In a blow to the government’s struggling $109 billion effort to rebuild Afghanistan, a key House Democrat is calling on the Obama administration to stop spending in one of the world’s most corrupt countries.
“I think that’s the direction we will inevitably have to move in simply for lack of resources,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “We can’t afford to continue these kind of outlays particularly when there is so much corruption,” he said.
Schiff said the lessons from Afghanistan should influence future nation building policy in the war on terror.
“It also has to inform us what is possible and what is not possible, and what our approach ought to be in future conflicts zones and areas where we are threatened by al Qaeda and ISIS. It shows the real limit, frankly, of state building and institution building,” the California lawmaker said during media roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
He did note, however, that the military’s anti-terror campaign will remain, a focus he feels more comfortable with.
His comments followed the release of a new audit of U.S. spending and policy in Afghanistan. It said that al Qaeda now controls its most territory since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, that money from the U.S. Agency for International Development is going to towns controlled by the terror group and that security in the war-torn country is so bad that auditors can’t safely travel to review U.S.-funded projects.
Schiff had his own spectacular stories of corruption that he saw during a visit to the country. For example, he told of how the country’s “anti-corruption” unit was actually teaching members how to become more “covertly” corrupt.
“It’s deeply distressing,” he said. “Things over the last couple of years have gotten worse, not better, as we’ve tried to turn more and more responsibility over to over to the Afghans. It’s deeply discouraging.”
“That augers for a different approach in the future. … we have to set more realistic goals and aims and also that are more cost affordable for us and sustainable for the Afghans and others.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
