Karzai Keeps Minister Considered Corrupt by US

[Elmore Furth]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials pressured Afghan President Hamid Karzai to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry a year ago because they considered him corrupt and ineffective, and threatened to end aid unless he went.

Karzai rebuffed the request, according to secret diplomatic records, and the minister — privately termed "the worst" by U.S. officials — kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in U.S. and allied projects.

U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry pressured Karzai to remove Khan, a once powerful mujahedeen commander, from the top of the energy and water ministry, according to two State Department reports written at the time by U.S. Embassy officials in Kabul. They were disclosed last month by WikiLeaks.

Concerns about Khan and his ministry surfaced soon after he took over the agency in 2004. Consultants hired to identify problems in the ministry estimated that corruption contributed to the loss of $100 million or more each year from the country's electricity system that should go back to the Afghan government, according to reports produced for the U.S. Agency for International Development.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/31/us/politics/AP-US-WikiLeaks-Afghanistan-Corruption.html?_r=1&ref=news

[DCKit]

1. Bwahahahahaha!!!!! Next, you'll be expecting him to imprison family members...

for drug dealing.

[EFerrari]

2. Or himself for corruption.

lol

[theoldman]

3. Maybe Khan should run for office in the US.

He has all the right qualifications.

[soryang]

4. The quisling dope dealer and embezzler Karsai won't, eh?

You mean there is someone more corrupt than his highness?

Khan steals 100,000 million a year? One US official reported $75,000,000 million in currency leaving Kabul international in one day!