Internal report issues black eye for U.S. Embassy in Kabul

The State Department is failing to properly oversee nearly $2 billion in contracts to battle the drug trade, build infrastructure and train police in Afghanistan, according to a bluntly worded internal assessment.

The report by the department's inspector general questions whether the U.S. will be able to stabilize the country in time to meet President Obama's goal of withdrawing some troops by June 2011.

"Embassy oversight of contracts and grants is seriously inhibited by the dangerous security conditions … as well as by the shortage of qualified contract officer representatives in Kabul," says the report, released last week. The embassy "faces serious challenges in meeting the administration's deadline for 'success' in Afghanistan," it adds.

The embassy, which reports to special representative Richard Holbrooke, says the report is generally "accurate in its assessments," spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in an e-mail from Kabul. "We are already implementing a great majority of the report's recommendations."

That includes better contract oversight, said Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew. "We're very much aware of the problems that developed in Iraq and are working to avoid outcomes that would be problematic," he said.

In a January cable reported by The New York Times, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who runs the embassy, questioned whether the military could meet its timeline for turning over the country to Afghan forces.

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