Half-Shuffled Afghan Cabinet Keeps Men Known to U.S.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, under pressure from the U.S. to reduce official corruption, formed a new cabinet, keeping key ministers favored by Western governments and appointing two former anti-Soviet guerrilla commanders whom Afghan policy experts describe as corrupt.

Karzai submitted names of his cabinet nominees to the lower house of parliament today, more than a month after being sworn in for a second term following an election in August marred by allegations of fraud. The cabinet will be scrutinized as an early test of Karzai’s commitment to attack official corruption, as President Barack Obama has demanded that he do.

While officials gave slightly different lists of the new cabinet, both versions showed Karzai avoiding sweeping changes. He retained the finance, defense and interior ministers and has not yet selected a foreign minister, according to a list given to reporters by officials of the lower house of parliament.

“This cabinet brings no good message to the Afghan people” and is unlikely to bolster Karzai’s waning public support, said Haroun Mir, director of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul, the capital. It is dominated by “former and current ministers and does not offer solutions” to the inefficacy and corruption of the government in its previous five-year term, he said.

Mining Sector

The new cabinet excludes Mines Minister Ibrahim Adel, the top official most prominently accused of graft. While mining is one of few sectors of the Afghan economy to draw international interest in investment, Afghanistan is second only to Somalia as the most corrupt of 180 countries, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index published last month by the research and lobby group Transparency International.

The Washington Post and the Associated Press last month cited unidentified U.S. officials as accusing Adel of taking a bribe of at least $20 million from the Metallurgical Corp. of China for awarding it a contract to develop one of the world’s largest copper mines. Adel denies the allegation and Afghanistan’s attorney general said yesterday the government has no evidence for charges against him.

A list of 27 cabinet members, distributed to reporters by the lower house of parliament, included two ex-commanders from the 1980s guerrilla war against Soviet occupation who are criticized by Afghan-affairs specialists for alleged corruption and autocratic rule. A 23-name list, recited to reporters by Karzai’s parliamentary affairs minister, omitted the most controversial such ex-commander, Gul Agha Sherzai.

Fiefdom

Sherzai built a fiefdom in the southern city of Kandahar after being hired by U.S. forces to help oust the Taliban from there in 2001. His subsequent rule was unpopular, seen as “corrupt and inefficient,” according to a 2005 report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Sherzai and other ex-commanders are now regional power brokers who have pressed the president for government posts in exchange for supporting him, Mir said. Obama this month threatened to cut U.S. aid to parts of the Afghan government that fail to root out corrupt officials, saying graft undermines the U.S.-led fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Karzai and his attorney general, Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, have vowed to prosecute top officials for graft, and Aloko said yesterday those to be charged include two members of the outgoing cabinet.

Prosecutions of as many as 18 current or former ministers or provincial governors will begin “in the near future,” Aloko said in a telephone interview.

As U.S. pressure on corruption has increased in the past few months, both Karzai and his attorney general have promised prosecutions of dishonest officials. The police and court systems that will have to implement any crackdown are weak, said Lorenzo Delesgues, director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, a Kabul-based non-profit group that researches corruption.