CORRUPTION IN CONFLICT

These cancelled or forestalled contracts amounted to approximately $668 million
in U.S. funds. 480
VSU efforts were initially intended to ensure U.S. funds did not support corrupt
powerbrokers, among other malign actors. 481 However, according to one former
USAID vendor vetting official, the unit stopped vetting for corruption after its
first year of operation. 482 In a June 2011 report, GAO determined that the VSU
might face limitations similar to those seen by CENTCOM’s vetting unit. GAO
urged that State, DOD, and USAID all share their respective vetting information
through a formal mechanism to ensure the practice endured. 483 While State,
DOD, and USAID set up an informal mechanism to share vendor information,
State never stood up its own formal vetting unit.
Summary: A Lack of Political Commitment
and Misperceptions of Leverage
The Salehi arrest and Kabul Bank crisis forced the U.S. government 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. The U.S. government chose to do the latter, judging that there was a greater
chance of progress on other priorities if it avoided direct attacks on corrupt
power structures. Agencies turned their attention to more technical approaches
to the problem. U.S. officials appeared to calculate that focusing on corruption
within Karzai’s government could alienate the president and jeopardize the SPA,
BSA, and reconciliation.
But targeting only low- to mid-level corruption was not sufficient. The tone was
set by how the international donor community addressed corruption at the top,
which was critical to building trust with Afghan society. As Katherine Dixon of
Transparency International noted, “Where significant government corruption
exists, the key is for the international community to present itself as standing
with the interests of the people.” 484
The U.S. government underestimated the leverage
it had over the Afghan government and politically
connected individuals. While the lack of Afghan
cooperation on anticorruption stymied many U.S.
efforts, the United States could have more aggressively
brought pressure to bear by conditioning security and
development assistance on tangible progress.
The perception of limited U.S. leverage over Afghan leaders manifested itself in
various ways. U.S. officials supported new IMF benchmarks that were softer
than those initially sought; negotiations on the BSA took precedence over
U.S. concerns about corruption; DOJ essentially ended its mentoring and
training of Afghan law enforcement entities; and Treasury and USAID withdrew
their technical advisors from the Central Bank. Although anticorruption
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