NY Times: Obama in Kabul: "corruption remains rife"

[amborin]

President Obama’s visit to Afghanistan on Sunday was a long overdue, and desperately needed, attempt to persuade President Hamid Karzai to clean up his act.

American officials have repeatedly warned Mr. Karzai that unless he truly commits to eradicating corruption (including among his own family members), improving governance and institutionalizing the rule of law, there is no chance of defeating the Taliban. Mr. Karzai has repeatedly shrugged off those warnings.

We hope that hearing it directly from the American president will finally make the difference. There is certainly no more time to waste.

Mr. Karzai has a long history of telling the international community what it wants to hear — while he and his aides continue to do whatever they choose.

The most outrageous example was the brazen attempt by Mr. Karzai’s loyalists to steal last year’s presidential election. After Washington — belatedly — cried foul, Mr. Karzai seemed inclined to mend his ways. His inaugural speech in November resonated with high-minded purpose, with promises to end the “culture of impunity.”

But as Gen. James Jones, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, said en route to Kabul, the administration wanted Mr. Karzai to “understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have not been paid attention to, almost since Day 1.”

Mr. Karzai has strengthened the government’s anticorruption commission, and his attorney general is pressing forward on some cases involving former government figures. Still, corruption remains rife, including in Kandahar, where American and NATO forces are about to begin a major operation to rout the Taliban.

Mr. Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is the main power broker in Kandahar and reportedly has strong ties to the opium trade. If he is truly committed to rooting out corruption, President Karzai can start by pushing his brother to step aside as leader of the Kandahar provincial council.

He must also cut ties with many other corrupt officials and warlords and ensure that war criminals and human rights abusers are held accountable. His recent decision to sign a law giving amnesty to some of the worst offenders is especially worrying.

The United States and others rightly cried foul — the administration even canceled Mr. Karzai’s planned White House visit — after the Afghan president issued a decree that would allow him to appoint all of the members of the election watchdog commission that exposed the fraud in last year’s election. Mr. Karzai should reverse that decree and return to the previous and far more credible formula under which the United Nations chose three of the five members.

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Mr. Karzai’s failure to devote maximum effort to fix his government is self-destructive. So is his recent cozying up to Iran’s repressive government — a clear effort to spite his American critics. We hope Mr. Obama told Mr. Karzai all of that in no uncertain terms. He will have to keep telling Mr. Karzai in the months ahead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30tue1.html?ref=opinion