One unidentified contractor told government interviewers he was expected to dole out $3 million daily for projects in a single Afghan district roughly the size of a U.S. county. He once asked a visiting congressman whether the lawmaker could responsibly spend that kind of money back home: \u201cHe said hell no. \u2018Well, sir, that\u2019s what you just obligated us to spend and I\u2019m doing it for communities that live in mud huts with no windows.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>
The gusher of aid that Washington spent on Afghanistan also gave rise to historic levels of corruption.<\/p>
In public, U.S. officials insisted they had no tolerance for graft. But in the Lessons Learned interviews, they admitted the U.S. government looked the other way while Afghan power brokers \u2014 allies of Washington \u2014 plundered with impunity.<\/p>
Christopher Kolenda, an Army colonel who deployed to Afghanistan several times and advised three U.S. generals in charge of the war, said that the Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai had \u201cself-organized into a kleptocracy\u201d by 2006 \u2014 and that U.S. officials failed to recognize the lethal threat it posed to their strategy.<\/p>
\u201cI like to use a cancer analogy,\u201d Kolenda told government interviewers. \u201cPetty corruption is like skin cancer; there are ways to deal with it and you\u2019ll probably be just fine. Corruption within the ministries, higher level, is like colon cancer; it\u2019s worse, but if you catch it in time, you\u2019re probably ok. Kleptocracy, however, is like brain cancer; it\u2019s fatal.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe stated that our goal is to establish a \u2018flourishing market economy,\u2019\u2009\u201d said Douglas Lute, the White House\u2019s Afghan war czar from 2007 to 2013. \u201cI thought we should have specified a flourishing drug trade \u2014 this is the only part of the market that\u2019s working.\u201d <\/p>
\u2026<\/p>
No single agency or country was in charge of the Afghan drug strategy for the entirety of the war, so the State Department, the DEA, the U.S. military, NATO allies and the Afghan government butted heads constantly.<\/p>
\u2026<\/p>
The agencies and allies made things worse by embracing a dysfunctional muddle of programs, according to the interviews.<\/p>
At first, Afghan poppy farmers were paid by the British to destroy their crops \u2014 which only encouraged them to grow more the next season. Later, the U.S. government eradicated poppy fields without compensation \u2014 which only infuriated farmers and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
And here’s a picture. No trigger warning<\/em><\/strong>, because we should all look, regardless of how it makes us feel. Do you see the writing on his forehead? The duct tape on his shirt? These tell me that there is a tourniquet on his right leg. It was put on at 2:55 pm. I wonder if he kept that leg, if he survived at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![](\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2019\/investigations\/afghanistan-papers\/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents\/img\/1800\/Q4RSLYQWVII6VAGW2DFHABZHH4.jpg\")
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Incidentally, here’s the previous winner for “Most American Sentence Dave Can Imagine”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n