CORRUPTION IN CONFLICT

These findings underscore that the U.S. government should have viewed
anticorruption as an essential part of its security, political, and development
goals from the start of the contingency operation. As Ambassador Crocker noted
in an interview for this report, “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.” 491 Yet, policymakers
tended to perceive tradeoffs between fighting corruption and making progress on
other important goals. As a result, security and political goals repeatedly trumped
strong anticorruption actions. Corruption grew so pervasive and entrenched that
it came to pose a threat to the entire security and state-building mission.
Our observations also highlight that the U.S. government played a role in the
growth of corruption. The United States should have assessed aid saturation
levels and practiced better oversight of contracting and procurement.
“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.”
—Ambassador Ryan Crocker
The United States and its international partners wielded great influence in the
choices they made about whom to partner with, do business with, and support.
Yet the U.S. government supported or tolerated malign powerbrokers who shared
a narrow set of U.S. interests and who simultaneously undermined broader,
long-term goals. Furthermore, the U.S. diplomatic, military, intelligence, and
development communities were not always aligned in their objectives vis-à-vis
these actors.
The U.S. response to endemic corruption also failed to address the fundamentally
political nature of the problem. U.S. anticorruption efforts were not unified by
a cohesive strategy to reduce the incentives for political leaders to support a
corrupt system, without which, institutional reform could not be sustained.
In Afghanistan today, corruption remains an enormous challenge to security,
political stability, and development. The findings of this report are relevant for not
only ongoing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, but also those of our allies and the Ghani-
Abdullah administration. In his address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress in
March 2015, President Ghani spoke candidly: “Nearly forty years of conflict [have]
produced a country where corruption permeates our government. Until we root
out this cancer, our government will never generate the trust to win the hearts
of our people or the trust of your taxpayers.” 492
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SIGAR I CORRUPTION IN CONFLICT I SEPTEMBER 2016