US wasted $5b to rebuild Afghan institutions

WASHINGTON: United States governments have spent over $5 billion just to rebuild Afghan institutions but the aim could not be achieved because the expectations were largely unrealistic. According to a report prepared by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a watchdog monitoring the efforts, the US set unrealistic expectations for stabilising Afghanistan. The Obama administration also lacked the political will to invest necessary time and effort to stabilise the country. "Overall assessment is that despite some heroic efforts to stabilise insecure and contested areas in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2017, the programme mostly failed,” said John Sopko, head of SIGAR. Sopko announced the outcome of the report that examines US efforts during the above period. It says that the US tried to build institutions in cleared areas but it was mostly ineffective because the military focused on the most dangerous districts first, where poor security made it hard to move on to the building phase. The US civilian agencies were compelled to conduct their stabilisation programmes in dangerous areas not ready for rebuilding, and once coalition troops and civilians left those districts the stabilisation ended.

The report mentioned that Afghan authorities promoted corruption instead of building institutions as well. Owing to this, the situation deteriorated and attacks from insurgents increased.

The report focuses most of its attention on a period beginning in 2009, when the incoming Obama administration attempted to reverse the decline, and when the US spent the bulk of the $4.7 billion that has been dedicated to stabilisation since 2002.

The Obama administration attempted to reverse the decline but the decision to draw down forces on timelines unrelated to conditions on the ground “had a profound and harmful impact.” The report says that one solution was to build the Afghan Local Police (ALP) to compensate, but it expanded at an “unsustainable rate” from 6,500 in 2011 to 24,000 in 2013. Militias that had operated outside the government were absorbed into the ALP without proper vetting as well.

It also finds that the US government “greatly overestimated its ability to build and reform” Afghan government institutions. "Even under the best circumstances, stabilisation takes time. Without the patience and political will for a planned and prolonged effort, large-scale stabilisation missions are likely to fail." The report also proposes that future efforts should be made keeping realistic expectation in view.