US funding for the Taliban: Can it be stopped?

KABUL — About halfway through “Obama’s Wars,” Bob Woodward’s mesmerizing account of the Afghanistan debate inside the Obama administration, Richard Holbrooke dropped a quiet bombshell.

“All the contractors for development projects pay the Taliban for protection and use of the roads, so American and coalition dollars help finance the Taliban,” Holbrooke, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told a meeting of White House insiders in October, 2009.

He was not challenged or asked to explain. Everyone present, including the secretaries of state and defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the directors of National Intelligence and the CIA, accepted the comment without objection.

So a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development detailing concerns that up to $5.2 million in taxpayer money may have fallen into Taliban hands should come as no surprise. The only part of the document that raised eyebrows was the comparatively modest amount estimated to be flowing to the insurgency.

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