A number of letters between Osama
Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda officials were unearthed in the recent Brooklyn
trial of Abid Naseer, a man convicted of plotting to bomb a British shopping
mall. Not surprisingly many of these documents discussed the United States.
What was shocking, however, was what one correspondence between Bin Laden and a
top Al Qaeda commander, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, revealed to be US contributions
to Al Qaeda.
In 2010, Afghan officials
negotiated a $5 million dollar release of an Afghan diplomat held hostage by
the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. Afghan security officials struggled to pay
the steep price on their own, so they drew from money that they had saved from
a secret fund. This treasury was, according to Afghan officials, financed by monthly
cash payments from the CIA to Kabul’s presidential palace. Over the course of
several years, Afghan officials had “squirreled away” nearly $1 million from
the fund, and in 2010 handed that money to Al Qaeda in exchange for their
diplomat.
Al Qaeda
has since used this $1 million in CIA money, as well as the $4 million drawn
from other countries, to replenish its resources. Unfortunately, this money undermined
the CIA’s efforts to deplete the organization’s treasury, namely their
relentless campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan. In fact, had Al Qaeda not
received such funding, they would have suffered immensely from the decimation
of the upper military ranks. However, since “God blessed [them] with a good
amount of money,” according to al-Rahman, they were able to stockpile weapons
and fund other operational needs.
Now what is
possibly most disturbing about this whole situation is that the CIA didn’t know
it was happening. Although Osama Bin Laden, who was alive at the time, feared
that “there [was] a possibility…that the Americans [were] aware of the money
delivery…and that they accepted the arrangement of the payment on the basis
that the money [would] be moving under air surveillance,” the United States was
relatively ignorant. In fact, the CIA continued dropping off cash amounts,
which ranged from a few hundred thousand dollars to more than $1 million, at
the presidential palace in Kabul until last year. They stopped when President
Hamid Karzai stepped down.
Since news
of the event has broken, the CIA has declined to comment.
Now, this
story raises quite a few questions, the most obvious being how could the CIA
have been unaware that American dollars were being used to fund terrorist
organizations? Perhaps it is more important, however, to ask why the CIA was
even delivering these secret funds to Afghanistan in the first place. According
to the NYT, the money was used to buy the loyalty of warlords, legislators, and
other Afghans and to create a patronage network that secured President Karzai’s
power base. One Afghan official commented that there are little to no American
constraints on such contributions and “once [the cash is] at the palace, [the
CIA] can’t do a thing about how it gets spent.”
Personally,
I’m furious to learn that not only has the CIA inadvertently been funding Al
Qaeda but also that they are so willingly to give money that they do not even
enforce guidelines on how it must be spent. They are so concerned with buying
loyalty that they fail to read the fine print of their arrangements. But, what
do you think about this situation; what does the CIA’s accidental contributions
to Al Qaeda say about the American government? Should the CIA be held
accountable for their actions? Moreover, should we reassess how we attempt to
influence Middle Eastern policies because, at least based on the evidence of
the past few years, our efforts seem to be doing more harm than good?
Sources:
3 comments:
Personally Sam, I believe this is an example of an oversight of the scope of the Bureaucracy. It can be extremely difficult for the large government organizations to operate with 100% efficiency, especially when the failsafes in place revolve around Congress or the President needing to watch over these agencies as a double check. When judging this issue we cannot overlook the simple fact that US relations with the Middle-East are tense at best. It would be extremely difficult for any country, let alone us, to be able to effectively bargain with many nations in the region. There is also the issue that there were probably many more events the CIA was focusing their attention and resources on. We can never really know for sure die to the nature of the work they do. While you do raise a good point about how lax and lazy this must seem in the public eye, it naturally is simply a snapshot of the organizations workings; not a cross section. I have to say, if this is the case for the whole of the CIA or US government I would be extremely alarmed. However, this seems rather trivial compared to some of the bigger issues at hand. I also do not think this calls for so many questions about CIA responsibility or international relations as that seems quite a stretch for this issue. Despite this, I do think it would be more efficient if there was a better fail safe in place so that incidents like this don't occur. I believe that an expansion of the oversight of the Bureaucracy may be in order. It also may be high time for more of an active role to be taken by Congress or the President to fulfill their jobs of oversight. In summation I think this issue is not of major concern and does not highlight any new underlying issues within our government and therefore there shouldn't be all that much panic resulting from this.
Sam, I agree that it is disturbing that the CIA has been unaware of this huge error for so long. I believe that they ought to be held responsible for not investigating where the money was going and then stopping shipments when they realized it was directly funding our enemies. Furthermore, the fact that they used the US’s money to pay for hostages that were not US citizens is appalling; not only is it an incorrect use of the money which America loaned to Afghanistan, but it is also a violation of trust that exists between peaceful nations. I feel the CIA should have been made aware of what exactly the money was funding, and this case should prompt investigations into where the money that the CIA is giving to other nations is going. Essentially, because of this error, the United States has been giving money to an enemy who we are simultaneously trying to stop, putting us in a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ situation. When the ransom on which most of the money was spent occurred, the Afghan president was made aware that the money would be spent on weapons and operations needs for al-Qaeda, who has launched multiple attacks against the United States. In all, I feel this was a massive error for the CIA, and more care should go into lending money to other nations in the future.
Sources: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/cia-funds-used-to-refill-al-qaeda-coffers/articleshow/46577555.cms http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/14/cia-funds-found-their-way_n_6869844.html
Sam,
I agree with you that the CIA should be held accountable to the money that was lost through this scandal. It is their responsibility to use American money to benefit American citizens, rather than endanger them by providing resources to the enemy. However, I do not believe that this is any cause for a massive investigation against the CIA's capabilities to perform international intelligence operations. We have to remember that, like Noah said, the public has absolutely no idea of what our nation is currently doing to protect us, aside from what the government and military wants us to see through the media. Our intelligence agencies are some of the best in the world, and I highly doubt that they were completely unaware that $5 million was spent on aiding Al Qaeda. Whether or not there was an underlying tactic or plan the CIA was exercising in allowing Al Qaeda to access this money, or if it truly was a mistake, there is no way for us to know the truth until the CIA itself gives a statement.
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