KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are developing a strategy that would tolerate some corruption in the country but target the most corrosive abuses by more tightly regulating U.S. contracting procedures, according to senior defense officials.
American officials here have not spoken publicly about countenancing potentially corrupt local power brokers. Such a stance would run somewhat against the grain of a counterinsurgency doctrine that preaches the importance of building competent governance, but military officials have concluded that the Taliban insurgency is the most pressing threat to stability in Afghanistan and that a sweeping effort to drive out corruption would create chaos and a governance vacuum that the Taliban could exploit.
“There are areas where you need strong leadership, and some of those leaders are not entirely pure,” said a senior defense official. “But they can help us be more effective in going after the primary threat, which is the Taliban.”
The issue of corruption in Afghanistan has taken on renewed urgency in recent weeks with the arrest of a senior aide to President Hamid Karzai and new questions about Kabul’s commitment to fighting graft.
Senior Obama administration officials have repeatedly emphasized the need to root out graft in Afghanistan. The United States has spent about $50 billion to promote reconstruction in Afghanistan since 2001.
U.S. officials and defense analysts say challenging local power brokers and criminal syndicates, many of which depend on U.S. reconstruction contracts and ties to the Afghan government for support, would probably add to the unrest in Kandahar and produce a higher U.S. casualty rate.
“Putting an end to these patronage networks would not come cheaply,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan.
By contrast, allowing some graft among Afghan power brokers on the condition that they agree to limit their take and moderate predatory activities, such as their use of illegal police checkpoints, could promote near-term improvements, Biddle said.
