationally acceptable, transparent accounting practices used within the ministry to ensure that anyone bidding can have confidence that the bid process is sound and auditable and transparent.”
5. Brinkley and Medlin’s work grew out of a tasking by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry
to assess what it would take to bring the Afghan economy out of dependence on foreign aid.That led them last summer to begin trying to update prior estimates of Afghan mineral wealth. A whole lot of technical work later — “identification based on economic criteria of the top 24 potentially valuable sites in the country, the field surveys to gather samples, core samples from this information to take and do laboratory work and analyze and verify the value,” Brinkley said — and here we are.
http://washingtonindependent.com/86961/some-takeaways-from-the-pentagons-afghanistan-minerals-briefingReady, set, go.......
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