Afghan govt beset by militant attacks, corruption: report

New York, Oct 9 (PTI) A draft report by American
intelligence agencies has concluded that Afghanistan is in a
"downward spiral" and casted serious doubt on the ability of
Kabul to stem the rise in Taliban's influence there.

The classified report found that the breakdown in central
authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant
corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and
by an increase in violence from militants who have launched
increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan.

The report, a nearly completed version of a National
Intelligence Estimate, is set to be finished after the
November elections and will be the most comprehensive American
assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan, a media
report said, quoting American officials familiar with the
document.

Its conclusions represented a harsh verdict on
decision-making in the Bush administration, which in the
months after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks made Afghanistan the
central focus of a global campaign against terrorism, the New
York Times said.

Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants in
neighbouring Pakistan, the intelligence report asserted that
many of Afghanistan's most vexing problems are of the
country's own making.

The report cited gains in the building of Afghanistan's
national army, the officials said. But they said it also laid
out in stark terms what it described as the destabilising
impact of the booming heroin trade, which by some estimates
accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy.

Reports issued by the Central Intelligence Agency for
more than two years have chronicled the worsening violence and
rampant corruption inside Afghanistan, and some in the agency
say they believe that it has taken the White House too long to
respond to the warnings, the paper said.

Henry A Crumpton, a career C.I.A. officer who last year
stepped down as the State Department's top counter-terrorism
official, attributed some of Afghanistan's problems to a
"lack of leadership" both at the White House and in European
capitals where commitments to rebuild Afghanistan after 2001
have never been met, the Times reported.

A National Intelligence Estimate is a formal document
that reflects the consensus judgements of all 16 American
intelligence agencies. Although the Bush administration has
made public the crucial findings from some recent N.I.E.'s on
Iraq and terrorism, most remain classified.

The assessment on Afghanistan is the first since the
Taliban regained strength there beginning in 2006 and launched
an offensive that has allowed them to seize large swaths of
territory, the paper said.

American officials were quoted as saying intelligence
agencies were also working to produce an assessment on
Pakistan, and that both were to be completed after next
month's elections. They said the draft findings had already
begun to influence the recommendations of the White House-led
review of Afghanistan policy, which was scheduled to be
completed this month but has now been postponed several
weeks.

The administration, the paper said, is considering
whether the U.S. should devote more effort to working directly
with tribal leaders in far-flung provinces, and possibly
arming tribal militias, to fight the Taliban in places where
Afghanistan's army and police forces have been ineffective.