2,120
The number of U.S. service
members killed in action since
the start of the Afghanistan war
[AS OF 10/1/12– SOURCE: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE]
would happen when the U.S. pulled the
plug on the funding. As a result, many
observers in Washington, and many
Afghans as well, worry about how they
could possibly sustain all of the projects
that had begun under the Americans. In
2011, an internal audit of a major USAID
stabilization project in Helmand concluded that any gains from the work were at
risk because there were “no comprehensive transition plans.”
“It probably took until this year that
we got someone to really pay attention to
it,” Charles M. Johnson, the director for
the international affairs division of the
Government Accountability Office, told
me in August. “And frankly I’m still not
sure they are focused enough on it.”
Now, with the drawdown firmly in
sight, the Americans and Brits say they
are scrambling to make up for lost time.
Sitting near to the base’s beach-volleyball court, where a team of Afghan interpreters were handily defeating some British soldiers, the American official, who,
under tight embassy restrictions, could
only speak about his work anonymously,
tried to assure me that his agency had
the transition firmly under control. In
recent years, the PRTs say they have
shifted their tactics, recognizing much of
what outside experts had been clamoring about for years: Local populations in
volatile areas want security and fair government more than they want dams and
roads. “We’ve still got 12 to 18 months
with boots on the ground,” the official
said. “This is the time to transition, while
we’re still here.”
This particular official’s task was to
oversee the drawdown of a program that
supported locally run radio stations.
With the help of USAID, Afghans in Lashkar Gah had managed to establish five
stations, each with their own programming mix and, in some cases, advertising.
The stations offered local jobs and messages that competed with F