Last night, while we were sleeping the Americans bombed our homes. When I woke up I saw Agha Gul [her husband] shattered into pieces and my other two sons had their heads blown away, I screamed for my little boy, Sa’may. Sa’may was unconscious. I ran while the bombs were dropping. This morning I woke up with my little Sa’may looking for grass. I want to boil grass for Sa’may because he is hungry. We have nothing left. Sa’may’s father and my other beautiful sons were all that I had.⁷

Few people paid a higher price when America’s military machine launched its war in Afghanistan a year ago today than Orfa. She was away visiting relatives when the American fighter jet dropped out of the clear midday sky and dived towards her village in the hills outside Kabul. When she returned home a few days later it was left to her neighbours [sic] to explain the inexplicable. They told her that the aircraft, almost certainly an F-16, had mistakenly fired a precision Mk 82 500lb bomb directly at her small mud and stone house, killing her husband, carpet weaver Gul Ahmad, his second wife, five of their daughters and one son. Two children from the house next door also died. When the Guardian first found Orfa last year, four weeks after the bombing, she was still deep in shock, haunted by the horrifying image of her family’s remains. Their bodies were so badly torn apart they could not be identified for separate graves.

‘I don’t know how long it will be now until the Americans help us,’ Orfa, 32, said. ‘They have done nothing for us and I don’t know what to do with my children or how to support them.’ The awkward truth is that the only outside help Orfa has received has come from the visitors who arrived at Bibi Mahru the day after the bombing. They were Taliban officials still clinging to power in the dying days of the ultra-orthodox Islamist regime and they brought shrouds for the dead as well as 17,000 Pakistan rupees (£190). Orfa shared the Taliban’s money with her next-door neighbour, whose two children were killed by the same bomb. Most of her portion went on medical care for her seriously injured and deeply disturbed son, Jawad, 14. ‘He went to his father’s grave every day and just stood there staring it at. I don’t have any more money to spend on medical care for him,’ she said. Now the boy has been sent to Pakistan with an aunt in an attempt to break his grief-stricken obsession.

“Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”⁸

“Election, parliament and constitution? What can I do with that? Can I eat, wear and support my children with these symbols? No, I cannot. I am a widow. I care about survival, food and shelter for my children.”⁹

Foreign assistance is an important tool for the President and the Secretary of State to further America’s interests. In fact, foreign assistance is sometimes the most appropriate tool, when diplomacy is not enough or military force imprudent. In general, foreign assistance works hand-in-hand with other foreign policy tools. Foreign assistance implements peace agreements arranged by diplomats and often enforced by the military; foreign assistance supports peacekeeping efforts by building economic and political opportunity; foreign assistance helps developing and transition nations move toward democratic systems and market economies; foreign assistance helps nations prepare for participation in the global trading system and become better markets for U.S exports. All of these activities help build a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous world – which is very much in the interest of the United States.¹¹

…we urge developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) as ODA to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of GNP of developed countries to least developed countries, as reconfirmed at the Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, and we encourage developing countries to build on progress achieved in ensuring that ODA is used effectively to help achieve development goals and targets.¹⁴

“The G7 countries are the worst performers when it comes to real aid. On average, the world’s seven largest economies give just 0.07% of national income in real aid. In other words, they must increase real aid tenfold to reach the UN target of 0.7%”¹⁵

According to our analysis, more than 60% of aid flows are ‘phantom’; that is they do not represent a real resource transfer to the recipient. For the worst performing G7 donors, the figure is as high as 89%. Real aid stood at only US $27 billion, or 0.1% of donor national income in 2003, with G7 donors at an average of only 0.07%.

“Eighty-six cents in every dollar of American aid is phantom aid, largely because it is so heavily tied to the purchase of US goods and services, and because it is so badly targeted at poor countries.” The report continues, “Italy and the USA are among the biggest culprits of tying, spending upwards of 70% of aid on domestic firms and organisations [sic].”

“The Mutual Security Act of 1954 introduced the concepts of development assistance, security assistance, a discretionary contingency fund, and guarantees for private investments.”

data from USAID’s Buy American Report, the best available assessment, indicates that over the last decade between 70 and 80 percent of funding appropriations were directed to U.S. sources. In gross terms, the Business Alliance for International Economic Development estimated in 1996 that foreign aid sustained 200,000 U.S. domestic jobs.¹⁶

USAID became largely a contracting organization. USAID closed 24 missions between 1993 and 1997 and reduced its fulltime professional staff from 11,150 to 7,609. With an eye to its own survival, USAID supplanted its national security constituency with an influential interest group of commercial supporters. Prohibited from lobbying for funds in Congress itself, USAID now actively beseeches its “partners”, as it calls its contractors, to push for greater funding through what, for lack of a better term, we may call the K Street consultants’ money-go-round.¹⁸

Adding to this “insider” culture, USAID employees tend to trade jobs between the Agency and its contractors with great frequency. The Research Triangle Institute, Chemonics and the Academy for Education Development are but three of the many contractors that actively court USAID employees.¹⁹

We need to fundamentally change the way we do business, because the provision of foreign assistance has changed drastically. The globalization of the world economy has meant that governments, while still essential, are not the only institutions through which public services are provided. The role of religious institutions, non-governmental organizations, private foundations, universities, corporations, and even individuals in providing services and accomplishing public objectives has dramatically increased. The Global Development Alliance (GDA) is USAID’s business model for the 21st Century. We propose to serve as a catalyst to mobilize the ideas, efforts, and resources of the public sector, corporate America, the higher education community and non-governmental organizations in support of shared objectives.²⁰

Aggressive militaristic interventions like forced eradication without immediately viable alternative livelihoods reinforce the extreme poverty of rural communities and destroy the livelihoods of Afghan farmers and their families. Public frustration with ongoing poverty is deteriorating relations between the Afghan people, the Afghan Government and the international community.²²

In several of Afghanistan’s provinces, the Taliban is now providing governmental services such as justice and economic security. It provides physical security through fighting the eradication forces that come to destroy farmers’ livelihoods and in doing so is far more effective at winning ‘hearts and minds’ than the international troops.²³

Given Afghanistan’s myriad poverty-related challenges, the prioritisation [sic] of counter-narcotics above the survival of Afghans is unfathomable to Afghanistan’s rural communities, and has undermined many of the international community’s more positive efforts.²⁴

Hunger and dehydration have turned into anger and desperation, as demoralised [sic] Afghans are forced to leave their villages in search of better living conditions. Those who cannot afford to leave – most of whom are farmers – believe that the war in Afghanistan is due to poppy eradication, particularly in the south. There, the majority of farmers have no income after seeing their livelihoods destroyed, and are forced to turn to the Taliban for protection. Without poppy cultivation – the majority of farmers’ survival strategy – they are unable to send their children to school, pay for medicines or afford fuel and electricity.²⁵

Yet, the local and international development community’s abilities to respond to Afghanistan’s many poverty-related challenges have been undermined by the United States’ and United Kingdom’s misguided focus on counter-narcotics eradication policies. As such, these two self-appointed lead nations on terrorism and counternarcotics are jointly responsible for southern Afghanistan’s current hunger crisis.²⁶

While the international community has financed international military coalition operations in Afghanistan to the tune of more than 9 times of what is spent on poverty relief, the southern half of the country is gripped by a growing insurgency and a growing hunger crisis. The international community is failing to live up to its promise to help rebuild Afghanistan. Afghans clearly perceive the growing gap in international expenditure for military purposes and expenditure for poverty alleviation purposes. The priorities of external funding openly show that the international community has adopted its own priorities for its actions in Afghanistan informed by narrowly defined ‘homeland security’ objectives. As a result, disillusionment and a widespread feeling of betrayal are intensifying among Afghans.²⁷

“Democracy is important according to your culture but according to our culture feeding our children is more important.”

Our report emphasizes that this is a very serious problem for aid management, aid effectiveness and achieving results for the Afghan people. Aid going outside government channels sometimes can be delivered quickly, but is often at a very high cost and does not help the government build its capacity to oversee the delivery of services itself.

Donor reluctance to be held downwardly accountable to poor countries contrasts with donor enthusiasm for holding recipient governments to account through aid conditions. Donors use conditionality in a number of ways: as a financial accountability device, a commitment device, and as a way of inducing policy change. But the underlying concern that leads to conditionality is always the same: donors lack confidence in either the commitment or the capacity of the recipient.²⁸

“Furthermore, the credibility of the government is increased as it demonstrates its ability to oversee services and become accountable for results to its people and the newly elected parliament.”²⁹

“In Afghanistan the wastage of aid is sky-high; there is real looting going on, mainly by private enterprises. It is a scandal…In 30 years of my career I have never seen anything like it.”³⁰

As conditionality has escalated and structural reforms have become more complex, donors have also sought to micromanage many of the day-to-day functions of government by specifying the detailed steps countries must take to improve policy, and by using Technical Assistance to place donor-funded staff, many of them expatriates, in key government positions where they can implement and monitor change.

Policy conditions take the initiative away from countries and often lead to donor preferences being implemented at the expense of more locally appropriate policy. This happens both because local people are widely excluded from the policy making process, and because of the lack of flexibility in the model pushed by donors.

Sometimes it invites only one contractor to apply, the same efficient procedure that made Halliburton so notorious and profitable in Iraq. In many fields it “pre-selects vendors” by accepting bids every five years or so on an IQC – that’s an “Indefinite Quantities Contract”. Contractors submit indefinite information about what they might be prepared to do in unspecified areas, should some more definite contract materialize; the winners become designated contractors who are invited to apply when the real thing comes along. USAID generates the real thing in the form of an RFP, a Request for Proposals, issued to the “pre-selected vendors” who then compete (or collaborate) to do – in yet another country – work dreamed up in Washington by theoreticians unencumbered by first-hand knowledge of the hapless “target”.³¹

Besides the fact that the United States military needed a primary road to shuttle troops and supplies from one region to another, the completion of this highway had political significance in both Afghanistan and the United States. The Afghan presidential elections were to be held in October 2004, and United States President George W. Bush was in a close race for reelection to be decided less than a month later. Both campaigns could use the good press.³²

IntegraBase is the only modifier which so dramatically increases the structural capacity of asphaltic materials that it is possible to reduce the thickness of the base course and lower initial construction costs. IntegraBase enabled Louis Berger to reduce the thickness of the base course from 14-inches to 8-inches – while increasing the overall strength, durability and performance of the road. IntegraBase’s dramatic increase in the resilient modulus of the base course also enabled Louis Berger to completely eliminate a planned 12-inch sub-base.³³

Critics, however, say that quality was sacrificed for speed in the name of political expedience and profit. Some claim the highway is not thick enough to withstand the harsh weather conditions, including icy winters and 120-plus degree heat in summer months; indeed, the highway surface suffered deep cracks during the first winter. It lacks a median to prevent head-on collisions. Sources involved who asked not to be identified have said that Berger engineers were aware that the substances tested in its labs for the road were inadequate to handle expected traffic flow, but still used the material.³⁴

The American government’s development arm USAID, boasts of the number of girls’ schools it has built. I asked to see one in Kabul, and was shocked by the state of it. A plaque on the wall boasts of this as a gift from the American people, but the Lycae Mariam is nothing to be proud of. Teachers there say the Americans did little more than add a coat of paint on the one standing building, and replace the roof of makeshift huts. The new roofs are already leaking, and in the courtyard hundreds of girls are still being taught in tents. The school looked like an emergency had just hit.³⁵

Although $1.8bn was due to be spent on reconstruction in this first year, bureaucracy, particularly at the UN, and the cost of emergency humanitarian aid have swallowed most of the money. There are still huge areas of the country where people are on the brink of starvation and aid workers have warned that the situation is likely to get even worse as winter approaches in the weeks ahead. A four-year drought is also consuming more of the money than was expected, leaving only $100m this year for reconstruction. The average cost of maintaining a foreign UN employee in Afghanistan for a year is around $250,000. Add to that the soaring cost of house rentals, which means some UN agencies are paying $15,000 a month for their Kabul offices, and it is little wonder funds are running out.³⁶

During 2002-5, the U.S. spent about $1.3 billion — or some 38 percent of the total $3.6 billion pledged by the international donor community after 2001 — on Afghan reconstruction (as compared to $30 billion in Iraq), that is, a little over $250 million per year, a paltry amount. Moreover, the Bush administration has reconstruction aid to Afghanistan from $1 billion in 2005 to $623 million in 2006. Afghans are widely slashed reported to being increasingly disenchanted with the U.S.-led reconstruction program. Projects languish unfinished, and project quality leaves much to be desired. For example the U.S.A.I.D. in 2004 budgeted to build or renovate 289 schools, but U.S. contractors built only eight and refurbished 77, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Likewise, the U.S.A.I.D. budgeted to build or rehabilitate 253 health clinics in Afghanistan; eight were built and none were rehabilitated. The GAO pointed to poor contractor performance (and security problems, inconsistent financing, staff shortages, lack of oversight). Other reports echo the concern over the poor quality of work undertaken. For example, in a village close to the U.S. occupation forces’ main base at Bagram, a mud-brick school built in 2003 compliments of American taxpayers is now in utter disrepair — its walls crumbling and its roof pitted by termites chewing into untreated wooden beams. Moreover, the project costs of official U.S.-sponsored projects are often much higher than by a private NGO. For example, CARE International built 40 schools in 2004, which in most cases cost $10,000 – $20,000 less than U.S-sponsored projects.³⁷

Planning Minister Bachardoust wanted to know how the NGOs were actually spending the money allocated to them — how much for the rents and salaries, for their cars and how much they were actually using for their projects. He demanded that the organizations open their books to the government, but few were prepared to do so. Only 437 out of a total of 2,355 organizations obliged his request. Then Bachardoust threatened, somewhat overzealously, to close their offices in December. President Hamid Karzai stopped him.”³⁸

Government members, the NGOs, the big embassy staff, the United Nations staff … they made a mafia system and you can see the result,” Bashardost continued: “I am against the mafia system,”³⁹

“Bashardost has accused 1,935 national and international NGOs active in the post-war Afghanistan of involvement in corruption and embezzlement and urged the government to dissolve them.”⁴⁰

I have yet to see an NGO that has spent 80 per cent of its money for the benefit of the Afghans and 20 per cent for their own benefit.” He went on: “International NGOs get big amounts of money from their own nations just by showing them sensitive pictures and videos of Afghan people, … but [NGOs] spend all the money on themselves, and we are unable to find out how much money they originally received in charitable funds.⁴¹

The former minister stated that out of $4.5 billion pledged to Afghanistan by international donors at the Tokyo conference in 2003, about a third has been allocated to international NGOs and a further third to the United Nations. But while the NGOs and UN get the bulk of the money, it’s the democratically-elected government, which gets only a third itself, that will be held accountable by the Afghan people for the success or failure of the reconstruction effort.⁴²

According to government figures released last week, only 23 per cent of several billion dollars sent for international assistance is directly administered by the Afghan government, with the balance in the hands of humanitarian aid agencies or private contractors. That cash tap has seen the number of NGOs in the country balloon from a few hundred three years ago to about 2,400, according to the World Bank. And yet there has been precious little bang for all those bucks, leading to widespread belief that the NGOs are spending too much for too little — and engaging in corrupt practices along the way. ⁴³

The international community has sought to deliver quick success in rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan. But the country has become an El Dorado for international consultants and professional aid workers who ply the streets in Land Cruisers. Their methods have also fostered an atmosphere of corruption and sloppiness that has left many Afghans feeling disappointed and cheated. Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries, with annual per-capita income of just $200. Foreigners here, though, earn far better: Hundreds of consulting firms are competing for huge projects, and the number of active consultants here is estimated to be at least 3,000. ‘Suddenly there were more consultants than flies and dogs in this city,’ says an employee of the US embassy, who has worked in Kabul for two years. One German diplomat here estimates that at least a quarter of US relief aid is spent on foreign experts alone.

…in a brick villa in Wazir Akbar Khan, is Emerging Market’s main competitor, BearingPoint. The global consulting firm’s Afghanistan budget alone is over $100 million. The company’s chief executive here, Ed Elrahal, has succeeded in placing 70 of his company’s consultants in the government. Yet even after three years of ongoing consultations through an army of experts, the country still has few functioning ministries or even a sufficient number of Afghans capable of establishing them.

… The Afghan population is still devastated by relentless poverty. Afghanistan is one of the few places in the world where polio not only still exists, but the incidence of the disease is increasing. One in four children born in Afghanistan cannot expect to live to the age of 5.

Close to 50% of Afghanistan’s population of approximately 29 million people⁴⁴ cannot expect to reach the age of 40, and nearly 100 percent of the population can not expect to live beyond the age of 45, one of the lowest life expectancies in the world, and 20 years lower than in all of Afghanistan’s neighbours⁴⁵ [sic]. Further,

Afghanistan is one of the few places in the world where the life expectancy for females, at 44, is less than that for males.⁴⁶

Nearly half of Afghanistan’s population is under the age of 15, meaning that they have spent most of their lives in a conflict environment with potentially grave long term ramifications. Surviving to the age of 15 in Afghanistan is a remarkable achievement in a country where 1 in 4 Afghan children do not survive to the age of 5 and less than 40% of Afghan children receive life-saving vaccinations. Of those children who do survive to the age of 5, half of them will have spent most of their lives hungry, undernourished and underweight.

More than 70% of the population is chronically malnourished, while less than a quarter of the population has access to safe drinking water. The extremely limited electricity supply is accessible by only 10% of the people.

According to the Afghanistan Ministry of Health, there is one hospital in Faizabad and 30 clinics spread throughout the rest of the province. In Argo, where there is a population of 100,000, there is only one doctor permanently living in the area.⁴⁹

“Fifty to 70 mothers die every day from birth complications, which is a silent tsunami for Afghanistan,”⁵⁰

According to the 2006 WHO, World Health Report, there are 4,104 physicians in Afghanistan, which means that there is approximately 1 physician per 7,066 Afghans. This is in stark contrast to the international military presence in Afghanistan, where there are approximately more than 23,000 Operation Enduring Freedom and around more than 16,000 NATO-ISAF troops, which translates into one soldier per 742 Afghans.

While approximately US $66 of international aid is delivered to one Afghan per year, the annual cost of one international troop in Afghanistan amounts to approximately US $270,000. The disparity between international military expenditures and development aid flows to this devastated country is staggering: US-led international forces spend at least US $12 billion per year in military operations in Afghanistan, while NATO-ISAF spends approximately US $3 billion per year.

The billions of dollars pledged at the Tokyo Conference in 2002 was followed by promises of additional billions at subsequent donor conferences in Berlin (April 2004) and Kabul (April 2005). However, only half of the amounts that were pledged have actually been dispersed. Notwithstanding, a further US $6 billion was pledged at the London Conference in January 2006.⁵¹

“Within six months of starting my job as finance minister, my best people had been stolen by international aid organisations [sic] who could offer them forty to a hundred times the salary we could.”⁵²

“Eighty-six cents in every dollar of American aid is phantom aid, largely because it is so heavily tied to the purchase of US goods and services, and because it is so badly targeted at poor countries.”⁵³

“According to the IOM, much of the responsibility for these abductions lies with local commanders and armed groups.”⁶⁷

I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

a) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees, jumping on their naked feet; b) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; c) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; d) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; e) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear; f) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; g) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; h) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wire to his fingers, toes and penis to simulate electric torture; i) Writing ‘I am a Rapest’ (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year-old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked; j) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture; k) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; l) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at one case, biting and severely injuring a detainee; m) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.⁷⁴

In some ways, the abuses in Afghanistan are more troubling than those reported in Iraq,” said John Sifton, the Human Rights Watch representative in the area. “While it is true that abuses in Afghanistan often lacked the sexually abusive content of the abuses in Iraq, they were in many ways worse. Detainees were severely beaten, exposed to cold and deprived of sleep and water. “Moreover, it should be noted that the detention system in Afghanistan, unlike the system in Iraq, is not operated even nominally in compliance with the Geneva conventions. The detainees are never given an opportunity to see any independent tribunal. There is no legal process whatsoever and not even an attempt at one. The entire system operates outside the rule of law. At least in Iraq, the US is trying to run a system that meets Geneva standards. In Afghanistan, they are not.⁷⁵

“Mr. Habibullah’s autopsy, completed on Dec. 8, showed bruises or abrasions on his chest, arms and head. There were deep contusions on his calves, knees and thighs. His left calf was marked by what appeared to have been the sole of a boot. His death was attributed to a blood clot, probably caused by the severe injuries to his legs, which traveled to his heart and blocked the blood flow to his lungs.”⁷⁷

A jury on Thursday spared Pfc. Willie V. Brand from jail time, reducing his rank a day after he was convicted in a brutal attack on an Afghan prisoner. Boland, who worked with Brand, was given a reprimand for dereliction of duty after the abuse investigation.⁷⁸

a military intelligence interrogator admitted abusing an Afghan detainee who later died and was sentenced to two months in jail. Spc. Glendale C. Walls pleaded guilty Tuesday to dereliction of duty and assault. Besides the prison sentence, Walls was reduced in rank and pay and will receive a bad-conduct discharge.⁷⁹

Sergeant Salcedo, 24, said she became frustrated with Mr. Dilawar when he refused to look at her during an interrogation, a problem she said she faced as a woman dealing with Afghan and Arab detainees. She admitted kicking Mr. Dilawar in the knees and thighs, grabbing him by the ears when he looked away, and pulling him up repeatedly when he was unable to hold “stress positions” against a wall because of his injuries… sentenced her instead to a one-grade demotion, a written reprimand and a $1,000 fine.⁸⁰

The purpose of this study was to determine the concentrations and precise isotopic compositions of four uranium isotopes (234U, 235U, 236U, and 238U) in urine specimens from the civilian population of Afghanistan after Allied Forces Operation Enduring Freedom. Eight male civilians from Nangarhar-Jalalabad region who presented with symptoms of fatigue, fever, musculoskeletal and neurological alterations, headaches, and respiratory impairment after inhalation of dust during bombing raids in June 2002 had urine samples collected under controlled conditions and analyzed in duplicate for 234U, 235U, 236U, and 238U, with multicollector, inductively coupled, plasma ionization mass spectrometry. Control samples with an internal urine standard were analyzed with the same method. The mean concentration of uranium in eight samples was found to be considerably greater (275.04 ng/L; SD, 137.80 ng/L; SE, 48.72 ng/L) than what is regarded as a reference range (1-20 ng/L). The 238U:235U ratio was 137.87 ± 0.20, which is consistent with that of natural uranium. The 234U: 238U ratio for the Afghan samples was 0.000055 ± 0.000001, also consistent with natural uranium. 236U, which usually forms a component of depleted uranium, was not detected (measured 236U: 234U ratio, < 10-7). Our results demonstrate that contamination in Afghanistan with a source consistent with natural uranium has resulted in total uranium concentrations up to 100 times higher than normal range for various geographic and environmental areas throughout the world. The cause of our findings is currently being evaluated as part of our ongoing research.⁷⁰

“The mean concentration of uranium in all six samples was significantly higher (389 ng/L, SD 805, SE 329) than the normal population values (1-20 ng/L) with an exceedingly high concentration (2032 ng/L) in a child, the sole survivor of a direct bomb impact on the family home. The 238U:235U ratio was 138.14 ± 0.13, consistent with natural uranium. The samples showed no evidence of detectable 236U with measured ratio of 236U:238U < 10-6. These results suggest that the civilian population of the Bibi Mahro region of eastern Afghanistan had significant elevation of total uranium concentration up to 200 times higher than the normal values of the range of the world environmental and geographic areas. The explanation of our findings could be either of two possible mechanisms. 1) exposure to contaminated dust in the areas of the bombing raids by natural uranium containing weapons or 2) unusual geological and environmental excessively high uranium levels contained in the soil or drinking water. Whereas some areas of central Asia have been identified as high uranium regions in the water and soil as a result of uranium mining and processing, such circumstances have not been identified in the Bibi Mahro region of Afghanistan. An interdisciplinary approach to testify these hypotheses is a part of our ongoing studies.”⁷¹

The mystery metal is 50-75% of the weight of the bombs – up to 1.5 tons in the GBU-37 Bunker Buster bombs. If this is DU then target zones will be 50-100 x more contaminated than by the pencil-sized 30 mm (0.27 kg) anti-tank shells used in the Balkans War, and more like the DU ammunition fire in the Gulf War. DU oxide is known to travel up to 25 miles by wind so large areas may be affected by each bomb.⁷²

In contrast with older weapons, the new generation finds its way with advances such as target-elevation data and satellite signals. The JDAM already has proven itself in Afghanistan. By February [2002], commanders had dropped 6,600 JDAMs, consultants estimate – so many that stockpiles ran low and officials had to scramble up more production from a Missouri factory.

Since the US launched the war on Afghanistan October 7, more than 12,000 US bombs have been dropped on the country. According to the Pentagon, about 60 percent of these bombs have been precision-guided by satellite or laser technology. However, many of these bombs—dropped by B-52s and other aircraft from tens of thousands of feet in the air—have strayed off course, hitting civilian targets. (WSWS, December 29, 2001)

U.S. and coalition airplanes have conducted more than 21,000 flights over Afghanistan, dropping more than 20,000 munitions. About 60 percent of the ordnance dropped on Afghanistan has been precision guided, the highest percentage in any conflict.

More than 22,000 weapons – ranging from cruise missiles to heavy fuel-air bombs – have been dropped on the country over the past six months…. US pilots dropped more than 6,600 joint direct attack munitions (J-dams), the satellite-guided bombs… One in four bombs and missiles dropped by the US on Afghanistan may have missed its target.

“DU [deleted uranium] is released from fired weapons in the form of small particles that may be inhaled, ingested or remain in the environment.”

“Children rather than adults may be considered to be more at risk of DU exposure when returning to normal activities within a war zone through contaminated food and water, since typical hand-to-mouth activity of inquisitive play could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil.” (The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 5, No 44, October 29, 2001}

Subsequent to the contamination, newborn children developed physical deformities and those that did not develop physical deformities suffered from Mental Retardation. These cases are reported in Paktia, Nanagrhar, Bagram, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kundoz.

The survey team also reported that in bombardments of ToraBora, Shahikoot and Bagram frontline, large number of antiaircraft weapons and rifles had melted pointing to the usage of unconventional weapons.

During the bombardments of ToraBora, Bagram front lines, Kundoz and Mazar-e-Sharif, many Taliban soldiers were seen with blood coming out from their mouths, noses and ears. Meanwhile, those Taliban soldiers who returned to their respective villages started to vomit blood, had bloody stools and discharged blood with urine. Subsequently, many have died from their conditions.

During bombardment of Kuram village, Surkhroad district of Nangarhar, the village was completely destroyed and many peoples were killed without any physical injuries.

After bombardments in Khost public health workers have reported skin lesions. Those that developed the skin lesions died after their conditions deteriorated. Moreover, in Paktia area, children are born with deformed genitalia, and no anus.

In Pachir Wa Agam district near ToraBora targeted area, women started to suffer from a deadly condition. Several months after the bombing, women of the area would become angry by petty things and that anger would turn into rage, which would subsequently cause the women to collapse and die. (Field Surveyors of the Afghan DU & Recovery Fund)