21 Afghan Police Die In Taliban Assault

Suicide Blast Is 2nd Major Strike In Past 2 Days

By Candace Rondeaux,

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 2 --

At least 21 Afghan police officers were killed Monday in southern Afghanistan when a Taliban suicide bomber disguised as a policeman attacked a local police station, according to Afghan government officials.

The bombing occurred about 11:30 a.m. in the town of Tarin Kot in the southern province of Uruzgan. The bomber walked into a district police station and detonated a vest full of explosives, apparently concealed beneath a stolen police uniform, said Hashim Watanwal, an Afghan parliament member in the province.

Watanwal said at least 21 police officers were killed instantly and eight others were injured. Seven of the wounded men were listed in critical condition Monday afternoon.

A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed that the bomber was wearing a police uniform when the attack occurred and said that an investigation into the incident is underway.

The attack in Tarin Kot on Monday marked the second major Taliban suicide attack in as many days on security forces in Afghanistan. On Sunday, a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle packed with explosives into a military convoy near the outskirts of the Afghan capital of Kabul, injuring three, including a French soldier.

Suicide bombings in and around the capital have increased in recent months with the deterioration of security in the neighboring provinces of Wardak and Logar, where insurgents have established a strong foothold.

More than 1,000 Afghan police officers have been killed since January 2007, according to Afghan government and U.S. military data. Several Afghan officers have been killed recently in "friendly fire" incidents in which Western troops have mistakenly fired on police contingents during operations.

In December, six Afghan police officers were killed and 13 wounded after U.S. troops opened fire on them during a late-night operation near the town of Qalat in eastern Zabol province.

The United States has spent about $6.2 billion on training and equipment for Afghan police since the U.S.-led military mission in Afghanistan began seven years ago.

The investment has produced mixed results. A fraction of police officers trained by U.S. forces have achieved full readiness to operate independently.

About 730 U.S. military advisers have been dispatched to the country to train the Afghan police. But U.S. military officials have said an additional 2,300 trainers are needed to train a police force that is expected to grow from about 62,000 to 82,000 in the next couple of years.

Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.

Citing Iraq, auditor warns against wasteful aid in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AFP) –

Feb 2, 2009

The United States runs the risk of wasting billions of dollars in aid money for Afghanistan unless it learns "hard lessons" from a disastrous reconstruction effort in Iraq, government auditors said.

Much of the 50 billion devoted to rebuilding and assisting Iraq was marred by waste, fraud and confused planning by rival government agencies, Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq recontruction, told a commission examining wartime contracts.

"How much waste and fraud was there? There was a lot of waste, billions of dollars in waste..." Bowen told the Commission on Wartime Contracting at its first public hearing.

He said US officials had originally planned before the Iraq war on a 2.4 billion reconstruction effort, but eventually the program ballooned to 25 times that size.

Bowen discussed the Iraq reconstruction effort's failures and missteps, as his office released a damning report on Monday titled "Hard Lessons."

The report is "a detailed account of how the United States undertook an enormous rebuilding program after planning for a very small one, and how it was discovered through hard lessons, through difficult experience, through waste, that the United States government does not have neither the structure nor the resources to take on such an enterprise," Bowen said.

"It's true today, as well."

The US government's experience in Iraq needed to be applied to Afghanistan before more money was wasted, he said.

The report's findings were "compellingly important for this commission and for the Congress and for the country, as the effort in Afghanistan expands," he said.

The United States had already appropriated 32 billion dollars for infrastructure projects in Afghanistan and more was likely to be spent, he said.

His comments came as President Barack Obama has vowed to place a higher priority on fighting insurgents in Afghanistan and bolstering the central government in Kabul.

Bowen said future reconstruction projects needed to be managed from a single government authority instead of a jumble of rival agencies, subject to more flexible wartime contracting rules, supervised by auditors, carried out only where security could be assured and designed around the needs expressed by local leaders.

The Commission on Wartime Contracting is a bipartisan panel created by Congress last year to look at government spending in Iraq and Afghanistan and propose measures to prevent large-scale waste of public funds.