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No Accounting for Waste

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For the extended version of this article, read "Afghanistan: Oversight AWOL?"

DURING HIS fourth trip to Afghanistan, in May, Arnold Fields, the retired Marine general who serves as the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, or SIGAR (pronounced "cigar"), noticed a pattern. Each Afghan official he met gave the impression of being the only honest man in the country. "At least that's how they perceive themselves," he told me after his return. "Obviously that might not be the case."

It's not surprising that Fields can't figure out whom to trust. Afghanistan places fifth in Transparency International's annual ranking of the world's most corrupt nations. (Iraq is tied for second.) Yet Fields, who's in charge of ensuring that taxpayers' dollars don't end up lining the pockets of swindlers and opportunists, heads an office that's ill equipped to deal with this level of graft. Which raises the question of just how serious Washington is about preventing Afghanistan from becoming a money pit like Iraq, where billions in reconstruction funds have gone missing.

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