Wikileaks: Afghan leader resists U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials pressured Afghan President Hamid Karzai to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry a year ago because they considered him corrupt and ineffective, and threatened to end aid unless he went.

Karzai rebuffed the request, according to secret diplomatic records, and the minister - privately termed "the worst" by U.S. officials - kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in U.S. and allied projects.

The State Department correspondence, written as Karzai was assembling a Cabinet shortly after his 2009 re-election, reveals just how little influence U.S. officials have over the Afghan leader on pressing issues such as corruption.

Reining in graft is seen as vital to Afghanistan's long-term stability. President Barack Obama last month cited an urgent need for political and economic progress even as military successes have blunted the insurgency in some regions.

But U.S. aid to Afghanistan has continued despite the dispute over the former warlord, Ismail Khan, in December 2009.

U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry pressured Karzai to remove Khan, a once powerful mujahedeen commander, from the top of the energy and water ministry, according to two State Department reports written at the time by U.S. Embassy officials in Kabul. They were disclosed last month by WikiLeaks.

A Dec. 19, 2009, memorandum distributed internally under Eikenberry's name described Khan as "the worst of Karzai's choices" for Cabinet members. "This former warlord is known for his corruption and ineffectiveness at the energy ministry," the memo said.

Even with U.S. threats to withhold aid, Karzai rejected requests to replace Khan. "Our repeated interventions directly with Karzai ... did not overcome Karzai's deeply personal bonds with Khan," one of the reports said.

Asked earlier in 2010 about the corruption allegations, Khan, during a brief interview with The Associated Press, did not respond directly to a question asking whether he was profiting personally from the ministry. He denied any widespread problems of corruption or mismanagement.

"No money is missing from the ministry," he said. "All the income goes directly to the bank."

Khan said he was unaware of any complaints against him or the ministry. "If there have been complaints, nobody has come to me to tell me," he said.

The U.S. continued pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into new energy and water projects that the ministry used to help generate tens of millions in customer fees. Many of those fees are lost each year partly due to corruption, according to U.S.-funded reviews of the ministry's operations.

The U.S. diplomatic cables do not outline specific graft accusations against Khan, but detail several days of back and forth and consternation over Karzai's decision to keep him. U.S. officials have declined to comment on issues described in the WikiLeaks-released cables and criticized the group for making them public.

Karzai told U.S. officials in a Dec. 14, 2009, meeting that Khan had remained his choice for energy minister. Karzai said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had agreed to the choice after Karzai had said he would appoint "competent deputy ministers" under Khan.