Ha Ha Ha Ha! White House paid Taliban $Millions for own Safety

[Loong_Bush]

Millions are paid to warlords and Taliban to cover the Ass of US & NATO convoys, those not paying will be attacked!

http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2010-06/23/c_12250708.htm

阿富汗军阀狠赚美军“保护费” 头目月入500万
2010年06月23日 08:35:50 　来源： 广州日报 【字号 大小】【留言】【打印】【关闭】

今年2月6日，阿富汗军队将展开一系列反恐军事行动。2月6日，在阿富汗赫尔曼德省一处军事基地，一名美军士兵为一名阿富汗士兵示范使用冲锋枪的瞄准动作。

阿军阀狠赚美军“保护费”

一个武装头目月收入高达500多万美元 塔利班也有200万美元进账

美国国会21日公布的调查报告显示，驻阿美军和北约部队花费大笔资金雇用私人运输公司运送食物、弹药等各种物资，私人运输公司则花费大笔资金向阿富汗军阀乃至塔利班“买平安”。拒交“买路钱”的美军和北约运输车队往往会遭到袭击。

报告称，阿富汗军阀收取的“买路钱”与黑手党收取的保护费没什么两样。为了换取平安，一些保安公司还向塔利班行贿，这意味着，美国纳税人的血汗钱正在流入美国士兵的敌人——塔利班的手中。

美国每年为在阿富汗境内运输各项物资的花费高达21亿美元。

目前驻阿富汗的美军和北约士兵人数达十多万，其所需要的食物、水、燃料、弹药等一切物资几乎都需要从阿富汗之外输入，途经的道路基本上都被阿富汗军阀和塔利班武装控制。

一辆车过万保护费

美军超过70％的物资都由私人运输商负责运送，但运输商的安全问题需要自行解决。为保一路平安，私人运输商往往需要向沿途各路武装支付“买路钱”，每辆卡车需要支付1500美元至15000 美元的保护费，数以百万计的美国资金就这样以“保护费”、“买路钱”的形式，间接地流入阿富汗军阀手中。

调查报告称，阿富汗现有数百个大大小小的私人保安公司，手下武装人员多达7万人。最著名的武装头目包括鲁胡拉、马蒂乌拉·可汗和阿卜杜拉·拉兹奇等人，他们控制着阿富汗境内许多交通要道。

鲁胡拉拥有一支超过600人的武装，控制者首都喀布尔至边境地带的一段交通要道，而这也正是美军运输物资的必经之路。他受雇于瓦坦风险管理公司，这家保安公司的老板是拉希德·博帕尔和拉特布·博帕尔，他们都是阿总统卡尔扎伊的堂兄弟。

调查显示，每个月平均有3500辆美军补给车辆经过鲁胡拉的地盘，按每辆车1500美元价格计算，鲁胡拉一个月的收入就高达500多万美元。

对运送美军物资的私人运输商而言，这笔保护费几乎是无法省下来的。这份报告还披露，拒交保护费的运输车队常常遭到袭击。

军阀向官员行贿

尽管鲁胡拉如此猖獗，但美军特种部队曾两次逮捕了他，却又将他释放。

这份调查报告还显示，美军和北约部队的物资运输的安保合同常常由一些政治掮客控制，比如卡尔扎伊的兄弟艾哈迈德·瓦里·卡尔扎伊，他是坎大哈省的议长。在与美国调查人员的会面中，鲁胡拉曾坦率承认，他给多位省长、警察头目和军队官员行过贿，行贿的金额少则1千美元，多则1万美元。

塔利班月入200万美元

一些运输公司官员表示，他们相信，他们雇来护送车队的武装人员向塔利班行贿以换取平安无事。还有私人运输商表示，像鲁胡拉这样的武装头目与塔利班武装实际上暗中勾结，其武装人员在同一地带活动，塔利班在收钱后就不会找鲁胡拉的武装所护送车队的麻烦，“他们实际上就买路钱问题讨价还价。”报告称。

据报道，调查报告并未发现驻阿美军或私人运输商直接向塔利班花钱买平安，但有私人运输商估计，每周有大约160万至200万美元的保护费落入塔利班手中。而在此前，美国国务卿希拉里·克林顿也曾表示，塔利班的主要资金来源之一就是保护费。

调查报告还称，美国国防部很清楚大笔运输费用落入阿富汗军阀和塔利班手中，但对此漠不关心。

对美国人来说，用他们的血汗钱向敌人塔利班“行贿”自然令人难以容忍，对于私人运输商和阿富汗军阀来说，则是没有办法的办法。不过，在阿富汗战场，向塔利班行贿并不是新鲜事。2009年10月，意大利特工被指曾花费“数十万美元”秘密贿赂塔利班指挥官，换取塔利班同意不袭击意大利军队。（文字：韩杨）

 

[Loong_Bush]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51927

U.S. Private Security in Afghanistan "Pay Off Warlords, Taliban"
By Pratap Chatterjee*

U.S. military supplies to Afghanistan are provided by private contractors who supply their own armed security guards. / Credit:House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
U.S. military supplies to Afghanistan are provided by private contractors who supply their own armed security guards.

Credit:House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs

WASHINGTON, Jun 23, 2010 (IPS) - Every day, as many as 260 trucks filled with supplies for U.S. troops - from muffins to fuel to armoured tanks - are driven from the Pakistani port of Karachi across the Khyber pass into Afghanistan.

Supply lines through the high mountain passes of Afghanistan have always been a dangerous mission - the Soviets reportedly spent most of their occupation in the 1980s fighting off attacks. The U.S. has chosen another method - outsourcing the delivery and even the protection of the vehicles to private contractors.

Almost four out of every five containers delivered to Afghanistan are now hauled by a consortium of eight Afghan, Middle Eastern and U.S. companies under a 2.16-billion- dollar contract called Host Nation Trucking (HNT) that started May 1, 2009. A typical large convoy of trucks may travel with 400 to 500 guards in dozens of trucks armed with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

These trucks come under irregular attack. On Dec. 7, 2008, a parked convoy of trucks carrying military vehicles for U.S forces in Afghanistan near Peshawar was attacked by insurgents who torched and destroyed 96 trucks. As recently as Jun. 8, 2010, a convoy of contractor was attacked when it stopped at a depot just outside of Islamabad. The insurgents burnt 30 trucks and killed six people.

In November 2009, Aram Roston of the Nation magazine published a startling article: The trucking and security contractors were paying off warlords, and perhaps even the Taliban.

On Tuesday, a new report by U.S. Congressional investigators titled: "Warlord, Inc. Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan" confirmed Roston's allegations. The six-month investigation was conducted by the staff of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, which is chaired by John Tierney, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

"The HNT contractors and their trucking subcontractors in Afghanistan pay tens of millions of dollars annually to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for 'protection' for HNT supply convoys to support U.S. troops," wrote the investigators in the 79-page report.

"Within the HNT contractor community, many believe that the highway warlords who provide security in turn make protection payments to insurgents to coordinate safe passage."

Memos show that occasionally the contractors even worked with the insurgents to shake down the U.S. military for more money.

"U.S. taxpayer dollars are feeding a protection racket in Afghanistan that would make Tony Soprano proud," Tierney said in a prepared statement, making reference to the fictional mafia boss of a popular TV series. "This arrangement has fueled a vast protection racket run by shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others."

The report comes on the heels of a two-day hearing in the U.S. Congress by the Commission on Wartime Contracting into abuses - including multiple charges of killings of civilians - by private security contractors hired by the State Department and the Pentagon in Iraq.

Three high-ranking military officials were asked to report to Tierney and other members of the subcommittee at a public hearing in Congress on Tuesday. "Why weren't questions raised about these allegations earlier?" asked Congressman Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois, echoing similar questions asked repeatedly by Tierney.

"I was personally unaware of these kinds of allegations but we take it seriously," said Lieutenant General William Phillips, principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the army for acquisition, logistics, and technology. He explained that it was difficult to investigate corruption in Afghanistan.

Tierney dismissed this answer. Noting that the allegations were widely rumoured within days of the new contract and appeared in the media in late 2009, he pointed out that his staff was easily able to secure meetings with one of the warlords. "It took one email and when we met with him, he readily admitted to bribery and corruption."

Perhaps a more accurate answer came from Brigadier General John Nicholson, the director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan Coordination Cell for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. The issue that his office ranked highest, said Nicholson: "Was the product delivered on time?" explaining that the military's highest priority was making sure that supplies got to the troops.

Congressman Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, said that a more appropriate question was: "Where is the tipping point when we say that that the funding of a parallel authority structure should become unacceptable?"

"There seems to be very little indication the Department of Defence is doing anything," Flake concluded.

Several experts also testified to the subcommittee that the new report presented a major problem for U.S. military objectives in Afghanistan.

Colonel T.X. Hammes, senior research fellow at the National Defence University, said that the military needed to look into whether or not the choice of contractors "directly undercut(s) a central theme of our own counterinsurgency doctrine.'

*This article was produced in partnership with CorpWatch - www.corpwatch.org.

(END)