Hamed Wardak, the soft-spoken Georgetown University-educated son of an
Afghan cabinet minister, has a Defense Department contract worth up to
$360 million to transport U.S. military goods through some of the most
insecure territory in Afghanistan. But his company has no trucks.
Instead, Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who
provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military
officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that
they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up.
According to senior Obama administration officials, some of it may be
going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents
and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage,
often sending their own vehicles to accompany the convoys through their
areas of control.
. . .
Instead, Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who
provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military
officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that
they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up.
According to senior Obama administration officials, some of it may be
going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents
and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage,
often sending their own vehicles to accompany the convoys through their
areas of control.
. . .