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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Reconstruction Update


1.      Civilian contractor deaths -- "Best kept secret of the wars".  OregonLive.com, July 2012.
Debi Klecker of Bend, Oregon was advising Iraqi police in 2005 when she was killed by a roadside bomb. In that capacity, she worked with -- but wasn't part of -- the U.S. military. She was, instead, employed by DynCorp International.   According to the www.americancontractorsiniraq.org web site, at least 108 civilian contractors were killed in the first six months of the current year. The website declares: "Scandal in mistreatment of Silent Service members. We are the best-kept secret of the wars."  http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonatwar/2012/07/civilian_contractor_deaths_--.html
2.      “Blind in Baghdad,” Michael Knights, ForeignPolicy.com, July 2012.
Something is stirring in Iraq. On July 3, car bombs ripped through mainly Shiite neighborhoods across the country, killing 36 people. It was the latest tragedy in a bloody month -- a prolonged political crisis has weakened the government in Baghdad, giving insurgent groups an opening to expand their operations. The consequent surge in violence has led some to fear that the country could once again be descending into civil war.
But just as Iraqi politics heats up, the United States is rapidly losing its ability to decipher events in the country. "Half of our situational awareness is gone," an unnamed U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal in June. "More than half," a serving U.S. military officer told me when I asked about the accuracy of that statement. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/05/blind_in_baghdad?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full 
3.      “Afghanistan’s Buried Riches,” Sarah Simpson, Scientific American, October 2011.
The scene at first resembles many that play out daily in the war-torn Red Zone of southern Afghanistan: a pair of Black Hawk helicopters descend on a hillside near the country’s southern border with Pakistan. As the choppers land, U.S. marines leap out, assault rifles ready. But then geologists sporting helmets and heavy ceramic vests jump out, too. The researchers are virtually indistinguishable from the soldiers except that they carry rock hammers instead of guns. A human chain of soldiers encircles the scientists as they step forward on the dusty ground.
“The minute you get off, you go into geologist mode,” says Jack H. Medlin, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s activities in Afghanistan. “You forget, basically, that these guys are around—unless you try to get out of the circle.”
4.      “Welcome to Afghanistan’s Future,” Jeffrey Goldberg, TheAtlantic.com, July 2012.  
It used to be commonplace in Afghanistan that women living under Taliban rule feared execution following accusations of adultery, and it will one day be common again, now that the West has decided that it is too difficult to keep the promises it made to Afghanistan's women. In fact, it's already happening:  At the outset of the fuzzy video, which runs nearly four minutes and appears to have been taken by a Taliban member with a cellphone, Najiba is a peripheral figure, seen kneeling in the background. Her body is turned away from the camera, her head is shrouded by a gray scarf.
One of the Taliban says the Koran prohibits adultery. Killing the woman is "God's order and decree," he says. "If the issue was avenging deaths, we would beg for her amnesty. But in this case, God says, 'You should finish her.'" He concludes by saying, "It's the order of God, and now it is her husband's work to punish her."
Then someone else says, "Give him a Kalashnikov." http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/welcome-to-afghanistans-future/259550/  
5.      “Final Forensic Audit Report of Iraq Reconstruction Funds,” Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, July 2012.
SIGIR audits, inspections, and investigations have found serious weaknesses in the government’s controls over Iraq reconstruction funds that put billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk of waste and misappropriation. The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known, but SIGIR believes it is significant. As of June 30, 2012, SIGIR audit reports had questioned $635.8 million in costs, and SIGIR Investigations, working with other agencies, had resulted in $176.84 million in fines, forfeitures, and other monetary results.
SIGIR audit reports identified internal control weaknesses such as inadequate reviews of contractors’ invoices, insufficient numbers of, or inadequately trained oversight staff, poor inventory controls, high staff turnover, poor recordkeeping, insufficient price competition by subcontractors, and weak oversight of cash disbursements. For example, SIGIR’s audit of a DoS contract for Iraqi police training program support found that more than $2.5 billion in U.S. funds was vulnerable to fraud and waste as a result of poor DoS oversight. Another SIGIR audit of a DoD contract for warehousing and distribution services found that the contractor’s business systems had not been adequately reviewed. http://www.sigir.mil/files/audits/12-017.pdf#view=fit
6.      “As NATO Draws Down, Afghans Fear A Brain Drain,” NPR.org, June 2012.   
As NATO troops leave Afghanistan, there will also be a decline in aid money that has flooded the country over the past decade and created hundreds of thousands of jobs funded by donor money. That means fewer jobs for Afghans, and skilled Afghans may be tempted to leave the country as part of a brain drain that could further weaken a fragile state.
Many Afghans, particularly those with an education and means, fled the country during wars dating back more than three decades. Some have come back in recent years. But another mass exodus would deprive Afghanistan of a critical building block. Sitting in the basement of a large house-turned-office isn't where Rohullah Zarif wants to be. He spent 15 years with the development organization CARE Afghanistan. Now, he's a technical adviser for an international construction and support services firm. "Here, I am working for one person. He's the owner of the company," Zarif says. "When I worked for CARE, it means my [efforts] reached to the poor communities that are in need."

7.      “Fiscal Year 2011 Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund Projects Are behind Schedule and Lack Adequate Sustainment Plans”, Special Inspects General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, July 2012. http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/2012-07-30audit-12-12Revised.pdf   

8.      “Preparing Advisers for Capacity-Building Missions”, United States Institute of Peace, August 2012.
As part of their efforts to support the rebuilding and reform of post-conflict and transitional states, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations, and other members of the international community are sending international advisers to work alongside high-level officials in national institutions.
Advisers are recruited for their strong professional expertise in fields such as logistics and human resources. However, they have had little preparation in transferring that knowledge to others, especially in a transitional or post-conflict environment.
If they are to contribute to sustainable reforms, advisers need to be taught how to transfer knowledge in a complex and alien environment, how to operate without formal authority, and how to cultivate local ownership.
9.      “Afghanistan Monthly Progress Report: June 2012,” Department of International Development, Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence, July 2012. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/afghan-progress-jun12.pdf
10.  “The Global Afghan Opium Trade”. Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, October 2011.
Opiates originating in Afghanistan threaten the health and well-being of people in many regions of the world. Their illicit trade also adversely impacts governance, security, stability and development—in Afghanistan, in its neighbours, in the broader region and beyond.
“The Global Afghan Opium Trade,”, the second such report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime research project on the topic, covers worldwide flows of Afghan opiates, as well as trafficking in precursor chemicals used to turn opium into heroin. By providing a better understanding of the global impact of Afghan opiates, this report can help the international community identify vulnerabilities and possible countermeasures.
Heroin is the most dangerous drug…
11.  “Religious Movements, Militancy and Conflict in South Asia: Cases from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan”, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, July 2012.
The top headlines of the past year have made increasingly clear to U.S. government officials the central—but complicated—roles that religion plays in many of the most strategically important engagements of the United States.
Since early 2011, the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have brought about significant changes to long-standing political regimes. Concerns in the West over the types of regimes that will replace Muammar Qaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, and potentially others have been fueled in part by uncertainty over the role religion will play in national and regional politics. In some cases, these movements initially forged a degree of solidarity among protesters from different religious communities.  But subsequently there has been an increase in sectarian, religious, and ethnic animosities among the challengers in some of those countries. For example, in the wake of Hosni Mubarak’s departure from Egypt, the country saw a surge in violent clashes between the Sunni Muslim majority and the Coptic Christian minority.
12.  “Afghanistan Annual Report 2011”, United Nations Development Programme, June 2012.
Despite being confronted with major security challenges and a fragile political environment in Afghanistan, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) remains committed to improving the lives of Afghans, many still suffering following decades of war, recurrent natural disasters and a continuing cycle of violence.  
The country’s fragile security situation have posed serious hurdles in the delivery of vital assistance in many areas, yet UNDP forges ahead – even in the most remote, rugged parts of the country – working tirelessly to improve the lives of Afghans across the country. With more than 800 staff on the ground and equipped with nearly 50 years of experience working in the country, UNDP has established its role as a provider, supporter and resource of development assistance in Afghanistan.  
During the past 10 years, UNDP has been at the forefront of international and Afghan efforts to build democratic institutions, promote human rights, and rebuild the country’s economy. In 2011 alone, UNDP delivered more than US$700 million in development assistance to Afghanistan, much of it focused on crisis prevention and recovery activities, in order to support the government’s efforts in conflict prevention and peace-building.
13.  “Snapshots of an Intervention: The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–11)” Afghanistan Analysts Network, August 2012. 
The decade of state-building, reconstruction and development assistance in Afghanistan has left many people confused. There have been undeniable changes: Afghanistan now has an election-based, market-driven political system and many socio-economic indicators are far better than they used to be under Taleban rule or during the civil war (although that is, admittedly, not a very high bar). There have been great, albeit unequal, opportunities in terms of education, employment and enrichment. But there is also a strong sense of missed and mismanaged opportunities, which many – Afghans and internationals alike – find difficult to understand: how could so many resources have achieved what feels like so little and so fleeting? 
This edited volume explores the question by taking a closer look at a variety of key programmes and projects that were designed and implemented over the last decade, or more. It consists of a collection of 25 articles by analysts and practitioners with long histories in the country, who were closely involved in the programmes they describe. The contributions present a rare and detailed insight into the complexity of the intervention in Afghanistan – including the often complicated relations between donors and representatives of the Afghan government (with projects tending to be nominally Afghan-led, but clearly donor-driven), the difficulties in achieving greater coherence and leverage and, in many cases, the widely shared failure to learn the necessary lessons and to adapt to realities as they were encountered. http://aan-afghanistan.com/uploads/2012_AAN_E-book_Snapshots_of_an_Intervention.pdf
14.  “The Current Status of Al-Qaida.” Oxford Research Group, June 2012.
During May, there were three events that aid an understanding of the current status and future prospects for the al-Qaida movement. These were the interception of an improvised explosive device designed to be employed in destroying a passenger aircraft; the killing of a key operative, Fahd al Quso, by a drone attack in Yemen; and the exploding of two very large car bombs in Damascus, as well as a third car bomb targeting a military complex in an eastern Syrian city. The issue of who are the perpetrators of the increasing terrorist violence in Syria is hotly contested, but it is likely to prove a severe complication in any attempt to seek an end to the conflict. This makes diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Syria even more critical.
There are widely differing views as to the potency of the al-Qaida movement and this briefing seeks to present a helpful interpretation. http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/sites/default/files/MayEn12_0.pdf
15.  “Haqqani Network Financing: The Evolution Of An Industry.” Combating Terrorism Center, July 2012.
The CTC’s latest report leverages captured battlefield material and the insights of local community members in Afghanistan and Pakistan to outline the financial architecture that sustains the Haqqani faction of the Afghan insurgency.  The Haqqani network is widely recognized as a semi-autonomous component of the Taliban and as the deadliest and most globally focused faction of that latter group.  What receives far less attention is the fact that the Haqqani network also appears to be the most sophisticated and diversified from a financial standpoint.  In addition to raising funds from ideologically like-minded donors, an activity the Haqqanis have engaged in since the 1980s, information collected for this report indicates that over the past three decades they have penetrated key business sectors, including import-export, transport, real estate and construction in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Arab Gulf and beyond.   The Haqqani network also appears to operate its own front companies, many of which seem to be directed at laundering illicit proceeds.  By examining these issues this report demonstrates how the Haqqanis’ involvement in criminal and profit-making activities has diversified over time in pragmatic response to shifting funding conditions and economic opportunities, and how members of the group have a financial incentive to remain the dealmakers and the enforcers in their area of operations, a dynamic which is likely to complicate future U.S. and Afghan efforts to deal with the group.
16.  “Taliban Recruiting and Fundraising in Karachi.”  Combating Terrorism Center, July 2012.
Karachi is Pakistan’s commercial hub as well as its largest city. Taking advantage of Karachi’s ongoing ethnic and sectarian violence, militants from several Taliban factions and al-Qa`ida have moved to the city to escape U.S. drone strikes and Pakistani military operations in Pakistan’s northwest tribal regions.
Karachi’s role as a shelter for al-Qa`ida and Taliban militants is well known. This article, however, provides clarity on how al-Qa`ida and Taliban militants are using Karachi to recruit university-educated youth as well as finance their operations against Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.
17.  Foundation for Afghanistan
18.  “Afghan National Security Forces: Afghan Corruption and the Development of an Effective Fighting Force.” Hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, August 2012.
19.  “Afghan National Security Forces and Security Lead Transition: The Assessment Process, Metrics, and Efforts to Build Capability.”  Hearing before the House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, July 2012.
20.  “Dawood National Military Hospital, Afghanistan: What Happened and What Went Wrong?”  Hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, July 2012.  
21.  “Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Historical Lessons.”  Hearing before the House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, July 2012. http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings-display?ContentRecord_id=46f2231a-02a8-4db4-bfad-3d19f486f9a7  
22.  “Quarterly Report to the United States Congress.” Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, July 2012.   
23.  “Fiscal Year 2011 Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund Projects Are behind Schedule and Lack Adequate Sustainment Plans.” Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, July 2012.
24.  “Selected Public Diplomacy Awards Mostly Achieved Objectives, but Embassy Can Take Steps to Enhance Grant Management and Oversight.” Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, July 2012.
25.  “Washington's Civilian Shortcomings in Pakistan.” Milan Vaishnav. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 2012.
Nearly three years ago, the Obama administration and Congress signaled their intention to forge a civilian partnership with the new, democratically elected government of Pakistan. Motivating this reset was a sincere desire, in Washington and Islamabad, to avoid a confusion that has defined the U.S.-Pakistan relationship for decades: the conflation of security and nonsecurity objectives in the distribution of U.S. aid to Pakistan. The centerpiece of this new approach was the 2009 Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, commonly referred to as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, which authorized $7.5 billion in U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan over five years. Yet if the United States hopes to achieve the goals it laid out in 2009, it must change its approach now.
26.  “Stabilizing Pakistan Through Police Reform.” Hassan Abbas, ed. Asia Society, July 2012.
In the coming years, Pakistan will continue to face a range of challenges stemming from both internal and external factors. In addition to the transnational and regional threats of terrorism, Pakistan is also experiencing domestic security challenges posed by rising religious extremism and militancy, kidnappings, organized crime, insurgencies, and political assassinations. Increasingly fragile internal security and law enforcement systems will likely pose grave difficulties for the country. In light of the trends of increasing insecurity and instability, how the police and other law enforcement bodies are structured and how they coordinate efforts to combat security threats deserve greater attention.
Despite frequent internal crises in Pakistan since the country was established in 1947—ranging from ethnic and sectarian conflicts to chronic political instability and underdevelopment—policy makers have neglected to prioritize police reform. High crime rates throughout the country, relatively low conviction rates of prisoners on trial, and heightened concerns about instability spilling over from Afghanistan indicate that there is an urgent and critical need to invest in and reform Pakistan’s law enforcement infrastructure.
27.  “More Money, More Problems: A 2012 Assessment of the US Approach to Development in Pakistan.” Nancy Birdsall, Milan Vaishnav, and Daniel Cutherell. Center for Global Development, July 2012.
In March 2009, the Obama administration announced a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. A central component of this new strategy was a significant increase in the deployment of resources—human and financial—through civilian (nonsecurity) channels in both countries. In so doing, the administration sought to demonstrate a new commitment to civilian-led government in Pakistan. Underlying this new strategic framework was a realization within the administration that Pakistan’s ability to grow economically, to meet its citizens’ basic needs, and to reduce domestic conflict, insecurity, and instability depended on the establishment of a more capable and effective democratic state. The administration was also moved by the fact that Pakistan represents a genuine security threat to the region, to the United States, and to the world. By now, the myriad concerns are well known: extremist violence, cross-border and domestic terrorism, the possibility of “loose nukes,” and the potential failure of the Pakistani state. On the basis of these significant development and security challenges, the Obama administration determined that it was in the long-term of interests of the US government and the American people to build a new partnership with the government of Pakistan to help counter these pressing challenges.
28.  “Religion and Militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan: A Literature Review.” Mariam Mufti. Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2012.  http://csis.org/files/publication/120709_Mufti_ReligionMilitancy_Web.pdf
29.  “U.S. Engagement in Central Asia.” Hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia, July 2012.

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