By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Corruption, desertion and drug abuse within the Afghan police are threatening its ability to take over the fight against the Taliban and the UK's chances of an exit from the country, government documents show.
An independent report into corruption, commissioned by the Foreign Office, found evidence that police manning checkpoints were imposing "nuisance taxes" on travellers. Last September, a UK official in the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Lashkar Gah told a colleague: "It would be somewhat of a luxury to be working with ANP who are not corrupt. However, if you have [a senior official] strongly committed to addressing this, then one thing he could do is to lead by example and/or make an example of some ANP who are particularly bad by arresting them and referring them to the ANP prosecutor."
An Foreign Office spokeswoman said yesterday: "Police who have undergone training are recognised by the Afghan population as being of a higher calibre. New vetting procedures are in place to address issues with the integrity of the ANP, and we are working to further strengthen them as part of our overall efforts to support improvements within the ANP."
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