Joint Task Force Aims to Keep Drug Money From Taliban

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 20, 2012 – Corruption is not inevitable in Afghanistan, but is a more recent phenomenon caused by 30 years of war, a coalition officer said here today.

And with coalition help, the Afghan  government is making progress against it, said Col. Paul Van Den Broek, a New Zealand soldier in charge of Joint Task Force Shafafiyat – a Dari and Pashto word meaning “transparency.”

“Will it be fast? No. But it is happening,” the colonel told reporters traveling with Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who met with Afghan and coalition leaders here today.

The Afghan government suggested the need for the task force, the colonel said, to reduce corruption so it does not present a “fatal threat” to the viability of the Afghan state.

That threat does exist now, the colonel added, and at its heart is the nexus of drugs and the Taliban.

The Taliban provide land for farmers to grow poppies, they provide the workers, they tax the product, and they provide protection, run the laboratories and then traffic the narcotics, he explained.

“To the Taliban, it is key money that they need to operate in the war,” the colonel said. “It is a case of narcotics leaving Afghanistan in exchange for lethal aid coming in.”

Van Den Broek likened the situation to insurgents in Colombia using cocaine to fund operations or the Irish Republican Army using racketeering to pay for arms and bombs.

Not all narcotics rings in Afghanistan are run by the Taliban, the colonel said, noting that other criminal networks operate in the country. But the Taliban simply cannot operate without drugs and the money they bring in, he added.

This, Van Den Broek said, is where his task force gets involved. “There has been progress made in bringing down these networks,” he said.

Still, he acknowledged, the threat remains, and he quoted a Taliban shadow governor as saying “Where there is poppy, there is Taliban. Where there is no poppy, there is no Taliban.”

“We are working to make sure there is no Taliban,” the colonel said.

Afghan Police Gain Leadership Skills, Public Trust

By Judith Snyderman
Emerging Media, Defense Media Activity

June 28, 2010 - Payoffs to police have contributed to widespread corruption in Afghanistan, but new efforts to engender respect for police and to train police chiefs with leadership skills could pay off in a more stable and just Afghan society, a senior officer involved in NATO's training mission said.

Maj. Gen. Mike Ward of the Canadian army, deputy commander for police on the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan staff, described a case in point during a June 25 "DoD Live" bloggers roundtable.

"We have a very promising model of the civil police and justice program operating down in Kandahar right now which is a composite of the Canadian civil police and the U.S. 97th [Military Police] Battalion," Ward said.

Afghan police officers are walking their beats and engaging with shopkeepers while partnered with training mentors, Ward said. The new breed of officers, he added, aims to earn the confidence of the public by not taking kickbacks or engaging in corrupt practices.

Gaining this confidence is a key to counterinsurgency strategy, Ward explained. Any security force must "move at will, own the night and know your publics."

Translated to effective policing, he said, that means officers must view it as their duty to "get out with, mix with [and] know the public."

Ward cited many efforts under way to break the old chain of police corruption in Afghanistan. Those include anti-corruption edicts from the top of government and parity pay raises. At one time, Ward noted, "the pay was so low for policemen and army officers that they could only support their families by abusing their position."

He added that low pay stoked high attrition rates, which added to problems in recruiting and training sufficient numbers of officers.

But money no longer is the issue, Ward said. Police now earn a living wage, equipment is flowing into the country, and the police are receiving better training and mentorship, both in classrooms and on patrol, he added.

As a result, he said, retention rates are rising. The attrition rate now is less than 1 percent per month among the 75,000 uniformed police, who represent some 75 percent of the force.

"If you parallel that with some of the percentages of attrition that we see even in Western nations, this is a good statistic," Ward noted.

However, he said the attrition rate among the Afghan National Civil Order Police, which has started to drop to about 50 percent, continues to be an issue of concern. Still, he said, trends are moving in the right direction and he's optimistic.

"I am encouraged by the number of very honest police that I deal with and who are outraged by having to work with colleagues who take advantage of the system [that] is not accountable enough yet," he said, "and these [honest police] are the individuals who we would want to promote to positions where their influence or their power can help change the system for the better."

Growing Afghan Police Force Needs More Help

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Reeba Critser
Special to American Forces Press Service

July 2, 2008 - Absenteeism, police corruption, low pay, lack of equipment and weapons, and a high casualty rate are just some reasons police officers show up at the Jalalabad Regional Police Training Center in Afghanistan. The goal for them is to avoid these situations. In most of the country's districts, police officers are on the force because they were friends with the right people; however, most have undergone no police training and many are illiterate. Many police officers on the payroll receive a considerable paycheck, but never show up to work. Police corruption still is high in Afghanistan, but the Afghan government and NATO forces are working to change that.

The desired result is to ensure all police officers receive the same training, equipment, weapons and equal pay. The RTC is where they receive that.

After eight weeks of training approved by Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, the police officers are sent home to protect their villages. The courses are taught by Afghans, but U.S. contractor DynCorp employs former policemen as supervisors.

"We get them in, get them trained, and get them out the gate," said Flint L. Chambers, deputy regional commander for the Jalalabad RTC. "They leave here with brand-new equipment and weapons and go back to their districts. They also receive an eight-week oversight from us [in their home districts]."

Even though more than 54,000 police officers have received the training, Chambers estimates that less than 4 percent of the recruits he receives are literate. But the recruits still give the program high honors.

"Before training, I didn't know anything; now I know many things," said Murhaytab, a new police recruit of the Kod district, speaking through an interpreter. "I will return to my district and use what I have learned against my enemies."

The process of sending police officers to the RTCs begins with Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan.

"We target a district, form a [meeting] with them, and determine the best way to proceed with training," said Army Maj. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the American commander of CSTC-A. "We place interim policemen in those districts while they're training."

The interim police belong to a program called focused district development. The interim policemen come from around the country, and because no one in that district is familiar with the policeman's background, corruption is reduced.

"We cannot fight corruption only by words. We need action as well," said Zemarai Bashari, an Afghanistan Interior Ministry spokesman. The ministry has established an electronic payroll system to monitor the policemen's paychecks. A national payroll system by rank also was established in the process. The additional challenge is to ensure all policemen in the country are onboard with the training and the payroll, Bashari said.

Although the Afghan National Police budget is more than $2 million, the nation still is short of recruits, trainers and training centers. "If I cannot get more police trainers, it will take five years to complete this program," Cone said.

The Afghan Interior Ministry said more than 1,000 policemen were killed last year fighting insurgents, the Taliban and narcotics. Even common lawbreakers often are members of the Taliban who profit from the narcotics industry and undermine progress.

"Our police deserve courage and admiration because of their responsibilities," Bashari said to a group of European reporters. "Your police only tackle crime. Ours fight Taliban who have heavy weapons and artillery."

Bashari also said that for every 600 Afghans, there is only one police officer protecting them.

Recruiting policemen is a challenge when kidnappings, beheadings and assaults are a big part of crime. In one instance, a policeman was mutilated by the Taliban in front of his tribe to intimidate potential recruits, Cone said.

"These [police officers] are 18 to 20 years old," he said. "They want to better their country, and they do that by backing NATO forces. We owe these policemen better."

(Army Sgt. 1st Class Reeba Critser serves with the U.S. Mission to NATO.)

Afghan Police Training Program Targets Corruption

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

April 18, 2008 - A new Afghan constabulary training program addresses reports of police corruption committed by some members of the country's national police, the U.S. commander in charge of training and equipping Afghan soldiers and police said today. The Focused District Development program teaches new and veteran Afghan police officers how to discharge their duties as responsible public servants of the people they've been sworn to protect, Army Maj. Gen. Robert W. Cone, chief of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters from his base in Kabul during a satellite-carried news conference.

Cone took command on July 16, 2007. Based at Camp Eggers in Kabul, the security transition command's mission is to train, equip and advise the Afghan Army and national police force.

The new police development program focuses on selected districts that have experienced police misconduct, Cone explained. Senior Afghan government officials conducted citizen meetings to identify trouble areas, Cone said.

"The fundamental issue is corruption" among some members of the nearly 80,000-member national police force, Cone said. Many police previously worked as mercenaries in the militias of local warlords, he said.

A bad economy and very poor police pay likely prompted some Afghan police to make extra money through shake-downs and other unscrupulous actions, he said.

"The police were a security force, but in fact often were involved in illegal kickbacks, bribes, illegal checkpoints on highways, and were often viewed as a real source of corruption," Cone said.

In addition, these ethically-challenged officers "simply did not have the training, or the equipment, or the leadership -- the professional leadership -- to be an effective force," he said.

It is generally believed, Cone added, that the low police pay largely "set the conditions for corruption" within the Afghan police force. Many officers simply had been trying to take care of their families, he said.

Accordingly, Afghan police pay was significantly increased late last year, he said.

The added pay is appreciated, he said, noting that most of Afghanistan's police are dedicated to their country and to their roles as public servants.

"They are very patriot; they want to do the right thing," the general emphasized.

Seven police districts have completed the program's eight weeks' of formal training and those officers have returned to duty under the mentorship of U.S. trainers, Cone said.

The goal, he said, is to reform 52 of the more than 300 Afghan police districts by the end of 2008. It'll take about five years to complete the program, he noted.

"It is important to note that the police are the 'face' of government to the Afghan people and for so long that face has been associated with corruption and unprofessionalism," Cone observed. "Focused District Development is the first real, major step in breaking this cycle of corruption and (to) provide Afghans a professional, well-led and well-trained police force."

Cone said he doesn't understand critics who say Afghanistan's police are being militarized. Afghan police are the first responders to Taliban attacks, he said, and therefore must be properly trained and armed to confront the heavily-armed insurgents.

About 1,000 additional U.S. Marines slated for force-protection duty in Cone's area of operations "are going to give us a really important capability to take our police-reform programs into some of the toughest areas of Afghanistan," he said.

Commander Sees Progress in Afghan Army, Police

By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

April 16, 2008 - The Afghan National Army is growing, and the police force is nearly through its rank and pay reforms, helping eventually to put in place competent, professional security forces across the country, a senior commander there said today. "Once the people realize what a professional, noncorrupt, police force looks like, they want some of that," said Army Brig. Gen. Andrew Twomey, deputy commander of Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, based at Camp Eggers in Kabul.

His organization's mission is to train, advise and develop the Afghan security forces, both police and army.

The agency's first challenge was that, historically, the Afghan people do not have experience with a competent, professional police force, Twomey said. Before, there were armed militias, tribal groups, or during the Soviet occupation, an arm of an occupying force oppressing the people, he said.

"The whole concept of how people think policemen should behave is warped by those decades," Twomey said.

After the defeat of the Taliban, a large number of people were brought into the police simply by the Afghan government converting the militias.

"[They] were essentially told, 'You are no longer a militia any more. Here's a police uniform. Here's a weapon. You're now a policeman," Twomey said. "That program did provide some local security, but it did not give them the same sort of ethics and norms and professional behavior that we would want out of a police force."

Also, the general said, a long history and culture of police corruption had to be addressed in the system. The policemen were underpaid, and the structure of the force was not well disciplined.

"There was left over an acceptance of the fact that policemen were supposed to ... get money from individuals. So that led to policemen setting up illegal roadblocks, taxing individuals for passage," Twomey said.

He said that although there were once 75,000 policemen on the books, they were neither reliable nor trustworthy.

The first step was to reform the pay system, followed by rank reform that matched both the police force and army. In many instances, because of an over-inflated rank system, some would be reduced in rank, but raised in pay. Once the forces start getting paid a livable wage, about $100 monthly for patrolmen, then standards can be enforced, Twomey said.

"Now you're getting paid a living wage. Now we're going to hold you to a standard. And we're not going to tolerate corrupt behavior," Twomey said.

In many districts, the policemen weren't trained, wrong leadership was in place, and there were no standards or discipline, Twomey said. To remedy the need for districtwide training, Twomey's group began building and training police units -- almost a paramilitary organization -- called the Afghan National Civil Order Police. These battalion-sized organizations are given extra training, extra pay and embedded U.S. forces as supervisors.

With that core of top-notch forces, officials are now going to every district in the country and replacing their local forces temporarily to train them.

It's a program called "focused district development," where all local police are removed from a district and taken for eight weeks of training. They are then reinserted in the district with a police mentor team. Each of the police districts in Afghanistan was assessed and prioritized. It will take about five years to train the more than 350 districts.

"The first reaction was 'Don't do this. We're afraid of these new people," Twomey said. "Then about two weeks later we started getting phone calls from the leadership saying, 'We don't want our old police back. ... We like these new guys.'

"We're now into the second cycle, and we think it's getting a lot of good traction in the public and well as good results on the ground," he said.

In the army, Twomey said, Afghan units are increasingly taking the lead and are capable of combat. Plans are to build the army to 80,000, or 14 brigades and a commando brigade. This month, Afghanistan has just fewer than 60,000 soldiers in the force. They will have 70,000 trained by early fall, and plan to have a full complement of 80,000 soldiers by the summer of 2009, Twomey said.

Within the army's ranks, leaders are starting to see a noncommissioned officer corps take shape, he said. They have built the military education system to including basic training and NCO development schools. Commissioned officers have a candidate school and a four-year military academy that will graduate its first class this winter, Twomey said.

Twomey was quick to point out that his organization is not built around a training center, but rather that its trainers are out advising the Afghan army as they go into conflict. He said his agency also has helps to develop organizational systems at the ministries of Defense and Interior to sustain the force into the future.

Twomey's command now is receiving about 1,000 additional U.S. Marines to help with police training in the south and west of Afghanistan.

"They will provide a tremendous boost to our police training efforts, and we think they'll set the conditions for developing governance in a very critical part of the country," Twomey said.