CIA secretly delivered in suitcases or backpacks, tens of millions of dollars in cash, to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for over a decade, writes the New York Times in Monday. “We called it ‘ghost money’. It came in secret and it left in secret,” said Khalil Roman, ex-chief of staff for Hamid Karzai from 2002 until 2005.
Paid in exchange for influence in the country, the money would have contributed to increased corruption in Afghanistan, according to current and former officials quoted by the New York Times. “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States,” said an American official on condition of anonymity.
Nahid Fareed, a member of parliament from western Herat province, said: “Any hidden money that the palace receives from indirect channels, such as spy agencies, notably the CIA, is against national interest and is treason.”
The practice of making cash payments in order to obtain an actual or alleged support by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq has been raised before, but this article research by the New York Times points out the first estimates of the total amount secretly sent by the U.S. to Afghanistan.
According to the U.S. publication, there is no control over the sums of money paid in this way by the CIA, which reaches guerrilla leaders and politicians – some of whom had ties to drug trafficking or the Taliban – with the aim of increasing American influence in the region.
Iran has also made similar cash payments to one of Hamid Karzai’s closest advisers, as admitted by the Afghan President in 2010. But Tehran has stopped these payments, while those from the CIA continued.
After sending tens of billions of dollars to Afghanistan, the international community pledged in July 2012 to provide an additional amount of $16 billion by 2015 to help the country overcome the withdrawal of NATO forces, but set strict conditions for granting the aid.
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