a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Committee on International 

Relations, House of Representatives

June 2005 AFGHANISTAN 

SECURITY

Efforts to Establish 

Army and Police Have 

Made Progress, but 

Future Plans Need to 

Be Better Defined

GAO-05-575
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-575.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact David Gootnick, 

(202) 512-3149 or GoodnickD@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-05-575, a report to the 

Committee on International Relations, 

House of Representatives 

June 2005

AFGHANISTAN SECURITY 

Efforts to Establish Army and Police Have 

Made Progress, but Future Plans Need to 

Be Better Defined 

As of March 2005, Defense had trained more than 18,300 Afghan combat 

troops—over 42 percent of the army’s projected total of 43,000—and 

deployed them throughout the country. During 2004, the Department of 

Defense significantly accelerated Afghan combat troop training. However, 

Defense efforts to fully equip the increasing number of combat troops have 

fallen behind, and efforts to establish sustaining institutions, such as a 

logistics command, needed to support these troops have not kept pace. 

Plans for completing these institutions are not clear. 

Germany and the United States had trained more than 35,000 police as of 

January 2005 and expect to meet their goal of training 62,000 police by 

December 2005. However, the Department of State has just begun to 

address structural problems that affect the Afghan police force. Trainees 

often return to police stations where militia leaders are the principal 

authority; most infrastructure needs repair, and the police do not have 

sufficient equipment—from weapons to vehicles. Furthermore, limited fieldbased mentoring has just begun although previous international police 

training programs have demonstrated that such mentoring is critical for 

success. Moreover, the Afghan Ministry of the Interior (which oversees the 

police force) requires reform and restructuring. Finally, neither State nor 

Germany has developed plans specifying how much the program will cost 

and when it will be completed. 

Without strong and self-sustaining Afghan army and police forces and 

concurrent progress in the other pillars of security sector reform, 

Afghanistan could again become a haven for terrorists. However, 

establishing viable Afghan army and police forces will almost certainly take 

years and substantial resources. Available information suggests that these 

programs could cost up to $7.2 billion to complete and about $600 million 

annually to sustain. Furthermore, the other lead nations have made limited 

progress in reforming Afghan’s judiciary, combating illicit narcotics, and 

demobilizing the militias. 

Five Pillars of Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan

Source: GAO analysis of Department of Defense data.

Five lead nations

Security Sector Reform

Army Combating 

drugs

Disarmament, 

demilitarization, 

reintegration

Police Justice

United States Germany Italy United Kingdom Japan

After more than two decades of 

war, Afghanistan had no army or 

functioning police and, before 

September 11, 2001, was a haven 

for international terrorists. In April 

2002, the United States and several 

other nations agreed to reform the 

five pillars of Afghanistan’s security 

sector–creating an Afghan army, 

reconstituting the police force, 

establishing a working judiciary, 

combating illicit narcotics, and 

demobilizing the Afghan militias. 

As the leader for the army pillar, 

the United States has provided 

about $3.3 billion. For the Germanled effort to reconstitute the 

Afghan police, the United States 

has provided over $800 million. We 

examined the progress made, and 

limitations faced, in developing the 

army and police forces. We also 

identified challenges that must be 

addressed to complete and sustain 

these forces. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that the 

Secretaries of Defense and State 

develop more detailed plans for 

completing and sustaining the 

Afghan army and police forces. 

GAO also recommends that the 

Secretaries work to help ensure 

that progress in the other security 

pillars is congruous with the army 

and police programs. Defense, 

Justice, and State generally 

concurred with the report’s 

recommendations. 
Page i GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 4

U.S. Training of Afghan Combat Troops Has Outpaced Efforts to 

Equip and Sustain Them 11

Difficult Conditions Have Hampered Reconstituting of Police and 

State Does Not Have an Overall Plan to Complete the Effort 19

Efforts to Complete and Sustain the Afghan Army and Police Face 

Major Challenges 27

Conclusions 33

Recommendations for Executive Action 33

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 34

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 36

Appendix II: Assistance Provided to Afghan Army and Police by Non-U.S. 

Donors 40

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Defense 43

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Justice 45

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of State 47

Tables Table 1: U.S. Support for the Afghan Army and Police, Fiscal Years 

2002-2006 9

Table 2: Number of Afghan Police Reported Trained as of January 

2005 and Training Targets for December 2005 20

Table 3: Estimated Value of Assistance Provided to Afghan Army 

and Police by Non-U.S. Donors 41

Figures Figure 1: Five Pillars of Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan 5

Figure 2: Afghan Army Commands and Police Training Centers 7

Figure 3: Kabul Military Training Center 12

Figure 4: Defective Boot Purchased Locally and an Afghan Soldier 

Wearing Sandals 16

Figure 5: Police Regional Training Center in Jalalabad–Dining 

Facility and Classroom Building 22

Figure 6: Jalalabad Police Station 24

Figure 7: Heavy Weapons Cantonment Site Outside Kabul 32
Contents

Page ii GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Abbreviations

State/INL Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement 

Affairs

OMC-A Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further 

permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or 

other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to 

reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

June 30, 2005 Letr

The Honorable Henry J. Hyde

Chairman

The Honorable Tom Lantos

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on International Relations

House of Representatives

After more than two decades of war left Afghanistan without an army or a 

functioning police force, the country became a haven for international 

terrorists, including the al Qaeda terrorist group that attacked two U.S. 

cities on September 11, 2001. Since ousting the Taliban regime from 

Afghanistan in 2001, the United States has spent almost $3 billion to help 

reconstruct this poor and ethnically divided country.1 However, pervasive 

internal security threats—including terrorists, ethnic and regional militias 

commanded by powerful warlords, and a large trade in illegal narcotics—

continue to undermine efforts to rebuild Afghanistan’s shattered economy, 

government, and infrastructure. The United States and allied nations 

maintain more than 28,000 combat and support troops in Afghanistan to 

counter these threats.2

To help Afghanistan provide for its own security, the United States and 

several other nations agreed at a conference in December 2002 to help 

create multiethnic, professionally trained Afghan national army and police 

forces.3

 Donor nations also agreed to help establish a working judicial 

sector, combat the narcotics trade, and demobilize Afghanistan’s militias. 

As leader of the effort to create the new army, the United States provided 

approximately $3.3 billion during fiscal years 2002 through 2005 toward the 

goal of eventually establishing a 70,000 man force that includes 43,000 

ground combat troops. The Department of Defense facilitates the training 

and equipping of the Afghan army through its Combined Forces 

1

For a detailed discussion of efforts to reconstruct postwar Afghanistan, see our report 

Afghanistan Reconstruction: Deteriorating Security and Limited Resources Have 

Impeded Progress; Improvements in U.S. Strategy Needed, GAO-04-403 (Washington, D.C.: 

June 2, 2004).

2

These forces include about 8,300 North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeepers. 

3

The conference’s final communiqué, also known as the “Bonn II” Agreement, supports 

efforts started under the Bonn Agreement of December 2001 to promote national 

reconciliation, lasting peace, stability, and respect for human rights in Afghanistan. 
Page 2 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Command’s Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan (OMC-A) in the 

capital city of Kabul. As the largest donor for the reconstitution of the 

national police, which is led by Germany, the United States provided about 

$804 million during fiscal years 2002 through 2005 for police training, 

equipment, and infrastructure. The Department of State oversees the U.S. 

police effort through its Bureau for International Narcotics and Law 

Enforcement Affairs (State/INL) in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Embassy 

in Kabul, with assistance from the Department of Justice. In its fiscal year 

2006 budget request, the executive branch has requested nearly $60 million 

for the Afghan police but, according to Defense officials, no additional 

funds for the Afghan army.

To review the status of U.S. efforts to strengthen Afghanistan’s security, we 

(1) examined the progress made, and limitations faced, by the United 

States and other donor nations in building Afghanistan’s national army; (2) 

examined the progress made, and limitations faced, by the United States 

and other donor nations in reconstituting Afghanistan’s national police 

forces; and (3) identified challenges that the United States, other donor 

nations, and Afghanistan must address to complete and sustain the Afghan 

army and police forces. To address these objectives, we reviewed pertinent 

Defense and State planning, funding, and evaluation documents for the 

Afghan army and police programs. We discussed these programs with 

cognizant officials from the Departments of Defense, Justice, and State in 

Washington, D.C., and Kabul, Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, we traveled to 

Herat and Jalalabad to view Afghan army facilities and a police training 

site, respectively, and to meet with cognizant U.S. and Afghan officials. We 

also met with government officials from Germany and other key donor 

nations. We determined that the data provided to us were sufficiently 

reliable for the purposes of this report. (See app. I for a more complete 

description of our scope and methodology.)

We conducted our review from January 2004 through May 2005 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Results in Brief The United States has made important progress in training and deploying 

Afghan army combat troops but has not fully addressed limitations that 

impede its progress in establishing a self-sustaining Afghan army. Defense 

has established programs for recruiting and training battalions of ethnically 

mixed combat troops, including a field-based mentoring program. In 2004, 

as security concerns persisted, Defense significantly accelerated Afghan 

combat troop training, and as of March 2005 more than 42 percent of the 
Page 3 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

army’s total projected combat strength of 43,000 troops was deployed in 

strategic locations throughout the country. However, OMC-A’s efforts to 

fully equip the increasing number of combat troops being trained have 

fallen behind. In addition, OMC-A’s efforts to establish institutions needed 

to support these troops have not kept pace with the accelerated training 

program. Plans for the completion of these institutions are not clear. 

Nonetheless, U.S. trainers and other military officials have stated that 

Afghan combat troops generally perform well in small units, despite some 

shortcomings. 

Germany and the United States have made progress in training individual 

Afghan policemen and policewomen but have not addressed many 

limitations impeding the reconstitution of a national police force. As of 

January 2005, the Department of State and Germany have trained more 

than 35,000 police and expect to meet their goal of training 50,000 national 

and highway police and 12,000 border police by December 2005. However, 

trainees face difficult working conditions. They return to district police 

stations that need extensive reconstruction or renovation; militia leaders 

are often the principal authority; and they lack weapons, vehicles, 

communications, and other equipment. In addition, the police training 

includes limited field-based training and mentoring, although previous 

international peacekeeping efforts showed that such mentoring is critical 

to the success of police training programs. Furthermore, the Afghan 

Ministry of the Interior (which oversees the police force) faces several 

problems, including corruption and an outdated rank structure, that require 

reform and restructuring. Finally, neither State nor Germany have 

developed an overall plan specifying how or when construction tasks and 

equipment purchases will be completed, how much the buildup of the 

police will cost, and when the overall effort to reconstitute the police will 

be finished.

The United States, other donors, and the new Afghan government face 

significant challenges to establishing viable Afghan army and police forces. 

Although Defense and State have not yet prepared official cost estimates, 

the army and police programs could cost up to $7.2 billion to complete and 

about $600 million annually to sustain. Moreover, slow progress in 

resolving other Afghan security problems—the lack of an effective 

judiciary, the substantial illicit narcotics industry, and the continued 

presence of armed militias—threaten to undermine overall progress made 

toward providing nationwide security and ensuring the stability of the 

Afghan government. 
Page 4 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

We are recommending that the Secretaries of Defense and State develop 

detailed plans for completing and sustaining the Afghan army and police 

forces, including clearly defined objectives and performance measures; 

milestones; funding requirements; and a strategy for sustaining the results 

achieved. In addition, we are recommending that the Secretaries work with 

the other lead nations to help ensure that progress in the other pillars of 

Afghan’s security reform is congruous with the progress made in the army 

and police programs. In both cases, we recommend that the Secretaries 

report their progress to the Congress. In commenting on a draft of this 

report, the Departments of Defense and State generally concurred with our 

recommendations, but both stated that appropriate reporting mechanisms 

are already in place. The Department of Justice strongly concurred in 

regards to the Afghan police training program and noted that its expertise 

could be more effectively utilized. 

Background Afghanistan, a mountainous and land-locked country in central Asia, is one 

of the poorest countries in the world. More than 60 percent of its 

population is illiterate. Afghanistan lacks effective nationwide 

communications, banking, and transportation systems. Its estimated per 

capita gross domestic product for 2003 was about $700. The International 

Monetary Fund estimates that Afghan government revenues will average 

$387 million per year during 2005 through 2008—less than half of its 

projected average annual expenditures for government salaries and 

operations of $879 million. Afghanistan remains dependent on other 

nations for support; international assistance provided 93 percent of 

Afghanistan’s $4.75 billion budget for 2005. 

Afghanistan’s economic plight is partially the result of its long history of 

war and civil strife. Afghanistan’s ethnically mixed population is due to its 

location on historical invasion and trade routes. The Soviet Union invaded 

Afghanistan in 1979 and withdrew only after waging a prolonged and 

destructive war against Afghan resistance groups. Following a protracted 

civil war, most of Afghanistan fell under the control of the fundamentalist 

Taliban group by 1998. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan became a haven for 

terrorists, and, as a result, the United States and a coalition of its allies 

invaded Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. 

Afghanistan’s security institutions, including its national army, police, and 

judiciary, collapsed or were severely damaged prior to the U.S. occupation. 

During the Taliban rule the army disintegrated and was superseded by 

various ethnic and regional militias. The Afghan national police force, 
Page 5 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

which was organized as a two-track system of career officers and largely 

untrained conscripts who served for 2 years, had also declined over the 

past 25 years.

Afghanistan continues to face significant internal threats. Widespread trade 

in opium and heroin provides drug producers and traffickers with the 

resources and motivation to resist efforts to curb the illicit narcotics 

industry. Taliban fighters and terrorist groups remain active in parts of the 

country, and attacks on civilian reconstruction workers have prompted 

some international assistance groups to leave the country. Regional 

warlords maintain thousands of militia fighters who could be used to 

challenge the authority of Afghanistan’s new central government. 

To help Afghanistan address such threats, the United States and several 

other donor nations met in Geneva, Switzerland, in April 2002. At the 

conference, the donors established a five-pillared security reform agenda 

and designated a donor country to take the lead in reforming each pillar. 

The United States volunteered to lead the army reform effort, and Germany 

volunteered to lead the police reform effort (see fig. 1). 

Figure 1: Five Pillars of Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan

Source: GAO analysis of Department of Defense data.

Five lead nations

Security Sector Reform

Army Combating 

drugs

Disarmament, 

demilitarization, 

reintegration

Police Justice

United States Germany Italy United Kingdom Japan
Page 6 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Army At a December 2002 conference (Bonn II) near Bonn, Germany, the Afghan 

government and the donor nations agreed that the new Afghan army should 

be ethnically balanced, voluntary, and consist of no more than 70,000 

individuals (including all civilian and Ministry of Defense personnel). They 

also agreed that the army’s commands should be located in Kabul and other 

geographically strategic locations. The Afghan government and the donors 

did not set a deadline for the completion of the army. 

Following the Bonn II conference, U.S. Defense planners, in conjunction 

with Afghan officials, developed a force structure for the army that 

includes (1) 43,000 ground combat troops based in Kabul and four other 

cities, (2) 21,000 support staff organized in four sustaining commands 

(recruiting, education and training, acquisition and logistics, and 

communications and intelligence), (3) 3,000 Ministry of Defense and 

general staff personnel, and (4) 3,000 air staff to provide secure 

transportation for the President of Afghanistan.4

 According to Defense, the 

mission of the new army will include providing security for Afghanistan’s 

new central government and political process, replacing all other military 

forces in Afghanistan, and combating terrorists and other destructive 

elements in cooperation with coalition and peacekeeping forces. As of May 

2005, Defense’s target date for completing the army is the fall of 2009. 

U.S. efforts to establish the army are led by Defense, with support from 

State. The Defense-staffed Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan 

(OMC-A) in Kabul oversees the development of the Afghan army’s force 

structure, decision processes, and garrisons, and provides equipment. 

OMC-A works closely with Task Force Phoenix, which is a joint coalition 

task force charged with training Afghan army battalions at the Kabul 

Military Training Center and elsewhere in the country. The U.S. Joint Chiefs 

of Staff and U.S. Central Command provide planning and other support, 

and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is constructing facilities for the 

Afghan army’s central and regional commands (see fig. 2). In Washington, 

D.C., the Defense Security Cooperation Agency uses Defense and State 

funds to provide financial and administrative support for OMC-A. The 

agency purchases services and equipment requested by OMC-A through the 

U.S. Army Security Assistance Command and transfers funds to OMC-A to 

allow it to procure services and equipment from local vendors. 

4

As currently planned, the air wing would not be able to transport large numbers of Afghan 

troops from one part of the country to another.
Page 7 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Figure 2: Afghan Army Commands and Police Training Centers 

Mazar-I 

Sharif

Kabul

Gardez

Jalalabad

Kandahar

Army Central Corps

Army regional commands Police regional training centers

Kabul Military Training Center Police Central Training Center

Kabul Police Academy

Herat

Bamiyan

Konduz

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

RKMENISTAN

UZBEKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN CHINA

IRAN

INDIA

Sources: GAO analysis of Departments of Defense and State data; photos (GAO); Map Resources (map).

Trainees at Police Central Training Center

Afghan army soldiers in Herat
Page 8 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Police Afghanistan’s police reform process began formally in February 2002, when 

Germany, as the leader for this sector, convened a conference in Berlin to 

discuss international support for the Afghan police. Subsequently, donor 

nations agreed to establish a multiethnic, sustainable, and countrywide 

62,000-member professional police service that is fully committed to the 

rule of law. The overall goal of the program is to enhance security in the 

provinces and districts outside of Kabul. They did not set a deadline for 

completing the police.

U.S. support for the police sector is overseen by State/INL in Washington, 

D.C., and by staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. State has a contract with 

DynCorp Aerospace Technology to train and equip the police, advise the 

Ministry of Interior, and provide infrastructure assistance, including 

constructing several police training centers (see fig. 2). Defense has also 

provided infrastructure and equipment to police in border regions. In 

addition, Germany has a training program for police officers at the Kabul 

Police Academy and has convened several donors’ conferences. Germany 

also tracks pledges and projects implemented by various donors. 

Furthermore, various donors established the United Nations’ Law and 

Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan to help ensure that the police are paid 

regularly and are issued adequate equipment.

U.S. Support The United States has provided approximately $4.1 billion during fiscal 

years 2002 through 2005 to support the Afghan army and police force.5

 In 

the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2006, the administration has 

requested an additional $58.5 million for the Afghan police program but, 

according to Defense officials, no additional funds for the Afghan army. 

(See table 1.) 

5

About $1.4 billion of this amount was provided during fiscal years 2002 through 2004, of 

which more than $980 million had been obligated and more than $511 million had been 

expended as of January 2005. Over $1.8 billion of this amount is part of the fiscal year 2005 

emergency supplemental which was enacted into law on May 11, 2005. 
Page 9 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Table 1: U.S. Support for the Afghan Army and Police, Fiscal Years 2002-2006

Source: Departments of Defense and State.

a

Most of State’s funds for the Afghan army come from its Foreign Military Financing program. Foreign 

Military Financing funds are administered by Defense through its Defense Security Cooperation 

Agency, which provides funds, equipment, and services for the army through OMC-A. State also 

supports the Afghan army through its Peace Keeping Operations program (from which the salaries for 

Afghan troops are financed) and International Military Education and Training program. 

b

Defense funds for the Afghan army are drawn from three principal sources:

The Afghan Freedom Support Act (P.L. 107-327), as amended, states that the President may exercise 

his drawdown authorities (as authorized under section 506 (A) (2) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 

1961) by supplying Afghanistan with defense services, articles, and education “acquired by contract or 

otherwise.” Under this provision, OMC-A has been given authority to spend U.S. Army operations and 

maintenance funds to train and equip the Afghan army. During fiscal years 2002 through 2004, 

approximately $287 million was drawn down via such contracts by Defense. In addition, under section 

506 (A) (2) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, approximately $11 million in military 

trucks and armored personnel vehicles were drawn down from Defense for the Afghan army. For more 

details on such drawdowns, see Foreign Assistance: Reporting of Defense Articles and Services 

Provided through Drawdowns Needs to Be Improved, GAO-02-1027 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 20, 

2002).

The Emergency Supplemental Appropriation Act for Defense and for the Reconstruction Iraq and 

Afghanistan, 2004, (P.L. 108-106), and the Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2005 (P.L. 108-

287) authorize Defense to use U.S. Army operations and maintenance funds for several purposes, 

including training and equipping the new Afghan armed forces. Defense has provided a total of $440 

million in such funds for the Afghan army. 

The Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami 

Relief, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes (P.L. 109-13) authorizes 

Defense to provide up to $1.285 billion in assistance to the Afghan army. Of this amount, $290 million 

will be used to reimburse the U.S. Army for costs incurred to train, equip, and provide related 

assistance to the Afghan army.

c

State has supported the Afghan police through programs managed by its Bureau for International 

Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Affairs. Of the $160 million that State provided in 2004, 

$50 million was drawn from fiscal year 2003 Emergency Response Funds.

d

Defense has supported the Afghan police with counternarcotics funding provided through its Office for 

Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, as authorized by the Emergency Supplemental 

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2002 2003 2004

2005

(estimated)

2005

Supplemental

(estimated)

2006

(proposed) Total

Afghan army

Statea $74.9 $191.4 $434.4 $421.4 $0 $0 $1,122.1

Defenseb 4.3 156.2 285.0 429.3 1,285.0 0 2,159.8

Subtotal 79.2 347.6 719.4 850.7 1,285.0 0 3,281.9

Afghan police

Statec 26.6 0 160.0 65.0 360.0 58.5 670.1

Defensed 0 0 47.0 7.8 137.3 0 192.1

Subtotal 26.6 0.0 207.0 72.8 497.3 58.5 862.2

Total $105.8 $347.6 $926.4 $923.5 $1,782.3 $58.5 $4,144.1
Page 10 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Appropriation Act for Defense and for the Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004, (P.L. 108-

106). Defense also drew on approximately $17 million in Commanders Emergency Response Program 

funds to support police projects. 

Other Donor Support More than 40 nations and international organizations have also provided 

funds, equipment, and training to support the Afghan army and police. As 

of March 2005, other donors had provided about $193 million to 

supplement U.S. efforts to create the Afghan army and about $246 million 

for reconstituting the Afghan police. (See app. II for more information on 

other donors’ support for the army and police.) 

Allied and multilateral 

forces

Pending the creation of functioning Afghan army and police forces, more 

than 28,000 foreign troops operate in Afghanistan. These include about 

18,000 U.S. troops, an estimated 1,900 troops from other members of the 

coalition, and over 8,300 peacekeepers from the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO). In August 2003, NATO assumed control over the 

International Security Assistance Force in response to a United Nations’ 

mandate to provide security in the Kabul area and to support the 

reconstruction of Afghanistan. In addition, NATO’s members agreed to 

begin establishing provincial reconstruction teams in northern and western 

Afghanistan. Although NATO has had difficulty persuading nations to 

provide the resources needed for these teams, it has established seven 

provincial reconstruction teams. After taking control of a team sponsored 

by Germany in Kabul, NATO announced in June 2004 that it would also 

assume control of four additional teams in northern Afghanistan. These 

teams are sponsored by the United Kingdom, Germany, and the 

Netherlands. British and German officials informed us that their teams 

focus primarily on reconstruction and have limited roles in providing direct 

security for local Afghans and in working with the Afghan army and police. 

On May 31, 2005, NATO took control of two additional provincial 

reconstruction teams in western Afghanistan. They are sponsored by Italy 

and the United States.
Page 11 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

U.S. Training of Afghan 

Combat Troops Has 

Outpaced Efforts to 

Equip and Sustain 

Them 

Defense, with the government of Afghanistan, has established programs for 

recruiting and training battalions of Afghan combat troops. OMC-A 

significantly accelerated Afghan combat troop training in 2004, and over 42 

percent of the army’s total projected combat strength of 43,000 soldiers 

was deployed throughout the country. However, OMC-A’s efforts to fully 

equip the increasing number of combat troops have fallen behind. In 

addition, OMC-A’s efforts to establish the institutions needed to support 

these troops have not kept pace, and plans for their completion are not 

clear. Despite some shortcomings, OMC-A personnel and the embedded 

trainers we met with told us that Afghan combat troops have generally 

performed well under U.S. supervision. 

The United States Has 

Established Recruiting 

Effort 

Defense, in conjunction with the government of Afghanistan, is establishing 

recruiting stations in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. To help ensure 

that the army is ethnically balanced, Defense attempts to form new 

battalions6

 for training with volunteers drawn from Afghanistan’s major 

ethnic groups.7

 Information provided by OMC-A indicates that the army as 

a whole generally reflects the country’s balance of major ethnic groups.8

While many of those initially recruited left the army before competing their 

terms, by late 2004 the army’s attrition rate had dropped to 1.1 percent per 

month.9

 While attrition appears to have abated, U.S. and Afghan officials 

told us that soldiers often leave their units without permission for as long 

as 2 weeks to take their pay home to their families. The officials attributed 

these unauthorized absences to the lack of an Afghan national banking 

6

An Afghan battalion consists of about 610 men.

7

According to Defense officials, volunteers are vetted through community elders and State. 

Ex-militia fighters may enlist on an individual basis, but United Nations reports indicate that 

less than 2 percent had done so as of February 2005.

8

According to the U.S. government, as of January 2004, the ethnic composition of the Afghan 

population was 42 percent Pashtun, 27 percent Tajik, 9 percent Hazara, 9 percent Uzbek, 

and 13 percent “other.” According to OMC-A, as of February 15, 2005, the ethnic 

composition of the Afghan army was 49 percent Pashtun, 21 percent Tajik, 6 percent Hazara, 

3 percent Uzbek, and 22 percent “other” (the total of the individual percentages is greater 

than 100 percent due to rounding). Individual units vary in their ethnic balance. According 

to OMC-A, at least two battalions have no or very few Uzbek troops. 

9

Defense fielding plans for the army assume an attrition rate of 2 percent per month. 

Soldiers absent for more than 60 days are dropped from the army’s rolls.
Page 12 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

system and the absence of significant penalties for such absences from the 

volunteer Afghan army. 

Army Troops Receive Basic 

and Field Training

OMC-A and Task Force Phoenix have established programs for training 

Afghan army troops in battalions at locations including the Kabul Military 

Training Center (see fig. 3) and in the field. Battalions now receive 

14 weeks of training at the center and elsewhere, including training for 

officers and noncommissioned officers. According to Joint Chiefs of Staff 

planners, this training includes 6 weeks of basic training, 6 weeks of 

advanced individual training, and 2 weeks of collective training. The 

program also includes training on human rights and the laws of war, as well 

as specialized training for some troops in tank maintenance, logistics, and 

medical skills. OMC-A and Task Force Phoenix officials informed us that 

the Afghan army now conducts basic training classes. U.S. officials also 

stated that France and the United Kingdom have helped train Afghan army 

personnel. 

Figure 3: Kabul Military Training Center 

Source: GAO.
Page 13 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Training at the Center is followed by training in the field. OMC-A embeds a 

team of U.S. trainers and mentors in each battalion to help achieve full 

operational capability. The embedded team accompanies the battalion into 

the field and provides leadership, tactical training, and logistical support. 

As originally envisioned, embedded trainer teams were to include 16 U.S. 

officers and noncommissioned officers and remain with battalions for 2 

years. 

Defense Accelerated 

Training 

At OMC-A’s recommendation, Defense accelerated its training of Afghan 

combat troops throughout 2004 by more than doubling the number of 

battalions in basic training at a given time. As a result, OMC-A had deployed 

more than 42 percent of the army’s total projected combat strength at 

commands throughout the country as of March 2005. OMC-A projects that 

it will complete basic training for all 43,000 combat troops by the fall of 

2007. 

Defense time frames for building the Afghan army were in flux throughout 

2004. As security concerns persisted, OMC-A accelerated the training and 

fielding of combat troops.10 In January 2004, OMC-A increased the number 

of battalions in training at one time from two to three; in May 2004, it began 

training four battalions; and, as of the end of January 2005, it was training 

five. These concerns also prompted Defense and the Afghan government to 

change their plans for establishing the army’s four regional commands. At 

the beginning of 2004, they had planned to establish the four regional 

commands in sequence, with the fourth command to be established in 2006. 

By May 2004, Defense and the Afghan government had decided to establish 

all four regional commands by the end of September 2004, with as few as 

150 troops stationed at each one.

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff planning staff, as of March 2005, more 

than 18,300 troops—over 42 percent of the army’s total projected combat 

strength of 43,000 men—had completed basic training. Having fully staffed 

the Kabul central command with about 10,500 troops, OMC-A assigned the 

remaining 7,800 troops to the four regional commands.11 It plans to field 

10The security concerns included factional unrest in Herat in March and August 2004, as well 

as violence preceding Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic presidential election in October 

2004. 

11The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is constructing facilities at these locations. As of 

January 2005, funding provided to the Corps for this effort totaled $740 million.
Page 14 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

combat troops to the regional commands as quickly as possible to provide 

more security for Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections (currently planned 

for September 2005). Accordingly, it increased the number of combat 

troops assigned to regional commands by more than 18 percent between 

February and March 2005. 

In early 2005, OMC-A projected that it would complete basic training for 

the remaining 24,700 combat troops by the fall of 2007 if it continued to 

train five battalions at once. However, in May 2005, OMC-A proposed 

increasing the number of combat troops in the planned force structure 

from 43,000 to 46,000 and projected that it could train the additional 3,000 

combat troops by the fall of 2007. Although OMC-A is seeking permission to 

begin training six battalions at once, it has not been able to fully equip the 

units already trained and faces a shortage of embedded trainers. 

Afghan Army Is 

Experiencing Equipment 

Shortages 

According to U.S. Defense and Afghan army personnel, Afghan army units 

are experiencing equipment shortages. U.S. embedded trainers and other 

defense personnel informed us that Afghan soldiers have had to cope with 

shortages of useable uniforms, boots, communications gear, infantry 

weapons, ammunition, and vehicles.12 Embedded trainers provided us with 

examples of poorly made uniforms and boots and told us that Afghan army 

units must use old and often faulty small arms and ammunition. OMC-A 

logistics personnel confirmed that Afghan battalions do not have needed 

vehicles. Embedded trainers told us that the equipment shortages have 

negatively affected the army’s effectiveness and discipline. 

OMC-A is responsible for managing efforts to supply the army’s rapidly 

growing combat element needed equipment, but it has had difficulty 

establishing requirements and complying with security assistance 

procedures to fulfill those requirements. Defense Security Cooperation 

Agency and U.S. Army Security Assistance Command personnel informed 

us that in many cases OMC-A had not provided them with adequately 

prepared requests and forecasts of future requirements in a timely manner. 

For example, Defense Security Cooperation Agency staff noted that OMC-A 

12One embedded trainer informed us that he has had to rely on a cell phone that he 

purchased at a U.S. retail outlet to communicate with his unit during operations. 
Page 15 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

required almost a year to establish specific requirements for a standard 

light tactical vehicle to transport Afghan troops.13 

OMC-A and other Defense personnel told us that several factors complicate 

OMC-A’s efforts to project the army’s requirements and to use the defense 

security assistance process. These include the numerous changes that 

OMC-A made in its plans to build the army, including accelerating the 

number of battalions in training and establishing the regional commands 

simultaneously in 2004. OMC-A officials also noted that the involvement of 

nascent Afghan army units in combat and the lack of historical data on 

material usage rates further complicated their efforts to project 

requirements. In addition, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, U.S. Army 

Security Assistance Command, and State officials in Washington, D.C., and 

OMC-A officials told us that OMC-A has not had adequate numbers of 

personnel trained in security assistance procedures to support its efforts. 

OMC-A officials stated that OMC-A has never been staffed at more than 

about 71 percent of its approved personnel level.14 They also noted that 

Defense efforts to train OMC-A personnel in defense security assistance 

procedures and preserve the institutional knowledge of lessons learned 

from former personnel are constrained by the rotation of Air Force, Navy, 

and Marine personnel from OMC-A after as few as 4 months.15

To address some shortages of needed equipment, OMC-A bought items 

directly from non-U.S. vendors.16 However, it sometimes purchased faulty 

items because it did not take adequate steps to ensure their quality. For 

example, OMC-A purchased combat boots from regional vendors to 

support the new higher basic training rate of five battalions. OMC-A 

13The light tactical vehicle is essentially a modified pickup truck that would replace four 

different types of vehicles now used by the army. These vehicles were donated by the United 

Arab Emirates, Germany, and Greece. OMC-A officials told us that these donations helped 

fill the Afghan army’s early requirement for transportation but are now complicating the 

army’s logistics situation.

14At the time of our work in Afghanistan, Defense had allocated OMC-A 211 military 

positions and 95 contractor and civilian positions. 

15According to OMC-A, Air Force personnel were assigned to Afghanistan for 4 months, 

Navy and Marine Corps personnel for 6 months, and Army personnel for 12 months. Defense 

officials in the United States informed us that Air Force personnel may now be assigned to 

fill certain critical positions for as long as 12 months.

16OMC-A requested and received offshore procurement waivers between fiscal years 2002 

and 2005 to spend up to $596 million to procure non-U.S. items overseas.
Page 16 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

officials told us that many boots proved to be defective because OMC-A 

had given vendors too much latitude in filling their contracts. U.S. trainers 

told us that Afghan troops sometimes wore sandals during operations in 

mountainous, difficult terrain because their boots had failed (see fig. 4). 

OMC-A personnel informed us that they now use a broader array of local 

vendors, set more stringent specifications, and employ Afghan civilians to 

inspect the quality of locally procured goods. 

Figure 4: Defective Boot Purchased Locally and an Afghan Soldier Wearing Sandals

Defense has also experienced difficulties in obtaining adequate supplies of 

serviceable Soviet-era equipment. Early in the Afghan army program, 

Defense decided to equip the army with donated and salvaged Soviet 

weapons and armored vehicles. It did so because (1) such equipment was 

widely used by the former Afghan army and by Afghan militias and (2) 

several coalition nations once allied with the former Soviet Union were 

willing to provide equipment from their arsenals. However, much of the 

donated and salvaged equipment proved to be worn out, defective, or 

incompatible with other equipment. For example, Defense officials 

abandoned plans to use Soviet armored personnel carriers after they 

determined that the vehicles had been manufactured to differing standards 

depending on the country of origin. Defense and State officials also 

informed us that the demobilization of Afghan militias had yielded fewer 

serviceable Soviet AK-47 assault rifles and ammunition caches than 
Page 17 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

anticipated. In response, OMC-A has cannibalized serviceable parts from 

the assault rifles obtained to make usable weapons and has purchased 

more weapons than originally planned. Defense and State officials 

informed us that they are stepping up efforts to obtain donations of 

serviceable arms. 

Number of Embedded 

Trainers Does Not Meet 

Needs

OMC-A’s acceleration of the number of battalions in basic training has 

strained its embedded trainer team program. By increasing the number of 

battalions in training from four to five, OMC-A’s requirement for embedded 

trainers increased from about 410 to nearly 700. Because it was unable to 

obtain the additional trainers from the military services in a timely manner, 

Task Force Phoenix reassigned officers from other duties in Afghanistan. It 

also temporarily reduced the number of embedded trainers assigned to a 

battalion from 16 to 12. 

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff‘s Afghanistan desk, another 192 

trainers will be needed if OMC-A increases the number of battalions in 

basic training to six. Because individuals with the skills needed to serve as 

trainers are in demand in other theaters, increasing the training rate to six 

battalions could require Defense to reassign U.S. personnel in Afghanistan 

to serve as embedded trainers.17

OMC-A’s need for more embedded trainers could further increase if it 

determines that individual battalions are not yet ready to operate without 

trainers. While some battalions have already operated with embedded 

trainers for longer than the initially planned 2-year period, OMC-A has not 

yet fully implemented recently developed criteria for assessing a battalion’s 

readiness to operate without trainers. As of May 2005, none of the Afghan 

battalions had graduated from the embedded trainer program. 

Sustaining Institutions Are 

Lagging and Plans for Their 

Completion Are Not Clear

OMC-A’s efforts to establish sustaining institutions (such as an acquisition 

and logistics command) needed to support the combat troops have not 

kept pace with the accelerated basic training program. The Afghan army 

currently consists almost entirely of infantry forces that cannot sustain 

themselves. At the beginning of 2005, Defense planners envisioned that the 

17Defense officials informed us that NATO members may contribute embedded trainers in 

the future.
Page 18 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

army would need 21,000 support personnel in four sustaining commands to 

provide essential services to the army’s combat elements. However, as of 

March 2005, it had assigned only 1,300 personnel to the sustaining 

commands. In an apparent attempt to address this shortfall, OMC-A 

proposed, in May 2005, that the number of personnel assigned to these 

commands be reduced from 21,000 to 14,000 and that the time frames for 

completing these commands be extended from the end of 2008 to the fall of 

2009. 

Without fully functioning sustaining commands, the Afghan army will 

continue to rely on OMC-A, embedded trainers, and other U.S. military 

forces for acquisition, logistics, communications, and other key support 

functions. OMC-A informed us that it would continue to sustain the Afghan 

army on an interim basis to ensure the rapid introduction of Afghan army 

combat units. According to Defense officials, they plan to use $210 million 

from the 2005 emergency supplemental to help ensure that the sustaining 

commands can keep pace with the fielding of combat units. 

To ensure that the Afghan army’s combat elements are fully trained and 

supplied and can readily communicate with one another, OMC-A would 

have to recruit, train, and organize at least 12,000 individuals for the 

sustaining commands. To ease the difficulty of doing so in a largely 

illiterate country that has had little exposure to U.S. logistical practices, 

OMC-A may recruit former militia fighters with logistics experience. 

However, Defense plans for ensuring that these sustaining commands are 

fully functional by the fall of 2009 are not clear. Defense has not yet 

adopted plans that would guide OMC-A’s efforts to complete these 

commands nor have Defense planners in the United States and OMC-A 

reached agreement on an overall concept of operations for the Afghan 

army. 

Afghan Troops Said to 

Perform Well Despite 

Shortcomings

Defense officials in Afghanistan, including representatives of the U.S. 

combat operations command, told us that U.S.-trained Afghan troops had 

accompanied U.S. forces in operations against terrorist groups, helped 

restore stability in Herat in response to riots and clashes between militias, 

assisted in providing security for Afghanistan’s first democratic 

presidential election, and protected army infrastructure construction sites 

around Afghanistan. U.S. embedded trainers we met with near Kabul and in 

Herat, as well as U.S. combat officers, praised the quality, morale, and 

motivation of the Afghan troops in conducting these operations. For 

example, they noted the speed with which Afghan units were able to 
Page 19 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

mobilize for transportation to Herat and their ability to quell civilian 

rioters.18 The commander of OMC-A told us that coalition forces have 

sought out opportunities to work with Afghan troops. According to U.S. 

embedded trainers and OMC-A officials, the multiethnic Afghan army units 

typically have developed good relations with Afghan citizens in different 

parts of the country. None reported significant evidence of ethnic discord 

within the army. However, U.S. Defense personnel informed us that Afghan 

troops and officers have not yet gained significant experience in battalionlevel operations. They also noted the army’s command processes are 

limited by the high rate of illiteracy among the troops. 

Difficult Conditions 

Have Hampered 

Reconstituting of 

Police and State Does 

Not Have an Overall 

Plan to Complete the 

Effort

Germany—the lead nation for rebuilding the Afghan police—and the 

United States have trained thousands of Afghanistan police officers and 

patrolmen and expect to meet training targets for end of 2005. However, 

many trainees return to difficult working conditions, including police 

stations where resources are inadequate and militia leaders are still the 

principal authority, and they receive limited opportunities for follow-up 

training or mentoring. Furthermore, Afghan’s Ministry of the Interior, 

which oversees the Afghan police, faces pervasive problems that require 

reform or restructuring. Finally, neither State nor Germany has an overall 

plan delineating what is needed to complete the rebuilding of the police 

sector. 

Donors Expect to Meet 

Police Training Targets 

As of January 2005, Germany and the United States had trained more than 

35,000 national, highway, and border police, and they expect to meet the 

overall goal of training 62,00019 by December 2005 (see table 2). The United 

States initiated its police training program in Afghanistan in 2003 because 

of concerns that the German training program was moving too slowly and 

was concentrating on officers. Initially, the U.S. program focused on 

training police patrolmen (and some women) to establish a national police 

presence for the Afghan presidential elections.20 The U.S. program has 

18In 2004, Afghan troops were flown to Herat on U.S. military and allied aircraft. 

19The target numbers were derived by considering the security needs and population density 

of geographic areas, as well as the expected organizational structure of the police.

20More than 20,000 police were trained before the Afghan presidential elections in October 

2004. 
Page 20 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

emphasized meeting specific training targets set by the Afghan government 

in consultation with U.S. and German governments.21

Table 2: Number of Afghan Police Reported Trained as of January 2005 and Training 

Targets for December 2005

Source: State/INL data (includes German officer training data).

a

National police fill the traditional role of community law enforcement. Highway police focus on road 

security outside of Kabul. Border police are responsible for border protection and control.

b

State/INL could not readily identify the numbers of officers versus patrolmen and women by police 

role.

The United States employs a “train the trainer” approach. More than 800 

Afghans who have completed a 3-week instructor development course 

conduct the training with DynCorp advisors. The basic training consists of 

an 8-week course for new recruits and a 2-week program for veteran police. 

Highway and border police receive 2 weeks of additional specialized 

training. U.S. trainers have also developed a shortened training program to 

accommodate illiterate recruits. According to State/INL and DynCorp 

officials, the Afghan police trainees are generally eager to learn and they 

support the idea of a national police force dedicated to the rule of law. In 

addition, according to these officials, attrition rates have been low. 

Germany’s chief role in rebuilding the police has been to refurbish the 

Kabul Police Academy near Kabul and establish a permanent training 

program there for commissioned and noncommissioned Afghan police 

officers.22 The program, which began in August 2002, provides 3 years of 

21The United States assumed responsibility for the border police when Norway and 

Germany did not follow through on commitments to provide the training. Norway provided 

some funding for the renovation of the border police academy.

Afghan police rolea 

Police reported

trained as of January

2005b

Training target for

December 2005

National police 33,903 47,400

Highway police 220 2,600

Border police 1,151 12,000

Total 35,274 62,000

22Commissioned and noncommissioned officers constitute the police’s upper and 

intermediate ranks, respectively, while patrolmen are lower level.
Page 21 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

training for officers and 1 year of training for noncommissioned officers. 

According to a German Ministry of Interior official, as of January 2005, 41 

officers and 2,583 noncommissioned officers had completed the full 

German program, and an additional 4,880 commissioned and 

noncommissioned officers had received short-term specialized training. 

According to this same official, Germany plans to train an additional 4,950 

commissioned and noncommissioned officers at the Academy and the 

regional training centers by December 2005.

Although the Bonn II agreement calls for a multiethnic police force, the 

Afghan government, Germany, and the United States do not track the 

ethnicity of police trainees. German and State officials reported that they 

had received no complaints about the ethnic composition of police units or 

deployments or their interaction with minority populations. However, 

neither had systematically surveyed the impact of ethnicity on police 

performance, relying instead on anecdotal accounts.

DynCorp completed construction of the Central Training Center for Police 

in Kabul in May 2003, and in 2004 it constructed and began training at seven 

regional centers across the country. (Fig. 5 shows the police training center 

in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.) The Department of Justice’s International 

Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program developed the 

curriculums, which include such topics as crime investigation, operational 

police skills, and human rights. 
Page 22 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Figure 5: Police Regional Training Center in Jalalabad–Dining Facility and 

Classroom Building

Police Face Difficult 

Working Conditions 

A number of difficult conditions hamper the effort to rebuild the police in 

Afghanistan. Newly trained police often return to community police 

stations staffed by poorly trained, illiterate conscripts or former militia 

members who have little loyalty to the central government. According to 

State/INL and Defense officials, many of the untrained officers remain loyal 

to local militias in an environment dominated by ethnic loyalties. Working 

with untrained colleagues, newly trained policemen often find it difficult to 

apply the principles they learned during training. For example, according to 

several DynCorp trainers, some recently trained police were forced to give 

their new equipment to more senior police and were pressured by their 

commanders to participate in extorting money from truck drivers and 

travelers. U.S. and other donor officials told us that many police resort to 

corrupt practices, in part because their salaries are low and inconsistently 

paid. The Afghan Ministry of the Interior has limited awareness over police 

operations outside of Kabul and has not systematically vetted existing 

police staff for human rights violations or corruption, which complicates 

the ministry’s efforts to support and oversee the police. 

Source: GAO.
Page 23 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

In addition, police across Afghanistan confront shortages of equipment. 

According to a 2002 German government assessment, less than 10 percent 

of the police had adequate equipment, and U.S. and other donor 

government officials noted that the police are often outgunned by militias, 

criminals, and drug traffickers because they lack adequate numbers of 

weapons or ammunition supplies. According to DynCorp, the Ministry of 

the Interior has approximately 36,500 serviceable rifles and pistols on hand, 

mainly seized weapons. DynCorp officials estimate that the police need an 

additional 48,500 side arms, 10,000 automatic rifles, and 6,250 machine 

guns. Through March 2005, trainees were not receiving firearms training, 

because the United States and the other donors had not yet provided 

weapons and ammunition. Further, DynCorp officials estimated that the 

Afghan national police have approximately 3,000 serviceable vehicles and 

require an additional 7,400 vehicles. Most police do not perform routine 

patrols because they lack adequate numbers of vehicles and the fuel to 

operate them. State/INL officials reported that police often rely on civilian 

complainants for transportation during law enforcement investigations. 

Moreover, poor infrastructure conditions hamper police work. According 

to the 2002 German government assessment, approximately 80 percent of 

police infrastructure was destroyed. According to a Defense estimate, 

varying degrees of construction or renovation are needed for more than 800 

buildings among Afghanistan’s provincial police stations, district police and 

border police brigade stations, and subdistrict and village level stations.23

State/INL officials reported that criminal suspects are sometimes detained 

in private residences because most police stations lack secure holding 

facilities or reliable electricity and drinking water and have only 

rudimentary office furniture and equipment. On our visit to a Jalalabad 

police station (see fig. 6), we observed prisoners in a communal holding 

facility with dirt floors and rudimentary toilet facilities. We also noted that 

police manning a nearby guard tower were sleeping outside between their 

shifts. 

23The fiscal year 2004 supplemental provided Defense’s Office for Special Operations and 

Low Intensity Conflict $73 million to support Afghan border security, law enforcement, and 

counter narcotics efforts. The program was refocused in the spring of 2004 to concentrate 

on police infrastructure and capabilities in southern and southeastern Afghanistan. 
Page 24 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Figure 6: Jalalabad Police Station

In addition, although the U.S. government recently constructed a 

communication network that links the provincial headquarters with the 

Ministry of Interior, police at the provincial, district, and subdistrict levels 

are generally unable to communicate with police in other locations. 

DynCorp officials estimate that the police need 420 base radios for district 

and border stations, more than 10,400 mobile-vehicle mounted radios, and 

20,700 hand-held radios.

Limited Follow-Up Training, 

Mentoring, or Evaluation of 

Trainees 

In early 2005, DynCorp deployed police trainers to the field for the first 

time—12 outside of Kabul and 4 at a district headquarters in Kabul. 

International peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor have 

shown that such training is critical to the success of similar programs.24

Field-based training and mentoring allows trainers to build on classroom 

Source: GAO.

24According to officials from the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, field-based 

training of local police by international police trainers was key to establishing professional 

police forces in these countries.
Page 25 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

instruction and provide a more systematic basis for evaluating police 

performance. Nevertheless, the German, U.S., and Afghan governments 

have only limited ability to evaluate police trainees’ performance after 

graduation—especially in the more remote areas of Afghanistan. State/INL 

officials cited the high costs, the security threat to training personnel 

stationed in the field, and the difficulty of recruiting sufficient numbers of 

international police as impediments to implementing a countrywide fieldbased program. OMC-A estimates a first-year cost for implementing a 

countrywide training and mentoring program at approximately 

$160 million.

Nonetheless, U.S. government and other donor officials reported overall 

improvements in police performance since the training programs began 

and noted that public attitudes toward the police are becoming more 

positive. According to U.S. officials, police played a stabilizing role before 

and during the presidential elections in October 2004. For example, 

according to U.S. military personnel, police confiscated weapons and 

explosives in 12 separate incidents on election day in Jalalabad. However, 

according to OMC-A officials, police failed to control a riot that occurred 

after the Afghan government removed the provincial governor from power 

in Herat in August 2004. As a result, the Afghan army was called in to 

restore order.

Afghan Ministry of the 

Interior Undergoing Reform

The Afghan Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for managing the 

country’s national police force, faces a number of problems that require 

reform or restructuring. According to State/INL and DynCorp officials, 

these problems include pervasive corruption; an outdated rank structure 

overburdened with senior level officers; lack of communication and 

control between central command and the regions, provinces, and districts; 

pay disparity between the army and the police; and a lack of professional 

standards and internal discipline. To address these problems, State 

embedded 30 DynCorp advisors within the ministry at the end of 2004 and 

drafted a comprehensive reform program. According to ministry and State 

officials, the reform package was accepted by the Afghan Government, and 

implementation has begun. The ministry adopted a new, streamlined 

organizational structure to address command and control problems, 

including a new rank structure with salaries commensurate with 

responsibilities. The ministry also created a professional standards unit 

(similar to an internal affairs unit) that is responsible for disciplining 

corrupt or underachieving officers throughout the police force. DynCorp 

officials stated that the operation of this unit will be critical to the success 
Page 26 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

of the police reform effort. However, according to DynCorp officials, the 

overall reform program will require more than a year to implement and will 

not produce results across the country for several years.

The Ministry of the Interior has not yet reformed its police pay system. 

Patrolmen generally are paid $30 to $50 per month, less than the $70 per 

month new army recruits are paid and often less than day laborers can earn 

on construction sites. According to DynCorp officials, patrolmen’s salaries 

are insufficient to support a family’s living expenses and often cause 

policemen to resort to corruption to augment their income. Ministry 

officials told us that they are aware that low salaries are hurting the 

professionalism of the police force and that they are working to institute a 

new salary structure. 

State and Germany Do Not 

Have an Overall Plan for 

Reconstituting the Afghan 

National Police

In 2003, Germany developed a strategy paper that assessed the condition of 

the police and proposed ways to reconstituting the police sector. However, 

this strategy was not widely circulated and was not adopted by other 

donors, including the United States; State/INL officials told us that they 

could not provide us a copy of the German strategy because they did not 

possess a copy themselves. According to cognizant German officials, 

Germany has viewed its role as one of advising and consulting with other 

donors and the Afghan government rather than as the major implementer 

or funding source for the police sector. 

State has not developed a plan for addressing the overall requirement of 

equipping and fielding a fully functioning police force by a stated end date. 

Budget estimates produced (at our request) by DynCorp provide a partial 

listing of essential elements for building the police—personnel, equipment, 

facilities and communication equipment—through 2006 that totals more 

than $580 million. However, State has not specified how or when these 

equipment purchases and construction projects will be completed; what 

additional infrastructure, equipment, and training are needed; how much 

the total buildup of the police will cost; and when the overall effort to build 

the Afghan police will be finished.

In addition, State did not have adequate staff in Kabul to manage the day-today activities of the police program, hampering State’s effort to plan for and 

execute the rebuilding of the Afghan police. In 2003, the U.S. Embassy in 

Kabul had one full-time staff member assigned to manage the police 

program. When this person left to take another position with the Afghan 

Ministry of the Interior, State used a series of temporary duty staff in 2004 
Page 27 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

and 2005 to manage the program, employing one temporary staff member 

for more than 6 months to manage both the Embassy’s police and 

counternarcotics programs.25 According to the temporary-duty official, 

because of understaffing she was limited in her ability to oversee and 

monitor the program, dependent on DynCorp contractors for progress 

reports and management support, and unable to attend many donor and 

other coordination meetings. In January 2005, to help address this problem, 

State/INL established a Narcotics Affairs Section in Kabul to oversee the 

U.S. police and counternarcotics programs. At the time, one full-time U.S. 

direct-hire employee and one personal services contractor were assigned.

Efforts to Complete 

and Sustain the Afghan 

Army and Police Face 

Major Challenges

The United States, other donors, and the new Afghan government face 

significant challenges to their plans to establish viable Afghan army and 

police forces. Completing and sustaining the army and police will cost 

several billion dollars over the next decade. Moreover, slow progress in 

resolving other Afghan security problems could undermine the prospects 

for effective army and police forces. 

Long-Term Costs Unclear 

but Likely to Be Substantial

Defense and State have not clearly defined the long-term costs of 

completing the army and police programs. However, available information 

suggests that these institutions could cost up to $7.2 billion to complete 

and about $600 million per year to sustain. 

• Defense has not clearly defined the cost of completing the Afghan army. 

However, in November 2004, OMC-A officials indicated that completing 

the army could cost another $5.4 billion (in fiscal year 2005 dollars).26

Future funding would be used to fully supply the Afghan army with 

equipment and vehicles; train Afghan troops; complete the regional and 

sustaining commands; and provide the capability to safely transport the 

Afghan president by air. However, these funds would not suffice to 

provide the army with the capability to airlift large numbers of troops 

25By contrast, Defense’s Combined Forces Command had assigned up to 10 personnel to a 

law enforcement planning cell to prepare for a possible Defense role in the police buildup.

26OMC-A officials stated that the total cost of the army program would be at least $7 billion. 

The United States and other donors have already provided approximately $1.6 billion for the 

army through fiscal year 2004.
Page 28 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

from one part of the country to another. OMC-A officials told us that 

adding this capability could cost as much as $3 billion.27

• State has not clearly defined the cost of reconstituting the police. 

However, our analysis of State and Defense planning documents suggest 

that completing the police program could cost between $800 million and 

$1.8 billion.28 Most of these funds would pay for construction and 

equipment, including more than $500 million to construct police stations 

and buildings; about $100 million for trucks, buses, and other vehicles; 

and more than $85 million to provide each patrolman a weapon, 

uniform, ammunition, and related gear.

Similarly, Defense and State have not clearly defined the annual cost of 

sustaining the completed army and police forces. OMC-A officials and Joint 

Chiefs of Staff planners told us that sustaining the completed Afghan army 

could cost at least $420 million (in 2005 dollars) annually. The majority of 

these costs would be for general equipment repair, maintenance, supplies, 

medical support, salaries, and food. DynCorp police planning documents 

project that maintaining police force operations could cost $180 million 

annually (in 2005 dollars). Of this amount, about $100 million would cover 

personnel costs. The rest would pay for fuel, vehicle replacement and 

maintenance, ammunition, and facilities upkeep. 

The United States has not committed to pay for creating and sustaining the 

army and police. To date, the United States has been the major contributor 

to Afghan’s security sector reform, providing about 90 percent of funding 

for the Afghan army and the largest share of funding for police, judiciary, 

and counternarcotics efforts. At the same time, other nations have not 

demonstrated the willingness to provide the funds that may be needed to 

complete and sustain these forces. For example, while the United States 

has provided the $277 million it pledged at a 2004 police donor conference, 

as of March 2005, the other donor nations had provided only about half of 

the $73 million that they pledged at the same conference. Also, donors have 

provided the United Nations Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan 

27Adding a larger air wing would also require English-language training for a greater number 

of Afghans if the air wing were equipped with U.S. manufactured aircraft.

28The higher estimate includes an expanded field-based training program, additional civilian 

staffing, an aviation capacity, and a doubling of the Afghan border police from the current 

plan of 12,000 to 24,000.
Page 29 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

with about $60 million of the $149 million pledged for April 2004 through 

March 2005. 

Slow Progress in Addressing 

Other Pillars Could 

Undermine Afghan Security

The ability to field fully functioning Afghan army and police forces is 

dependent on concurrent success in the other security sector reform 

pillars. The lack of an effective judicial sector, the substantial illicit 

narcotics industry, and the continued existence of armed militias threatens 

to undermine overall progress toward providing nationwide security and 

the stability of the Afghan government. 

Afghanistan Lacks Effective 

Judicial Sector

Establishing a working judiciary based on the rule of law is a prerequisite 

for effective policing. However, according to donor officials, few linkages 

exist between the judiciary and the police, and the police have little ability 

to enforce judicial judgments. In addition, judges and prosecutors are not 

being exposed to police training and practices, and the police training 

curriculum does not include instruction on criminal law and procedure. 

Moreover, according to U.S. embassy officials, the Afghan judiciary has not 

yet acquired the political authority needed to adjudicate a criminal or drug 

case against a high-level political or warlord figure.

Supported by the United States, other donors, and international 

organizations, Italy—the lead nation for reforming the judiciary—has 

followed a three-pronged strategy: (1) developing and drafting legal codes, 

(2) training judges and prosecutors, and (3) renovating the country’s 

physical legal infrastructure. The Italian government has provided 

approximately $10 million annually to support the judicial reform, and the 

United States has provided approximately $28 million for fiscal years 2003 

through 2004. However, according to Italian and U.S. government officials, 

the reform program is under funded and understaffed. 

Italy and the other donors have made some progress in promoting reform. 

These include drafting a new criminal procedure code, training several 

hundred judges, and renovating courthouses. However, these 

accomplishments address only a small portion of Afghanistan’s overall 

need for judicial reform. Afghanistan’s judicial sector is currently 

characterized by a conflicting mix of civil, religious, and customary laws, 

with few trained judges, prosecutors, or other justice personnel. 

Furthermore, its penal system is nonfunctioning, and its buildings, official 

records, and essential office equipment and furniture have been damaged 

extensively. U.S. and donor officials informed us that progress in rebuilding 

the judicial sector lags far behind the other security pillars and that the 
Page 30 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

reform effort is being undermined by systemic corruption at key national 

and provincial justice institutions.

Illicit Narcotics Industry 

Threatens Government Authority 

The production and trafficking of illicit narcotics poses a serious challenge 

to the Afghan government’s authority. According to the United Nations, 

Afghanistan produces almost 90 percent of the world’s illicit opium, 

generating revenues equivalent to about 60 percent of Afghanistan’s gross 

domestic product for 2003. According to State, narcotics revenues breed 

corruption at virtually all levels of the Afghan government while providing 

resources to Taliban remnants, drug lords, and other terrorist groups. 

Solving the narcotics problem in Afghanistan is widely seen as critical to 

achieving security in Afghanistan.

The United Kingdom is leading international counternarcotics efforts in 

Afghanistan and is trying to persuade other nations to contribute to a new 

Afghan counternarcotics trust fund. From 2002 to 2004, the United States 

obligated approximately $380 million and assisted the counternarcotics 

efforts by training Afghan narcotics interdiction units, constructing border 

and highway checkpoint facilities, and supplying operational support and 

nonlethal equipment to Afghan eradication teams. For fiscal year 2005, the 

United States has provided about $966 million for a counternarcotics 

program that includes public information, alternative livelihoods, law 

enforcement, interdiction, and eradication campaigns. The goal of the new 

U.S. program is to ensure that narcotics production and drug trade do not 

subvert efforts to rebuild the Afghan police and army. 

Although the president of Afghanistan took several counternarcotics 

initiatives at the end of 2004,29 the decree banning opium production has 

been weakened by the Afghan government’s lack of a transparent criminal 

justice system and the underequipped, decentralized police force. The 

Afghan government’s eradication force and provincial forces have 

undertaken only marginal crop destruction in a few locations. U.S. officials 

stated that these eradication efforts have had no material effect on the 

quantity of opium produced. In addition, U.S. proposals for large-scale 

aerial eradication programs have been resisted by Afghan government 

officials and other international donors. According to U.S. officials, opium 

29Two days after Afghanistan’s December 2004 presidential inauguration, the president of 

Afghanistan launched a counternarcotics campaign. The president appointed a cabinet-level 

minister for counternarcotics and created a subcabinet interagency working group that 

includes the Afghan counternarcotics, interior, finance, and rural development ministries. 
Page 31 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

is being produced in record amounts in all 34 provinces, and a centrally 

trained and directed Afghan counternarcotics force would likely face 

significant opposition from provincial drug lords and many citizens. 

Although U.S. and internationally sustained counternarcotics and security 

programs could potentially reduce the amount of opium produced over 

time, State officials expect that drug processing and trafficking will 

continue until security is established. 

Militias Have Not Been Fully 

Reintegrated 

Although the number of known militia fighters has been reduced in recent 

months, the disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating of members of 

Afghanistan’s once-dominant militias is not complete. While many militias 

are under the nominal authority of the Afghan Defense Ministry, they pose 

a threat to the stability of the Afghan government and its ability to extend 

control throughout Afghanistan. Of concern, according to Japanese 

officials, is that former combatants may be attracted by the higher salaries 

provided by militia leaders in the illegal narcotics industry.

To help the Afghan government disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate militia 

fighters, donor nations established the Afghan New Beginnings Programme 

in early 2003. Under the auspices of Japan and the United Nations 

Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, the program oversaw the 

demobilization of more than 34,000 former combatants by January 2005. 

The program also oversaw the seizure or destruction of more than 90 

percent of the heavy weapons formerly controlled by militias (see fig. 7). 

Defense is providing transportation for heavy weapons and is monitoring 

the surrender of militias’ small arms and light weapons. Also, the U.S. 

Agency for International Development donated $4 million to the Afghan 

New Beginnings Programme in fiscal year 2005. 
Page 32 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Figure 7: Heavy Weapons Cantonment Site Outside Kabul

However, the program’s success is not assured. According to U.S. and 

Japanese government officials responsible for monitoring the 

demobilization process, the total number of troops still belonging to 

militias and other armed factions remains unknown.30 In addition, U.S. 

troops monitoring and assisting in the disarmament process reported that 

the Afghan government has collected only limited numbers of poor-quality 

assault rifles and that better quality weaponry may still be held by the 

former combatants and their commanders.

Former combatants have limited employment opportunities when they 

leave the militias and attempt to reintegrate into society. As of January 

2005, only one reintegration center in Kabul provided vocational training to 

former combatants. Although Afghanistan plans to open another seven 

regional centers by early 2005, the eight centers together can retrain only 

2,000 students per year. 

30Estimates of the total number of militia fighters and other armed factions operating in 

Afghanistan in 2002 have ranged from 100,000 to over 1 million.

Source: GAO.
Page 33 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Conclusions Without strong and self-sustaining Afghan army and police forces, 

international terrorists could again create a haven in Afghanistan and 

jeopardize donor efforts to develop the country. However, Afghanistan 

remains dependent on other nations for support—international assistance 

provided over 90 percent of Afghanistan’s $4.75 billion budget for 2005. The 

International Monetary Fund estimates that Afghan government revenues 

will average less than $400 million per year through 2008—less than half its 

projected expenditures just for government salaries and operations. 

The United States has provided over $4.1 billion since 2002 to help create a 

new Afghan army and reconstitute Afghanistan’s police force. Despite 

initial progress, the United States and the other donors continue to face 

numerous challenges. Although Defense has succeeded in training and 

fielding thousands of Afghan combat troops, it has not been able to fully 

equip them and it has lagged in establishing the institutions the Afghan 

army needs to sustain itself. Similarly, while State has trained thousands of 

police, it has just begun to address the structural problems that affect the 

Afghan police force. In addition, neither Defense nor State has fully 

addressed how and when Afghanistan will be able to sustain its completed 

security forces. 

Establishing viable Afghan army and police forces will almost certainly 

require years of effort and the investment of additional resources. Available 

information suggests the army and police programs could cost up to 

$7.2 billion to complete and an estimated $600 million annually to sustain. 

However, Defense and State have not developed detailed plans, 

performance measures, cost estimates, or milestones for completing and 

sustaining these forces. Moreover, progress in the other pillars of Afghan’s 

security reform is critical to eventually sustaining and maximizing the 

effectiveness of the Afghan army and police forces. Yet, reform of the 

Afghan judiciary lags behind the other security pillars, trafficking in illicit 

narcotics remains a challenge to the Afghan government’s authority, and 

thousands of militia fighters have not been disarmed and reintegrated into 

society. 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Because of Afghanistan’s prolonged conflict and its limited financial 

resources, we recommend that the Secretaries of Defense and State 

develop detailed plans for completing and sustaining the Afghan army and 

police forces. The plans should include clearly defined objectives and 

performance measures; milestones for achieving stated objectives; future 
Page 34 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

funding requirements; and a strategy for sustaining the results achieved, 

including transitioning program responsibility to Afghanistan. The 

Secretaries should provide this information to the Congress when the 

executive branch next requests funding for the Afghan army or police 

forces. 

In addition, because reform in the other pillars of the Afghan security 

sector—building an effective judiciary, curbing the production and 

trafficking of illicit narcotics, and disarming and reintegrating militia 

fighters—is critical to the success of the army and police programs, we 

recommend that the Secretaries of Defense and State work with the other 

lead donor nations to help ensure that progress in the other pillars is 

congruent with the progress made in the army and police programs. The 

Secretaries should regularly report to the Congress, but no less than 

annually, on the progress made in addressing these other security pillars. 

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

The Departments of Defense, Justice, and State provided written 

comments on a draft of this report. See appendixes III, IV, and V, 

respectively. We also met with cognizant officials from Defense and State to 

discuss their comments and observations. Both departments provided 

technical comments and updates that we incorporated throughout the 

report, as appropriate. Overall, Defense, Justice, and State found the report 

helpful, thorough, and accurate. 

Justice characterized the Afghan police training program as extremely 

important and enormously complex. It shared our concerns that more 

detailed plans for the creation of a sustainable and effective Afghan police 

force must be developed. Justice went on to note that its International 

Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program is providing critical 

support to the Iraqi Police Service and has assisted other police training 

programs around the world, but has almost no role in the ongoing efforts to 

assist the Afghan police.

Although Defense and State generally concurred with our 

recommendations, both suggested that existing reporting requirements 

addressed the need to report their plans for completing and sustaining the 

Afghan army and police forces. Defense indicated that detailed plans will 

allow it to effectively manage already scarce manpower and resources and 

should foster deliberate and proactive long-term planning with State. State 

noted that coordination efforts have characterized these programs since 

inception and will continue.
Page 35 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

We do not dispute that current law, including the Afghan Freedom Support 

Act of 2002, as amended, and the fiscal year 2005 emergency supplemental, 

mandate a number of reports on Afghanistan. However, our analysis of past 

Defense and State reporting—both internally and to the Congress—

indicates that the departments do not have detailed plans for equipping and 

fielding fully functioning Afghan army and police forces by a stated end 

date. We continue to believe that developing and following such plans and 

ensuring concurrent progress in the other security pillars is essential to the 

overall future success of the Afghan security effort. Whatever reporting 

mechanisms Defense and State choose, the departments need to specify 

what their objectives are and how they will assess progress, when the 

effort to build the Afghan army and police will be completed, and what 

future funding will be needed. In addition, in light of the Justice comments, 

we encourage State to take advantage of Justice’s police training expertise 

in developing its detailed plans for completing and sustaining the Afghan 

police program.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents 

earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from the 

date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this report to 

interested congressional committees and to the Secretaries of Defense and 

State. We will also make copies available to others on request. In addition, 

this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me 

at (202) 512-3149 or GootnickD@gao.gov. Key contributors to this report 

were Al Huntington, Pat Dickriede, Reid Lowe, Pierre Toureille, Eve 

Weisberg, and Joe Zamoyta.

David Gootnick, Director

International Affairs and Trade
Page 36 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

To examine the progress made, and limitations faced, by the United States 

and other donor nations in creating a new Afghan national army, we 

reviewed documents obtained from several offices and agencies in the U.S. 

Department of Defense, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff/J-5 (Office of 

Strategic Plans and Policy’s Afghanistan Desk), U.S. Central Command, the 

Defense Security Cooperation Agency (Middle East, Asia and North Africa 

division), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Army Security 

Assistance Command, the Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan, and 

Task Force Phoenix. We also reviewed documents from State’s Bureau of 

South Asian Affairs. Our review of these documents provided us with 

information concerning the program’s structure, current time frames and 

objectives, progress, limitations, and funding status. In addition, we met 

with the following various cognizant officials to discuss the progress made 

and limitations faced by the United States: 

• In Washington, D.C., we met with officials from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Security Cooperation 

Agency, the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, and the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers. At State, we met with officials from State’s South 

Asia and Political-Military Affairs bureaus. In Tampa, Florida, we met 

with officials of the U.S. Central Command, which has military oversight 

for Afghanistan. 

• We attended a meeting on the status of Afghan military construction 

projects at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Transatlantic Programs 

Center in Winchester, Virginia, which oversees the Corps’ construction 

projects in Afghanistan. 

• We attended a 3-day conference in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, 

where representatives from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, 

the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, and the Office of Military 

Cooperation–Afghanistan discussed problems that were impeding 

security assistance to the Afghan army. 

In Kabul, Afghanistan, we met with officials of the Combined Forces 

Command, the Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan, and Task Force 

Phoenix; U.S. embedded trainers; and the Afghan Deputy Minister of 

Defense. Also in Afghanistan, we traveled to Herat, where we met with U.S. 

embedded trainers, the commander of the Afghan army’s regional 

command, and some Afghan army troops.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 37 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

To examine the progress made, and limitations faced, by the United States 

and other donor nations in reconstituting the Afghan national police, we 

reviewed relevant documents on police program planning, resources, and 

implementation. We analyzed documents from State’s International 

Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs/Resource Management Office to 

obtain a detailed costs and funding sources. Defense’s Office of Special 

Operations and Low Intensity Conflict provided us with planning materials 

on the police-related counternarcotics program, as well as funding 

documents for this program. In addition, we reviewed the U.S. curricula for 

Afghan police training provided to us by the Department of Justice. We also 

examined documentation from the United Nations Law and Order Trust 

Fund for Afghanistan to obtain an overview of funding from non-U.S. 

donors. We reviewed German government documents on the German 

strategy for the Afghan police, German police program, and its funding 

information. We also met with the following cognizant officials to discuss 

the progress made, and limitations faced, by the United States and the 

other donors: 

• In Washington, D.C., we met with officials from State’s Bureau for 

International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs who focus on 

police training and the rule of law, as well as with officials from State’s 

South Asia Bureau. At Justice, we spoke with officials from the 

International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program. We 

also met with representatives of DynCorp Aerospace Technology—the 

State contractor for the Afghan police program. At Defense, we met with 

officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Office for Special 

Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. 

• In New York City, we held discussions with representatives of the 

United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations’ Civilian Police 

Division and with officials from the United Nations Law and Order Trust 

Fund for Afghanistan. 

• In Afghanistan, we met with U.S. embassy officials overseeing the police 

training program, officials at the Afghan ministry of Interior, and 

representatives of the German embassy charged with overseeing 

Germany’s police program. In addition, we traveled to Jalalabad to meet 

with DynCorp police trainers and Afghan police personnel; we also 

toured a police training facility and inspected an Afghan police station. 

To identify future challenges that the United States, other donor nations, 

and Afghanistan must address to complete and sustain the Afghan army 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 38 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

and police forces, we reviewed documents prepared by Defense, State, the 

government of Afghanistan, foreign donor governments, and international 

organizations. We also met with Defense, State, and DynCorp officials in 

the United States and Afghanistan to obtain information concerning the 

potential future costs of the army and police programs. In Afghanistan, we 

met with officials at the embassies of Italy, the United Kingdom, and Japan 

to discuss the Afghan judiciary, the Afghan narcotics problem, and the 

continued presence of militia fighters, respectively. In the United Kingdom 

and Germany, we met with officials from those nations’ ministries of 

foreign affairs and defense to discuss overall Afghan security issues. In 

Belgium, we met with U.S. officials at the U.S. Mission to the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization in Brussels, Belgium, and with officials at its Supreme 

Headquarters for Allied Powers in Europe in Mons, Belgium, to discuss 

their perspectives on the challenges posed by the Afghan security situation. 

To determine the reliability of the funding data, Afghan army troop data, 

and Afghan police training data obtained from Defense and State officials, 

we compared multiple reports and sources and interviewed cognizant 

officials regarding the controls and checks they used to compile the data. 

• To help confirm the completeness and consistency of U.S. and 

international funding data, we compiled and compared data from 

multiple sources—Defense, State, Justice, and other donor countries—

with information from cognizant U.S. agency officials and donor country 

officials in Washington, D.C., and Afghanistan. We used a questionnaire 

to address the accuracy of the data; the security of the databases used; 

and the limitations, if any, of the data. We also compared the funding 

data to appropriations and authorization legislation, congressional 

budget requests, and reports to the Congress. Although we did not audit 

the funding data and are not expressing an opinion on them, based on 

our examination of the documents received and our discussions with 

cognizant agency officials, we concluded that the funding data we 

obtained were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this engagement. 

• To assess the reliability of the data regarding the number of Afghan 

troops assigned to Afghan army commands, we discussed with Defense 

officials how they check data from the commands and compared it with 

information from embedded trainers and payroll records. To assess the 

reliability of the data regarding the number of Afghan police trained, we 

interviewed State officials who received data from DynCorp, Justice, 

and the German Ministry of Interior to determine how they verify the 

data; we also compared the various information sources provided to us. 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 39 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

However, because of the security situation in Afghanistan, we could not 

independently verify or test the army and police training information at 

field locations. Nevertheless, based on our assessments of the data 

provided and our discussions with the cognizant officials, we concluded 

that the Afghan army troop data and Afghan police training data 

provided to us were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. 
Page 40 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Appendix II

Assistance Provided to Afghan Army and 

Police by Non-U.S. Donors ApendxiI

Forty-one non-U.S. donors have provided approximately $439 million in 

cash, equipment, and services for the Afghan army and police (see table 3). 

Approximately $193 million was donated to supplement U.S. efforts to 

build the Afghan army, and about $246 million was provided for the Afghan 

police program (see table 3). Six donors—the Czech Republic, the 

European Union, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the World 

Bank—provided almost 65 percent of the total donations. 

• For the Afghan army, over $52 million was donated in cash and an 

estimated $141 million was donated in weapons, ammunition, vehicles, 

infrastructure support, communications equipment, medical equipment, 

and clothing.1

 

• For the Afghan police, over $120 million was donated in cash to the 

United Nations’ Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan,2

 and an 

estimated $126 million was donated in equipment, construction 

assistance, and training. 

In addition, Defense estimates that approximately $24 million of military 

equipment was recovered from the demobilization of militias and other 

salvaged equipment in Afghanistan.

1

OMC-A and U.S. Central Command calculated the value of donated resources and services 

in U.S. dollar equivalents in the year donated. These figures do not include the value of 

donors’ training teams or support to the Kabul Military Training Center.

2

Donors reported the monetary value of their donations to the German Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs in the year they provided the donations. 
Appendix II

Assistance Provided to Afghan Army and 

Police by Non-U.S. Donors

Page 41 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Table 3: Estimated Value of Assistance Provided to Afghan Army and Police by NonU.S. Donors 

Dollars in millions

Donor

Armya

(as of March 2005)

Police

(as of January 2005) Totals

Albania $* $0 $*

Australia 0 1 1

Belgium * 0 *

Bosnia 1 0 1

Bulgaria 17 0 17

Canada 2 10 12

China 0 2 2

Croatia 4 0 4

Czech Republic 59 0 59

Denmark * * *

Egypt 2 0 2

European Union 0 86 86

Finland 0 * *

France 5 20 25

Germany 1 68 69

Greece 2 0 2

Hungary 9 0 9

Iceland 1 0 1

India 10 0 10

Ireland 0 1 1

Italy * 0 *

Japan 0 20 20

Kazakhstan * 0 *

Liechtenstein 0 * *

Netherlands 0 8 8

New Zealand * 0 *

Norway 1 5 6

Pakistan 2 0 2

Poland 1 0 1

Qatar 5 0 5

Romania 8 0 8

Russia 1 0 1

Slovenia 2 0 2
Appendix II

Assistance Provided to Afghan Army and 

Police by Non-U.S. Donors

Page 42 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Source: GAO analysis of data from the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (Afghan army) and the 

German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Afghan police).

*Less than $500,000.

a

Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Mongolia, Romania, South Korea, and the United Kingdom also 

provided military trainers to the Afghan army.

South Korea 1 0 1

Spain 2 0 2

Switzerland 1 1 2

United Arab Emirates 3 0 3

Ukraine 1 0 1

United Kingdom 20 2 22

World Bank 0 22 22

Other 32 0 32

Total $193 $246 $439

(Continued From Previous Page)

Dollars in millions

Donor

Armya

(as of March 2005)

Police

(as of January 2005) Totals
Page 43 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Appendix III

Comments from the Department of Defense ApendxiI
Appendix III

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 44 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security
Page 45 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Appendix IV

Comments from the Department of Justice ApendxiIV
Appendix IV

Comments from the Department of Justice

Page 46 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security
Page 47 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security

Appendix V

Comments from the Department of State ApendxiV
Appendix V

Comments from the Department of State

(320240, 320278) Page 48 GAO-05-575 Afghanistan Security
GAO’s Mission The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation and 

investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its 

constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and 

accountability of the federal government for the American people. GAO 

examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; 

and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help 

Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO’s 

commitment to good government is reflected in its core values of 

accountability, integrity, and reliability.

Obtaining Copies of 

GAO Reports and 

Testimony

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no cost 

is through GAO’s Web site (www.gao.gov). Each weekday, GAO posts 

newly released reports, testimony, and correspondence on its Web site. To 

have GAO e-mail you a list of newly posted products every afternoon, go to 

www.gao.gov and select “Subscribe to Updates.”

Order by Mail or Phone The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2 each. 

A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent of 

Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or 

more copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. Orders 

should be sent to:

U.S. Government Accountability Office

441 G Street NW, Room LM

Washington, D.C. 20548

To order by Phone: Voice: (202) 512-6000 

TDD: (202) 512-2537 

Fax: (202) 512-6061

To Report Fraud, 

Waste, and Abuse in 

Federal Programs

Contact:

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov

Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470

Congressional 

Relations

Gloria Jarmon, Managing Director, JarmonG@gao.gov (202) 512-4400

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7125 

Washington, D.C. 20548

Public Affairs Paul Anderson, Managing Director, AndersonP1@gao.gov (202) 512-4800

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7149 

Washington, D.C. 20548