Corruption in Afghanistan isn’t limited to Afghans, U.S. official says

KABUL — About three-fourths of the ongoing corruption investigations led by U.S. oversight officials in Afghanistan are targeting suspects who aren’t Afghan nationals, the top U.S. investigator in Afghanistan said Tuesday in Kabul.

While he wouldn’t identify officials or companies
under investigation, the figures seem to support Afghan government
contentions that corruption is every bit as widespread among Western
officials as it is in their own ranks.

“About 40 percent of our investigations involve procurement fraud,” said Raymond J. DiNunzio, the assistant inspector general for the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan
reconstruction. U.S. and Western governments frequently issue large
contracts to support military and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, for labor, security guards and building materials, for example.

DiNunzio, a 23-year FBI veteran, promised that “we have remedies to recover the U.S. taxpayer money.”

DiNunzio spoke at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul alongside retired Marine Maj. Gen. Arnold Fields, the top SIGAR investigator. The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction reports quarterly to Congress, the secretary of defense and the secretary of state.

SIGAR released its latest quarterly report last
month, which sharply criticized the Afghan government as
under-resourcing its own investigative body, the High Office of Oversight.

With government officials from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s first term making way for new officials, DiNunzio warned that it will
get tougher to prosecute past corruption in the outgoing government.

“We have our work cut out for us,” he said.

As the number of U.S. troops rises, so will the
number of investigators. Fields anticipates increasing his staff to 132
investigators, up from 90 two years ago.

Fields was asked what lessons his office had learned from previous work in Iraq.
“The lesson learned is that if we are going to invest this money into a
country … then probably we should have set up SIGAR eight years ago.”

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