Karzai security pact gambit aimed at keeping US money filling his pockets

By Jim Miklaszewski, Chief Pentagon Correspondent, NBC News

Afghan Presidency via Reuters

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, meets with U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice in Kabul on Nov. 25.

Behind a seemingly never-ending game of brinkmanship with the United States over a bilateral security agreement, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has a simple goal, according to U.S. military officials: Ensure that billions of dollars in aid from Washington continues to flow to feed the cycle of corruption that keeps him in power.

ANALYSIS

“It’s all about the money,” said one senior U.S. official, who like the others spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. 

The poker game over an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion a year in U.S. and NATO aid that would be expected to continue to flow into the country if a new agreement is signed is playing out on the stage of international diplomacy, but U.S. officials say financial considerations are driving Karzai’s negotiating tactics. Those considerations reportedly include bags of cash he collects from the CIA.

It took well over a year for the United States and Afghanistan to hammer out the bilateral security agreement approved last weekend by the Loya Jirga, an assembly of Afghan elders.

But Karzai promptly raised the stakes again this week, telling National Security Adviser Susan Rice that he would not sign the bilateral security agreement with the U.S. unless the Obama administration agrees to a new set of last-minute demands:  That it take a role in peace talks with the Taliban and release 17 Afghans held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.  

The White House pushed back, with Rice essentially telling Karzai to sign the agreement by the end of December, or the U.S. would pick up its troops -- along with the billions in future financial aid  -- and go home by the end of 2014. 

The second part of that threat undoubtedly got Karzai’s attention, U.S. officials say, because the U.S. aid is crucial to his future as Afghanistan heads toward a presidential election on April 5, 2014 – a campaign for which Karzai is not eligible due to term limits.

The Afghan government and large segments of society have become heavily dependent on U.S. aid over the past 12 years. But corruption is rampant in Kabul and U.S. officials believe it can never be eliminated.

“It’s a cost of doing business in Afghanistan at every level,” said one official.

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