[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 29, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S7740]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ASSISTANCE FOR AFGHANISTAN

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, at a time when many Americans are 
increasingly concerned with the situation in Afghanistan, I was 
interested in an investigative report on U.S. aid for Afghanistan in 
the August 2, 2010, issue of the Christian Science Monitor weekly 
magazine. The report describes several aspects of the U.S. Agency for 
International Development's approach to development in that country, 
and I want to take a minute to clarify what may be a misconception 
about the Congress's expectations.
  The article describes USAID's focus on the ``burn rate''--that is, 
how quickly aid funds are spent. With this as USAID's focus, the more 
money the President asks for, the more money Congress appropriates, the 
more money USAID has available to spend, and the faster USAID says it 
needs to spend it in order to satisfy Congress.
  The article gives examples of the mistakes and problems that have 
resulted from trying to spend too much, too fast, in an environment 
where security threats severely limit the ability of USAID to monitor 
the funds, where a large percentage of the population lives as though 
it were the 12th century, where corruption is pervasive, and where the 
Karzai Government is widely perceived as ineffective or worse. The 
article describes big-dollar contracts with foreign companies that are 
not familiar with Afghanistan, for projects that are hastily designed 
from the top down, are overly ambitious, and too often do not produce 
good results.
  This is one Senator who is not impressed by burn rates. I don't think 
they are a good measure of anything, except possibly waste. When I hear 
that the administration expects to increase the burn rate for USAID 
programs and activities in Afghanistan from $250 million per month to 
$300 million per month, it rings alarm bells. I am interested in 
projects that are worth the investment and that provide lasting 
improvements in the lives of the Afghan people. More often, that means 
spending less, and spending it more slowly and more carefully.
  What we are seeing in Afghanistan is reminiscent of Iraq, although in 
Iraq the waste and shoddy results were on a far larger scale. The 
Pentagon was asked to be a relief and reconstruction agency that it was 
never meant to be. The empty buildings, electricity blackouts and 
unfinished projects are part of the costly legacy of that debacle.
  But the increasing tendency in Afghanistan to measure progress by the 
rate at which money is spent is unwise. We have urged USAID to go 
slower, to focus on smaller, manageable, sustainable projects that are 
chosen with input from local communities. Local people, and local 
governments or national government ministries with a record of 
transparency, accountability and good performance, should be involved 
at all stages, from design to implementation to oversight. It may take 
longer, the projects may not be as grandiose, but the long term results 
are likely to be better.
  In response, we are told USAID needs more money to support the 
civilian surge and implement bigger projects quickly as part of the 
``clear, hold, build'' strategy. I understand the pressure USAID is 
under, from the Pentagon, the White House, and the State Department, to 
spend more money faster. I suspect if it were up to USAID alone it 
would spend less and get better results. And I am concerned that at the 
same time USAID is being told to spend more, it is treated as a second-
class agency that sometimes has to fight just to be included in the 
discussions about the very strategy it is told to implement.
  But I have seen, as the Christian Science Monitor describes, the 
disappointing results of the big-spending, rushed approach. Costly new 
roads that are already deteriorating, poorly built irrigation canals 
that have collapsed from landslides, hydro-electric projects that don't 
produce electricity. United States officials in Kabul who have been in 
the country only a few months and will be gone after a year, trying to 
direct what happens on the ground hundreds of miles away. Perhaps the 
worst of it is that many Afghans have become angry and distrustful of 
the United States because they know these projects were expensive and 
mismanaged, and promises were not kept. Just as bad is when USAID 
contractors issue self-serving reports--describing projects which cost 
too much and produced too little--as success stories.
  Of course, spending billions of dollars does produce successes. 
Hundreds of thousands of Afghan girls are in school thanks to the 
United States. That alone is a major achievement. Agricultural 
productivity is increasing, thanks to USAID programs, although opium 
poppy cultivation is also flourishing. Another success is the money we 
provide to the National Solidarity Program, which works from the bottom 
up, with better oversight and less waste than the big contracts. It is 
supporting economic development projects, often costing only a few tens 
of thousands of dollars, in thousands of Afghan towns and villages.
  But these successes should not obscure the fact that planning, 
implementation, and oversight of programs need to be better, both for 
American taxpayers and for the Afghan people.
  At a time when we face large budget deficits and money is scarce, I 
doubt the wisdom of spending billions of dollars this way. That is one 
reason the Department of State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee has 
recommended $1.3 billion less than the President requested for aid for 
Afghanistan for fiscal year 2011. Some argue that we should have cut 
even more.
  We want to help the people of Afghanistan. They have suffered, and 
continue to suffer, every imaginable hardship. Combating poverty, 
empowering women whose political participation is essential to the 
future of that country, building more effective public institutions, 
and strengthening the rule of law in Afghanistan are in the long term 
interests of the United States. We know that in a country torn by 
conflict and where corruption is rampant, some projects will fail no 
matter how well designed they are. We understand that there is an 
unavoidable element of risk. But spending money fast is not the same as 
taking risks to help people.
  I urge the administration to review its current assumptions, look 
critically at the results so far, take the time to understand the 
lessons learned, and reevaluate the amount of aid that Afghanistan can 
effectively absorb so progress is measured not by the rate at which 
money is spent, but by tangible improvements in the lives of the Afghan 
people.

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