US watchdog questions spending for Afghan army

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The watchdog for U.S. spending in Afghanistan says lax accountability in a $1.1 billion program supplying fuel to the Afghan National Army needs "immediate attention" before control of the program is turned over to the Kabul government in less than four months.

There's no proof the fuel is actually being used by Afghan security forces for their missions, meaning it's not known how much some fuel has been lost, stolen or diverted to the insurgency, according to a report released Monday by Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction John F. Sopko.

The report is the latest bad news surrounding a key element of the U.S. exit strategy for Afghanistan. Washington has spent billions of dollars on the international coalition's effort to train and equip Afghan forces it hopes eventually will be able to fight the Taliban on their own. The new report comes on top of growing questions in recent weeks about how recruits are vetted for the Afghan forces - questions prompted by a spike in insider attacks in which Afghan soldiers, police or impersonators have killed 45 international service members this year, mostly Americans.

The report also found:

- An audit of the spending is being hampered because someone shredded financial records covering $475 million in fuel payments over more than four years and officials inexplicably couldn't provide complete records for a fifth year.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AFGHAN_ARMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-10-00-27-16

[xchrom]

1. du rec. Nt

[valerief]

2. The U.S. Military is Big Oil's biggest customer. Must make rich people richer, after all.

That's the national imperative!

[JDPriestly]

3. Corruption!

What is the progress on eliminating the threat of Al Qaeda and terrorism out of Afghanistan. If that is gone, why interfere or invest in the country? A sizable, influential and very violent number of people in Afghanistan appear to want the place to themselves. What in the world can we gain there? I can understand that we wanted to be able to destroy the terrorist strongholds, but surely in this time, we have achieved that goal to the point we can leave them to their own devices. They are not going to be our allies. We should be able to figure that out by now.

President Obama should order our troops out. Afghanistan will soon come around.

[Franker65]

4. Ridiculous

Its giving huge volumes of money to people who are turning around and shooting US soldiers in the back.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. What a racket. Who profits from this? Not American taxpayers.