The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

Six billion dollars later, the Afghan National Police can't begin to do their jobs right—never mind relieve American forces.

(Afghani police use a rifle training course in Kabul as a DynCorp employee looks on )
Newsweek-Christian Miller, Mark Hosenball, and Ron Moreau
"America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force, buying weapons, building police academies, and hiring defense contractors to train the recruits—but the program has been a disaster. More than $322 million worth of invoices for police training were approved even though the funds were poorly accounted for, according to a government audit, and fewer than 12 percent of the country's police units are capable of operating on their own. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption." During the Obama administration's review of Afghanistan policy last year, "this issue received more attention than any other except for the question of U.S. troop levels," Holbrooke later told NEWSWEEK. "We drilled down deep into this."