Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirms secret US cash 'help'

The Afghan president has admitted his office received secret payments from the US, but says the amounts were small and used legitimately.

Hamid Karzai was responding to a New York Times report that alleged the CIA sent suitcases stuffed with cash to the president's office on a regular basis.

It said tens of millions of dollars "came in secret" and cash was given on a vaster scale than previously thought.

He added that the money had been delivered to Afghanistan's National Security Council, which is part of the president's office, during the last 10 years.

The New York Times report said: "Wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan's president."

It quoted Khalil Roman, who was Mr Karzai's chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, as saying the cash was referred to as "ghost money".

"It came in secret, and it left in secret," Mr Roman is quoted as saying.

bbc

reply to post by whatzshaken


I'm shocked. Shocked I tell ya.

This kind of pay-off to hired hands has been going on since Noah paid his workers to help build the ark, and then locked the doors when the clouds looked ominous.

Ahhh... Yes.. The best Afghani leader that Western Money could buy.

...and probably the WORST choice at the time for the Afghan people. That was the first of many terminal errors made in handling that nation post-war, IMO. We just had to install a wimp and a corrupt toad we could control like a puppet on a string ...in a nation that cannot tolerate weakness and kills whatever it perceives as showing any.

Yup.. What could possibly go wrong now? I'm sure he'll be the happy President long after we leave too... At least a few days after, anyway.

Is this any surprise, lol.

something tells me this recent can of worms that has been opened wont be the last.

its fun to see how all the secret little things are now slowly and slowly being made public, sure its not yet at the point where everybody grabs up there pitch forks and torches.
id say this is a good moment to start a pitch fork and torch shop start out small soon everybody will want one.

Keep the good news comming

namaste

A couple of questions:

1) Who authorized these payments?
2) Who received these payments?
3) How much (overall) was paid out?

I see these as just payments for all the heroin we grow and export from there, Kharzi knows how much black budget money is derived from our continued NATO occupation. One in my mind would have to think he and his government gets a huge kick back for there complacency on the whole war on drugs issue. After all the money has to go somewhere.....

SaneThinking

cnn

Karzai: CIA promises to continue cash payments

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he has received assurances from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Kabul that it will continue delivering cash, as it has for the past decade, to his offices.

"This is the choice of the American government," he said.

As a matter of routine, the CIA does not comment on its operations. The agency did not return a call from CNN seeking comment.

Karzai also disputed claims that his office received cash from MI6, the British intelligence agency.

He acknowledged MI6 gave money to other organizations in Afghanistan, but he did not identify them.

What more evidence does the public need to prove of wide spread Corruption in the way America conducts it unconstitutional Foreign Policy.

The President is the Commander in Chief, but the power to declare war rests with Congress- though Congress has only exercised the right in response to a presidential request. There have been only five declared wars in the nation’s history (World War II, 1941–45, was the last), a fact that illustrates both the changes in the nature of international conflict and the shift to the President of the power to employ the armed forces without an official authorization by Congress. The War in Iraq was no exception, as the Congress only gave its support of the President’s right to use force at his discretion. Yet it is the rise in covert operations deployed by the President, such as the select group of Navy SEALS who assassinated Osama Bin Laden, that evidence a profound change in the type of wars and manner of their deployment.

Foreign Policy Association