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Subscribe to RSSWatch Atia Abawi's full, exclusive interview with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in which he discusses the "growing perception" that insecurity in the region is caused by the United States and some of its allies who "promoted lawlessness" and "corruption" in Afghanistan.
Updated at 9:43 a.m. ET: KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai sharply criticized the United States in an exclusive interview with NBC News on Thursday, blaming American and NATO forces for some of the growing insecurity in his country.
"Part of the insecurity is coming to us from the structures that NATO and America created in Afghanistan," Karzai said during a one-on-one interview at the presidential palace. However, he also acknowledged that much of the country's violence was caused by insurgent groups.
The Taliban are regaining land and power lost after they were toppled by U.S.-backed forces in 2001. Meanwhile, Karzai has gone from being a favorite of Washington under the presidency of George W. Bush, to a thorn in the White House's side with his criticism of American night raids and mounting civilian casualties at the hands of NATO troops. Many in Washington have also grown weary of Karzai, viewing him as ineffective and presiding over a deeply corrupt government.
After 10 years of Karzai's rule, has life improved in Afghanistan?
Karzai, who is serving his second five-year term, also told NBC News that he had sent a letter to President Barack Obama saying that Afghanistan would not sign any new security agreements with the United States until hundreds of prisoners held in U.S. custody were transferred to Afghan authorities.
His criticism of the United States, Afghanistan's most important ally, has come after the start of complex bilateral talks on a security pact on the role the United States would play after most of its troops are withdrawn by the end of 2014.
Karzai said the inmates in American detention in Afghanistan were being held in breach of an agreement he and Obama signed in March and must be handed over immediately.
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More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
"We signed the strategic partnership agreement with the expectation and the hope ... the nature of the United States' activities in Afghanistan will change," Karzai said. But American behavior had not changed, he said, adding that terrorism would not be defeated "by attacking Afghan villages and Afghan homes."
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The dispute between the two countries centers around Bagram Air Base and a nearby detention facility, which have long been seen as a symbol of American impunity and disrespect by many Afghans.
"I have written to President Obama that the Afghan people will not allow its government to enter into a security agreement, while the United States continues to violate Afghan sovereignty and Afghan loss," he said.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai had harsh words for the U.S. during an exclusive interview with NBC's Atia Abawi.
During the interview, Karzai also said that he didn't think al-Qaida "has a presence in Afghanistan."
He added: "I don’t even know if al-Qaida exists as an organization as it is being spoken about. So all we know is that we have insecurity."
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In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States led the invasion to topple the Taliban, which was harboring al-Qaida and its then-leader, Osama bin Laden. While weakened, especially after the death of bin Laden at the hands of U.S. special forces in Pakistan in 2011, al-Qaida is still thought to have strong links with the Taliban and other Afghan insurgents.
Karzai said Afghans were thankful to foreign forces for being "liberated" in 2001, but complained that since then his countrymen had suffered the most in the fight against extremism.
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"In the name of the war on terror the Afghan people have paid the greatest price of any. That has not been recognized," he said.
While there have been more than 2,000 American military casualties since the invasion of Afghanistan, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence. In the first six months of 2012 alone, more than 3,000 civilians were killed or injured, according the United Nations. This number was down 15 percent from a year earlier. Anti-government and coalition insurgents were responsible for 80 percent of the civilian casualties, the U.N. says.
Karzai also addressed the issue of graft during the interview, saying there was "no doubt that there is corruption in Afghanistan."
As Taliban regroup, victims battle for 'free' Afghanistan
In an exclusive interview with NBC's Atia Abawi, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says that the U.S. is not sticking to a signed agreement between their two countries.
"The bigger corruption is the corruption in contracts," he added. "The contracts are not issued by the Afghan government. The contracts are issued by the international community, mainly by the United States."
In 2010, the country received $6.4 billion in official development assistance, representing more than 40 percent of its gross domestic product, according to humanitarian news site AlertNet. Two-thirds of the funds aren't channeled through the government because of concerns about corruption and the government's ability to use the money properly, AlertNet added.
Afghanistan is tied with Somalia and North Korea at the bottom of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2012. A 2012 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report estimated that Afghans paid $2.5 billion in bribes over 12 months, which is equivalent to almost a quarter of the country’s GDP.
Kevin Frayer / AP
In southern Afghanistan, the focus of the U.S. war effort, nearly all the Afghan soldiers are foreigners too. Photographer Kevin Frayer shows these soldiers in a series of portraits.
The international community had fostered graft to keep the Afghan state weak, Karzai said.
"I've come to believe (that) ... corruption comes from the United States through contracts and through the corruption in both systems," he said, adding that the "perception of corruption is deliberate to render the Afghan government exploitable, to weaken it," he said. "This is something that I have began to believe in firmly now after the experiences that I've gained in ... working on this issue."
NBC News' F. Brinley Bruton and Kiko Itasaka contributed to this report.
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Raise your hand for an even earlier withdrawal.
/raise
See ya, Karzai!
Cann't bring them home quick enough. Wonder how many C130's the flyboys have. Wonder if NBC will give that warlord another interview as the planes are taxiing down the runway. Let's give a whole bunch of parents peace of mind and bring our kids home!
First of all stick to the artical. I guess Afghan forces are feeling a little insecure as we are insecure about training them. As for the Prisoners, if any of them was anything much they wouldn't be in Afghanistan at this time. These writers like to pretend they know things about nothing. I don't think for one minute they know what was in a documents signed by Bush and Karzai or Obama and Karzai. Everytime we leave a situation like this there are always prisoners turned over to the ccountry.
Article.
Maybe I should have been a bit less subtle and worded my post differently.
Karzai thinks we're a part of his problem, I think we need to leave.
If he thinks he can do it better, let him have at it. He'll change his mind once the money and the guns are gone.
/raises hand in support of leaving Afghanistan, early.
Cheers.
I predict that Karzai will be dead within 1 year after the US pulls out. What will he think about US security then?
Sounds like nam over and over again..American people tired of the lives broken and lost and monies spent with little or no gains and yet our government continues to spend vast monies to stay here and loss of life continue!A march on Washington?bless our troops!
We have give these people our blood and money and you would thank he would be greatful.
Karzai, the only one insecured is you and your barbarian people. If you would put your foot down for once instead of cowering in a corner, we U. S. citizens, who foot your stinking bill, could have been out years ago instead of you dragging us down. All of you are still living in the dark ages where you beat your women and children and the men are pimps.
All I know is that the guy bowling in the photo is obviously over the line...
He's actually a suicide bowler.
It's simple economics 101. We can't afford the war in afghanistan. Time to pull out. let that ungrateful s.o.b run his own country and see how long for he comes crying for more money and troops. Oh yeah, lets bring our troops home for Christmas. We'll send them a bill.
I'm glad our foreign aid money went to good use. A bowling alley. Are you f**king kidding me!
The man has spoken out of turn. In a day or two he will retract. In time he will realize that it's not all about him, and shouldn't be personally gratified. This is not the first time he has shown his hand. He has had the opportunity to turn around. He may still be able to do so, if he really wants to make that choice. He has no poker face. He may or may not board a plane out of country. He may not find a place to enjoy his wealth in peace. There is no safe place for him if he does not became truthful and reveal who his true friends are. And where his heart is. Should he acquire all the riches of the world, yet cannot sleep, where is the wealth?
It shows how little American Foreign policy has evolved since WW2. America still tries to fight outdated wars in parts of the world that are difficult to reach and have little or no value to the country. Bush has added a new dimension, to build infrastructure in these countries with American Taxpayer money while this country falls more and more apart. How much more need politicians time to learn what the man on Main street already knew years ago, that puppet governments like Karzai installed by the U.S. do not work? They listen to Generals that are more obsessed with their affairs and lavish lifestyles and keep these wars going to be relevant. Get the hell out there, let them kill each other if they so desire, and concentrate on what is needed in this country.
...after pocketing the billions US funneled into that country, that moron has the audacity to spit garbage out of his mouth. Sorry, we can not increase your monthly allowance nor afford to provide you with more tribal flags!
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! Karzai is obviously an acceptable corrupt official. Outside of the dignity of our own who died there, it is time to leave that pithole. Even Alexander the Great left it. These people live by their own standard and our presence will not change a thing. I fear for those who want a future and a life in the 21st Century. Perhaps there only path is to leave their own homeland. Many folks before they have. My ancestors all came from another country for a better life. And that they had.
These jerks do not appreciate the lives and dollars Americans have invested in this dump of a country. I for one firmly believe we should pack up ALL U.S. troops and ALL of the U.S. equipment and especially ALL U.S. dollars and leave these horrible savages to fend for themselves, NO MORE HELP, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, no more U.S. aid of any sort to Afghanistan, is there some portion of that U.S. politicians can not understand???
THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE AIDED OR "HELPED" we need to pack our stuff including our money, and bring it home....
What an ungrateful SOB. If this is not proof enough that we should pull out sooner than later, I don't know what is. Without the US or NATO this man wouldn't even be in power. I hope we wouldn't have to give this man and his family asylum after we pull out and he finds out that the glue that is keeping his country together are our soldiers and our money.
We will not leave untill we have ALL THE RUBIS for the future weapons. Like the cannon that was used om MARS????????????.Guess where the biggest mine is in Afganistan?. Around the capitol Kabul , Pay attentiontou will see that any little country with RUBI mines have problems that we need to fix.We have secure the black gold. Coming to you in a theater near you in the near futurethe biggest LASER light show wich will be the new War technology. LASERS
Jesse Ventura? Is that you?
WTF is a RUBI? Do you mean "ruby", you assclown?
We need our troops and military equipment to guard our borders and shutdown smuggling,drug gangs and illegal immigrants taking our freedom and money! NOW!!
Since we provide personal protection to Karzai, we should pull his security detail and let the Afghan army provide protection for him...He won't last a week.
It is way past time to leave Karzai to fix the issues since he seems to have the answers. He and his country men can sort it out at this time and no more of our young men or women need die trying to help people that want no help.
Let's pack up and come home regarding of what our Congressional hawks say. We have already given them too much time and money and wasted too many precious lives. Karzai and his people are doing nothing and we are allowing them to behave like that. Talk about enabling!
It's not the US or NATOs fault the Afghans are too damn stupid and corrupt to take over their own security...
I say leave them to their own worse enemy...Themselves.
The Islamic extremist Frankenstein monsters have started backstabbing big time the inventers of Pakistan, British, and the masters (US and allies) who kept them alive.
In most of the Islamic terrorism and plots in the US, Britain, Europe and other places, Pakis have a hand.
Before followers of Islamic cult set their feet on Afghan and Paki regions, these regions were quite peaceful and prosperous.
Once the cancer of Islam gradually got control of the region, those regions have become raping, stealing, looting and killing fields.
In Afghanistan, Paki proxies Taliban did not even tolerate Buddha’s statue in Bamiyan.
Many Paki areas and some Afghan areas have become breeding and exporting centers for illegal activities including drugs growing and trading and export of Islamic radicals and terrorists all over the world.
British invented Pakistan in 47 and Pakistan is supposed to be a pure Islamic nation. In Pakistan, it was massive genocides of minorities in between 48-50.
Percentages of Hindus and Sikhs were reduced from about 24 percent less than three years by rapings, stealing, lootings, terrorizing and killing on a massive scale.
Paki Islamic religious madness did not end there.
Sunni Pakis are after Ahmedias, Sufis (fake love and dance Islamic soap opera people), Shiites (20 percent), Hazaras, and Baloochs and other minority sects/tribes.
Shiites, Sufis, Ahmedias and other minority sects/tribes people are blown up while they pray in their mosques on Fridays. Ad even hospitals are bombed to kill those injured.
A Washington, DC based think tank Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) provides good details on what is going in Pakistan.
I see the US leaving, the Taliban and al Qaeda regroup and rearm using the billions of dollars in heroin trade and retake Afghanistan. Karzai flees to the waiting arms of the US as the conflict engulfs Pakistan. This is India's problem as they are the powerhouse in the region.
Let the Taliban kill this guy. Leave the country without leaving our equipment or money.
If terrorists create a training camp there, turn it into glass.
Even with most facts pointing to the Saudis funding , training and supporting Bin Lauden we chose to pick a fight in an area that has been the downfall of just about every Empire that has tried to tame it . And why after 10 yrs and 3 trillion dollars we don't seem to be one bit safer ?
Maybe if we didn't feel the need to convert the whole world to capitalism for the 1%er to profit from maybe they wouldn't feel the need to hate on us so much for telling them how to live their lives .
If we had spent 1/10th the money wasted on loser wars on energy independence we could be free of middle east oil and the B/S that comes with it
It seems America enjoys borrowing money for China to pay for the flights to bring our dead troops home ,
Karzai's brother and 12 of his friends stole $900,000,000 from Kabul Bank; talk about a waste of time and money from this point forward. (Really not much different than what our politicians do except the Afghanis are less covert about it. After all, how is Reid, Pelosi, Rangel, Boxer, Feinstein, et. al. able to amass so much wealth being politicians if not for insider trading, vote buying, etc.)
What will Obama and his merry band of nitwits do? Nothing as usual. As with Egypt and Pakistan, we will continue shipping billions of dollars to them all the while pretending they are our friends - which they are most decidely not. But politics makes for strange bedfellows.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-28/world/35509015_1_kabul-bank-afghans-political-interference
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_filkins
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-elite-plundered-900m-from-leading-bank-2200176.html
A coterie of well-connected Afghan businessmen and politicians may have plundered as much as $900m from the country's biggest commercial bank, three times the amount of earlier estimates, and the equivalent of about 7 per cent of Afghanistan's total gross domestic product.
Kabul Bank's funds were treated like personal accounts, it is claimed by several well-known members of Afghan society. Mahmoud Karzai, a brother of the Afghan President and prominent shareholder in Kabul Bank, told The New York Times that the bank's former chairman lent himself about $98m (£62m) to buy one of Afghanistan's airlines, and then used deposits to subsidise the carrier in an attempt to drive rivals out of business. Yet so difficult has the hunt for the missing millions become that the very same man, Sherkhan Farnood, had been brought in to help trace the missing cash.
Officials say the value of questionable outstanding loans written by the bank is far greater than originally thought – and auditors poring over the lender's books think up to $800m is potentially unrecoverable.
The crisis is so severe – with fears that a run on the embattled Kabul Bank could lead to its collapse – that Afghanistan's central bank chief, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, was forced yesterday to deny reports that the embattled lender was close to failure. He claimed the sums at stake were smaller than reported and that auditors had been able to account for all but $100m lent to members of Afghanistan's elite.
The case is acutely embarrassing both for President Hamid Karzai, whose tenure has seen Afghanistan turn into a mafia state, and the Obama administration, which has adopted a policy of ignoring institutionalised corruption after several bitter diplomatic spats with Mr Karzai got it nowhere.
In an account of goings-on at Kabul Bank that is devastating in its detail, the New Yorker magazine records how "Kabul Bank's largesse included members of parliament and almost anyone whose silence would allow bank executives to embark on a spree of buying, lending and looting.
"In addition, some former and current Afghan officials say, Kabul Bank became an unofficial arm of the Karzai government, bribing parliamentarians in order to secure votes for its legislative agenda," it reports.
"Dozens of Afghan leaders and businessmen... collectively, accepted tens of millions of dollars in gifts and bribes – some sources say as much as a hundred million dollars – from executives at Kabul Bank."
The story is a startling illustration of an adage popular with diplomats in Kabul, which goes: "It's not that the system is corrupt; it's that corruption is the system."
In one reported incident, the bank's former chief executive, Khalil Ferozi, is alleged to have told President Karzai that he wanted to contribute to his re-election campaign and was pointed by the Afghan leader in the direction of his Finance Minister and campaign treasurer Omar Zakhilwal. Within days Kabul Bank employees delivered $200,000 in cash to Mr Zakhilwal and more was on the way. "Two guys, one case," he said. But "you will never ever find a record of a gift from them of any value, not even a dollar."
In another episode, Mr Ferozi bragged to a former Afghan cabinet minister that members of the government were on his payroll. "None of the ministers have the guts to speak against us," he is reported to have said. "They are ours."
American investigators say many of Mr Karzai's closest advisers, some with regulatory responsibilities over the Afghan financial system, are implicated in the scandal.
Some are viewed by Western donors as the most accomplished members of Mr Karzai's cabinet, like Farouk Wardak, the Education Minister, or Haneef Atmar, the former interior minister.
"Atmar appeared at one point to be receiving $3m a month," the New Yorker reported, noting that Kabul Bank had won the contract to pay government salaries to the police – who came under Mr Atmar's aegis – after paying a bribe worth perhaps $75m.
It's a meticulous account of the workings of kleptocracy, but from a Western perspective perhaps the most terrifying part of the tale is the motive. The businessmen, politicians and officials – the cream of Afghan society – are milking Afghanistan for all they can. Why? Because they don't believe their country has a future.