CIA 'buys influence with bags of cash' left at office of Hamid Karzai
The CIA has delivered tens of millions of dollars to the office of Afghanistan's president during the past decade, according to advisers to Hamid Karzai.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai Photo: AFP/Getty
By Rob Crilly, Islamabad
11:25AM BST 29 Apr 2013
Bundled into suitcases, backpacks and plastic bags, the payments were designed to ensure that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) retained influence at the presidential palace.
But the payments may have instead fuelled corruption and ended up in the pockets of warlords.
"We called it 'ghost money'," said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr Karzai's deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. "It came in secret, and it left in secret."
Afghan officials told the newspaper there was no evidence that Mr Karzai personally received any of the money. The cash was handled by his National Security Council, it added.
The payments are one of Afghanistan's worst kept secrets. Rumours have circulated for years and Mr Karzai even confirmed receiving American cash in 2010.
However, the details are a clear illustration of the way that dollars lubricate the business of government but may also act against American interests, propping up criminal and patronage networks even as other projects try to dismantle them.
Some of the money may have even ended up with officials linked to the Taliban or the drug trade, according to the newspaper.
"The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan," one American official was quoted as saying, "was the United States."
Cash payments have been used ever since the war began in 2001, initially to buy the services of warlords to wage war on the Taliban.
Mr Karzai and his aides then asked for the money to be routed through his office, according to a former adviser, so that he could buy their loyalty.
The CIA payments began soon after Iranian officials delivered a carload of cash in December 2002 and continued in monthly deposits.
The money is used to fund off-the-books expenses, such as paying off parliamentarians, underwriting delicate diplomatic trips or informal negotiations, officials said.
Some still goes to keeping warlords on side, such as Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose militia were backed by the CIA in 2001.
The CIA declined to comment on the report.
