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DoD takes over Afghan Police training after IG cites State Dept. failures
NAPLES, Italy -- The Defense Department is taking over training of the Afghan National Police because State Department-hired trainers failed to keep pace with the growing instability in Afghanistan or address the security needs of the civilian population, according to a joint State and DOD Inspector General report released late last week."The ANP training program that is in place does not provide the ANP with the necessary skills to successfully fight the insurgency, and therefore, hampers the ability of DOD to fulfill its role in the emerging national strategy," according to the report. The report, initiated by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee last year, said the State Department failed on a number of fronts, mainly in its ability to provide training that adequately reflected the security needs of the country. A Clinton administration-era directive gave the State Department responsibility for training civilian police forces around the world. Under that directive, the DOD transferred $1.04 billion to the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs to support training programs for the ANP. At the time, according to the IG report, "the security situation in Afghanistan was more stable and suitable for a civilian police force whose sole mission is to enforce the rule of law." But as average monthly fatality rates for members of the ANP soared from 24 in 2006 to 123 last year, contractors hired by the State Department failed to provide the level of combat training needed to battle the escalating insurgency, the report said. The report described the training contract as "ambiguous" and said task orders within the contract included no specific information on the type of training required and provided no way to measure its efficacy. DynCorp International, the company that holds the contract, filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office in December, arguing that the DOD takeover of training effectively shut the company out of the bidding process for new contracts. The current contract, which expired last month, was extended to July pending the outcome of a GAO review. While the DOD will take over the Americans' part in ANP training, many other countries are also involved. However, a lack of standardization throughout the country is slowing progress, the IG report states. That's something NATO is looking to change. "Right now you've got ... the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, run by the [U.S.] Embassy here [in Afghanistan]," said Lt. Col. David S. Hylton, a spokesman for NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. "At the same time you have several countries that have bi-lateral agreements with Afghanistan that conduct police training. "We want to set a common standard, so if you're getting trained to be a uniformed policeman up in Herat, you're getting the same standard of training as you do in Kandahar, or Jalalabad or Kabul," Hylton said. Other issues raised in the report included ensuring there were enough women on the force and maintaining fiscal oversight for supply purchases. Efforts to train women have fallen woefully short -- even taking into account the cultural mores that make training female police officers difficult in a male-dominated career field and country, the report said. While more than 172,000 Afghans completed basic and advanced training courses, only 131 are women. The report also was critical of contracting officers who failed to maintain sufficient invoices for millions of dollars worth of supplies. Nor did they ensure that orders for equipment purchased were considered allowable expenses or that items paid for were actually received. The State Department took exception to the report's claim that $80 million was unaccounted for and should be returned to the Defense Department, according to Susan Pittman, a State spokeswoman. "The money in question has been appropriated for the tasks at hand but has not yet been expended," Pittman wrote in an e-mail. The shift in responsibility doesn't paint the State Department completely out of the picture. The report recommends the department's law enforcement bureau continue in areas such as criminal investigation and professional development. Posted by: Besoeker 2010-02-28 |
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