Fifteen years and more than 2,200 combat deaths after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, its government and economy suffer from endemic corruption that foils progress, according to the U.S. watchdog who monitors spending there.
The report -- "Corruption in Conflict: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan" -- suggests the U.S. government should have viewed anti-corruption as an essential part of its goals after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
"Corruption undermined the U.S. mission in Afghanistan by fueling grievances against the Afghan government and channeling material support to the insurgency," John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, wrote in his office's report, released Wednesday. "The United States contributed to the growth of corruption by injecting tens of billions of dollars into the Afghan economy, using flawed oversight and contracting practices, and partnering with malign power brokers."
The report quoted Ryan Crocker, who reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and served again as ambassador in 2011-2012 as saying that "the ultimate point of failure for our efforts ... wasn't an insurgency. It was the weight of endemic corruption."
"The corruption lens has got to be in place at the outset, and even before the outset, in the formulation of reconstruction and development strategy, because once it gets to the level I saw ... it's somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix," Crocker added.
Sopko's report provides a reality check for the next president and defense secretary as they assess policy choices for Afghanistan and the chances for long-term success. The White House announced in July that 8,400 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan into next year rather than cutting the force to 5,500 by Dec. 31.
President Barack Obama said in July that the Taliban remained a threat and the country's security forces weren't as strong as they need to be. Obama said his decision would give his successor a "solid foundation" to ensure stability in the region.
In a statement, Sopko said his report "shines a light on the corrosive impact corruption has had on our ability to meet strategic goals in Afghanistan, putting our 15-year, $114 billion investment at risk."
In the future, he said, "anticorruption efforts need to be at the center of planning and executing U.S. contingency operations. Policy makers, agency officials, and implementers on the ground will all have an important role to play in that," he said.
He recommended Congress enact legislation making clear that fighting corruption is "a national security priority" in such military interventions and that lawmakers consider requiring agencies to "establish a joint vendor vetting unit" at the start of an operation. At the same time, intelligence agencies "should analyze links between host government officials, corruption, criminality, trafficking and terrorism" and then update their assessment regularly, he said.
In Afghanistan, Sopko wrote, U.S. officials placed less emphasis on rooting out corruption than keeping the peace with Afghan officials for the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
There was concern among U.S. officials from 2010 to 2014 that "pushing too hard on corruption might alienate" then-President Hamid Karzai "and jeopardize his cooperation on security issues."
The U.S. was "forced to choose between maintaining a hard line against corruption or retreating in the face of the realization that fighting corruption would either require even more political capital than anticipated or be largely futile in the absence of Afghan political will," he wrote. "The U.S. government chose to do the latter."
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/16/2016