Karzai Targets Two U.S.-Backed Task Forces

Karzai Targets Two U.S.-Backed Task Forces - WSJ.com

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV in Kabul and MATTHEW ROSENBERG in Washington

Associated Press

Fraud allegations plagued the August 2009 Afghan presidential election; above, voting at a Kabul mosque.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai stepped up tensions with the U.S. on Wednesday by asserting control over two American-backed anticorruption task forces, ordering a handpicked committee to review all their investigations.
U.S. officials see Mr. Karzai's decision as a way for the Afghan president to limit the inquiries that may touch his inner circle.
A senior U.S. official described the move, which followed last week's arrest of a senior presidential aide on corruption charges, as "a huge blow" to U.S.-backed efforts to clean up corruption in Afghanistan.
"What they're trying to do, what they're saying to us is: 'We don't care what you think. We've had enough,' " the official said.
U.S. officials say they are worried that members of both units may be in grave danger and are moving to try to protect them as best they can.
The disclosure came as new details emerged about the evidence against the arrested aide, Mohammed Zia Saleh, who had headed the administration of Afghanistan's National Security Council.

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French President Sarkozy, right, with President Karzai in 2008.

According to several Western officials, U.S.-backed investigators taped a conversation in which Mr. Saleh was negotiating a bribe—in the form of a car—in return for squashing an inquiry into the New Ansari Exchange, a large and influential money-transfer outfit. New Ansari has deep connections with prominent members of the Afghan government and the Karzai family, and, according to investigators, it is also suspected of links to Taliban insurgents and narcotics smugglers. The car, valued at about $10,000, was allegedly a small part of a larger proposed payoff, the officials said.
Mr. Karzai's chief spokesman, Waheed Omar, said he wasn't aware of the details of the case or whether Mr. Saleh, who is unavailable to comment, has said he is not guilty. Other officials in the Karzai administration have cast doubt on the recording's authenticity.

Cleanup Effort

Afghanistan's mixed record in recent years

• June 2008: The international community confronts the Afghan government at the Paris Conference, one of the first big public pushes to get Afghan officials to improve their governance.
• July: President Hamid Karzai issues a decree to establish the High Office of Oversight and Anti- Corruption.
• August 2009: Karzai wins the presidential election amid accusations of mass fraud.
• November: Transparency International ranks Afghanistan 179th out of 180 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index, ahead of only Somalia.
• February 2010: FBI director Robert Mueller inaugurates a major facility for Afghanistan's Major Crimes Task Force, which will see the U.S. mentor Afghan officials in fighting crime.
• April: Afghan officials ask Interpol to help arrest Sediq Chakari, the former acting minister of hajj, on corruption charges. Mr. Chakari, who is accused of siphoning cash from Afghans making the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, remains at large.

One of the anticorruption task forces raided New Ansari's Kabul offices in January. U.S. and Afghan investigators say the company has been instrumental in the massive exodus of money through Kabul's airport. It is responsible for the majority of the $3.18 billion in cash shipments listed on official records from the start of 2007 through February reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
A U.S. congressional panel froze some $4 billion in nonurgent aid to Afghanistan after the Journal reported on the flight of cash in June. New Ansari's manager, Haji Muhammad Khan, has denied any wrongdoing by the company.
The Obama administration has made rooting out corruption in the Afghan government a key goal. Coalition commanders have said Afghan citizens' anger at the predatory behavior of Afghan government officials is the main reason the Taliban insurgency has been able to spread throughout the country and why the militancy shows no sign of abating despite the influx of tens of thousands of additional U.S. forces.
Mr. Karzai has responded to coalition pressure by pledging to crack down on graft, while at the same time claiming that most corruption in Afghanistan is perpetrated by the international community.
Members of Mr. Karzai's administration, meanwhile, have repeatedly interfered to stop corruption probes, U.S. officials say.
Asked about Mr. Karzai's decision on Wednesday, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said the U.S. looks forward to working with the Afghan government to assist in the implementation of Mr. Karzai's pledges, made at a Kabul conference last month, "to undertake all necessary measures to increase transparency, accountability and tackle corruption."

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Karzai and U.S. Clash Over Corruption

Mr. Karzai's move to limit the inquiries isn't surprising, said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. "We have to expect pushback from him as the anticorruption campaign moves forward," Mr. Biddle said. "Any effective effort is inevitably going to meet resistance at multiple levels."
Over the past several months, the U.S. helped to create secretive, semiautonomous law-enforcement bodies that could effectively tackle high-level financial crimes and target senior Afghan officials implicated in graft and the drug trade. One of these bodies, the Sensitive Investigative Unit, which focuses on high-value drug traffickers, is mentored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and staffed by Afghan agents trained at the U.S. facility in Quantico, Va. It is the SIU that raided New Ansari's offices in Kabul in January.
The second agency, the Major Crimes Task Force, deals with high-level government corruption and organized crime, and is mentored by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency. Mr. Saleh of the National Security Council was arrested in a joint MCTF and SIU raid on his home last week.
Mr. Karzai viewed the arrest of such a senior official as an affront to Afghanistan's sovereignty, Afghan officials said. He appointed a special commission of inquiry, headed by Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko and including representatives of the ministry of justice and the National Security Council, to examine the operations of MCTF and SIU.
At a meeting Wednesday headed up by Mr. Karzai, the commission reported that the two units have repeatedly violated human rights. He ordered the commission to review all completed and current investigations and to report to him with conclusions, a statement from the presidential palace said. The meeting also decreed that "all the activities" of the units will be monitored by this commission while legislation about the agencies' future is drafted at the ministry of justice.
Mr. Omar, the president's spokesman, said Mr. Saleh's arrest "was not the only reason why the government wants MCTF to be monitored closely."

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