Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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Just think what $400 million could have done for American schools or American families or American roads etc.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080501/pl_nm/afghan_reconstruction_dc
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The U.S. military hopes to double its emergency funds for aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan this year, turning a once small-scale program into a core part of its strategy to defeat Taliban insurgents.
If the U.S. Congress approves, commanders on the ground say they could soon have as much as $410 million to finance new schools, roads, bridges and small hydro-electric power projects in rural areas, up from $206 million in 2007.
The program, known as the Commanders' Emergency Response Programme, or CERP, gives mid-level officers the authority and financial freedom to launch local reconstruction projects without the usual lengthy approval process from above.
It has become a central to the military's counter-insurgency strategy as it seeks to quell the still-potent threat from the Taliban more than six years after U.S.-led and Afghan forces removed the hardline Islamists from power after they refused to surrender al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The theory is that the sooner roads can be improved, clinics built, bridges repaired and power restored -- especially in areas along the Pakistan border -- the less likely the Taliban are to be let back in to vulnerable communities.
British commanders in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is strong, have expressed envy in the past that they do not have the same funding or authority as their American counterparts to implement a similar strategy.
In the two years they have been based in Helmand province, British forces have often taken towns and villages after a lengthy battle only to see them fall back into the hands of the Taliban shortly after they have withdrawn.
"This has got to be a two-fold process -- kinetic combat operations to drive out the insurgents followed right afterwards by the rebuilding work," U.S. Navy Lieutenant Ashwin Corattiyil, the CERP manager for eastern Afghanistan, said on Thursday.
"The prime reason CERP has the impact it does is its quick delivery. It's small scale but quick impact."
Corattiyil said $210 million had been set aside for Afghanistan's CERP spending in 2008, and an extra $200 million was pending approval from Congress. The program has expanded steadily in Afghanistan since it was founded in Iraq in 2003 with money seized by U.S. forces from Saddam Hussein's regime.
NGO CRITICISM
While sabotage, including the Taliban burning down schools and clinics and attacking Afghans employed to build new roads, has set back some projects, many more are pushing ahead.
U.S. army engineers have designed and helped build almost 90 micro-hydro-electric plants in the past three years, a process which involves diverting a portion of a river's flow so the water can power a generator that in turn provides basic power.
Road-building, which costs anywhere from $100,000 per kilometer for a gravel road to $250,000/km for an asphalt one, has also become a major focus of engineering work.
"Roads can be a real moneymaker," said Lieutenant-Colonel Craft Smith, the head of engineering for the U.S. military's CJTF-101 task force, based in eastern Afghanistan.
"If you get a road opened up, you sometimes see the local souks (markets) quickly doubling in size -- it helps the local economy to pick up, and it makes it easier to get Afghan security forces to some of these places which helps."
Under CERP rules, battalion commanders -- usually lieutenant-colonels or majors -- can spend up to $25,000 at their own discretion. Task force commanders -- usually colonels -- can spend up to $200,000 on their own, and above that figure approval has to be sought from a commanding general.
Big projects require oversight by separate legal, financial and contracting teams, but that once lengthy process has been streamlined so that it now takes as little as two to three weeks.
Some NGOs and aid agencies have raised concerns the program gives reconstruction projects too much military emphasis, but Corattiyil says there is consultation with third parties -- NGOs and ministries in the Afghan government -- to make sure there is agreement and as little overlap as possible. |
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