Afghan MPs want Karzai to share info on CIA payments

Following in the footsteps of senators, Wolesi Jirga members asked President Hamid Karzai to brief them on cash receipt from the Central Investigation Agency (CIA).
Some senators on Tuesday asked Karzai to take the parliament and the nation into confidence on the “ghost money” the CIA allegedly handed out to his office over the past decade.
On Monday, the New York Times reported the agency had delivered tens of millions of dollars to the president’s office — a costly influence-peddling attempt that led to massive corruption in Afghanistan.
“For more than a decade, 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 the president,” the NYT said.
Meant to buy influence for the CIA, the payments instead fuelled corruption and gave warlords a boost, the paper quoted unnamed US officials as saying. As a result, the US drawdown strategy had been weakened, the newspaper claimed.
Currently on a three-nation tour of Europe, Karzai acknowledged on Monday the US had provided modest sums in cash support to Afghanistan’s National Security Council.
He told reporters in Helsinki: “Yes, the NSC has received financial assistance from the US over the past decade, but at a reasonable scale, not at a massive one.”
But a public representative from Herat province, Munawar Shah Bahadari, said receiving secret cash payment from foreign intelligence networks was against the core national interest, raising disturbing questions about Afghanistan’s sovereignty.
The president must share complete information regarding such payments with the house, he stressed. “We should have been informed before the NYT or some other daily exposes such cash payments.”
His view was echoed by another MP from Badakhshan, Nilofar Ibrahimi, who observed: “We should know where the money has gone, to the president’s account or elsewhere…” She suggested the creation of a panel to ascertain the Presidential Palace’s sources of cash payments.
Ghulam Sarwar Fayez from Badghis province believed the Attorney-General Office should investigate the presidency’s income sources and present a report on the subject to the assembly.
After a long debate, Speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi ruled the members would take a decision on the issue during a closed-door meeting. However, he gave no date for the in-camera session.