WASHINGTON — President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan may still be getting his monthly cash deliveries from the C.I.A.
But now, until the Obama administration explains the rationale behind the payments, the Afghan government will have to go without $75 million in American aid.
Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, announced Monday that he was putting a hold on the aid until the White House offered “sufficient assurances” that the bags of cash being delivered to Mr. Karzai by the C.I.A. were not fueling the corruption that pervades the Afghan government.
One Afghan official said the cash is known at the presidential palace as “ghost money.” All told, the agency has delivered tens of millions of dollars worth of secret cash payments to Mr. Karzai’s office over the years, according to Afghan and American officials.
The $75 million being withheld was intended to help Afghanistan organize elections, including a presidential vote scheduled for April. Compared with the billions in development and military aid provided each year by the United States to Afghanistan, it is a small sum. But its cutoff marked a rare moment of concrete Congressional pushback on the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy.
“In recent months, I have repeatedly communicated directly to President Obama my concerns regarding alleged cash payments by the U.S. government to President Karzai of Afghanistan,” Mr. Corker wrote in a letter announcing the aid suspension. “Specifically, I highlighted the incoherence of a policy that at once seeks to root out corruption and establish the rule of law, while at the same time funneling secret cash payments to the president.”
The White House has so far refused to discuss the C.I.A. payments. On Monday, Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the White House had been in close touch with Senator Corker’s staff since he first demanded an explanation of the payments in early May. “We look forward to continuing to work with him as we work to responsibly bring the war in Afghanistan to an end and support Afghanistan as it builds a more stable and prosperous future for its people,” she said without elaborating.
The C.I.A. payments have faced sharp criticism from many Afghan, American and European officials since they were first reported by The New York Times in April — and after Mr. Karzai’s confirmation that the payments continued. The officials say the C.I.A., in its quest to maintain influence in Mr. Karzai’s inner circle and stabilize the Afghan government, has for more than a decade financed a slush fund used to pay off warlords, politicians, lawmakers and other powerful Afghans upon whom Mr. Karzai depends for support.
Some of those being paid have ties to the Taliban, the officials have said; others are involved in opium trafficking. But more broadly, they have said, the mere existence of the slush fund effectively undercuts a pillar of the American war strategy: the building of a clean and credible Afghan government.
Monday’s letter to the administration was Mr. Corker’s fourth on the topic.
“I have repeatedly requested briefings and additional information on the nature and effect of this policy, classified and unclassified, as appropriate. The administration’s lack of any response to these requests, its apparent decision to flout the Foreign Relations Committee’s oversight, and its inability (or unwillingness) to explain such a policy is unacceptable,” Senator Corker wrote. “As a consequence, I have determined that the further commitment of taxpayer funds at this time toward such an incoherent governance strategy would not be in our national interest.”
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