{"id":60736,"date":"2015-07-13T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=60736"},"modified":"2019-11-18T10:06:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T10:06:58","slug":"ghost-students-ghost-teachers-ghost-schools-a-look-at-the-amazing-failure-of-us-funded-schools-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/07\/ghost-students-ghost-teachers-ghost-schools-a-look-at-the-amazing-failure-of-us-funded-schools-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost Students, Ghost Teachers, Ghost Schools: The Failure of US-Funded Schools in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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9 Jul 2015 – The United States trumpets education as one of its shining successes of the war in Afghanistan. But a BuzzFeed News investigation reveals U.S. claims were often outright lies, as the government peddled numbers it knew to be false and touted schools that have never seen a single student.<\/p>\n

Here in the birthplace of the Taliban, children would climb up on Joe DeNenno and hang off his Army-issued rucksack as if it were a jungle gym. \u201cRuckriders,\u201d he called them.<\/p>\n

\"afghanistan<\/a><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old first lieutenant didn\u2019t just play with the kids. He also tutored them. He even convinced his commanding officer to spend some of the money the military had earmarked for winning hearts and minds on building the children a school.<\/p>\n

In that summer of 2011, as he helped negotiate with local elders and the Afghan Ministry of Education, the fighting intensified. Three men in his unit fell to gunfire, and three more were blown up by roadside bombs. And Afghans who helped the Americans, he recalled, lost their lives \u201cin just brutal torture, decapitated, terrible ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, by early October, a dozen of DeNenno\u2019s students \u2014 a few no taller than the shovels in their hands \u2014 smiled alongside U.S. soldiers, local security forces, and government officials, all gathered to break ground on a new school in the little village of Kandalay.<\/p>\n

An Army press release<\/a> lauded the groundbreaking as important \u201cfor the future of the children.\u201d For DeNenno, it was an \u201cantidote\u201d to the bloodshed and \u201cthe rut of chasing this specter of victory.\u201d It felt, he said, \u201clike progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Soldiers<\/a>

Soldiers in 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment on Oct. 10, 2011. United States Army<\/p><\/div>\n

Nearly four years later, water seeps through the leaky roof and drips onto students in this more than $250,000 construction. Doors are cut in half; some are missing altogether. There is no running water for the approximately 200 boys \u2014 and zero girls \u2014 who attend. But the school did enrich a notorious local warlord. In exchange for donating the land on which the school sits, he extracted a contract from the U.S. military worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

Over and over, the United States has touted education \u2014 for which it has spent more than $1 billion \u2014 as one of its premier successes in Afghanistan, a signature achievement that helped win over ordinary Afghans and dissuade a future generation of Taliban recruits. As the American mission faltered, U.S. officials repeatedly trumpeted impressive statistics \u2014 the number of schools built, girls enrolled, textbooks distributed, teachers trained, and dollars spent \u2014 to help justify the 13 years and more than 2,000 Americans killed since the United States invaded.<\/p>\n

But a BuzzFeed News investigation \u2014 the first comprehensive journalistic reckoning, based on visits to schools across the country, internal U.S. and Afghan databases and documents, and more than 150 interviews \u2014 has found those claims to be massively exaggerated, riddled with ghost schools, teachers, and students that exist only on paper. The American effort to educate Afghanistan\u2019s children was hollowed out by corruption and by short-term political and military goals that, time and again, took precedence over building a viable school system. And the U.S. government has known for years that it has been peddling hype.<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed News exclusively acquired the GPS coordinates and contractor information for every school that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) claims to have refurbished or built since 2002, as well as Department of Defense records of school constructions funded by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed News spot-checked more than 50 American-funded schools across seven Afghan provinces, most of which were battlefield provinces \u2014 the places that mattered most to the U.S. effort to win hearts and minds, and into which America poured immense sums of aid money.<\/p>\n

\"Photos<\/a>

Photos taken from U.S.-funded schools in February and March in Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

At least a tenth of the schools BuzzFeed News visited either no longer exist, are not operating, or were never built in the first place. \u201cWhile regrettable,\u201d USAID said in response, \u201cit is hardly surprising to find the occasional shuttered schools in war zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the schools that were still running, BuzzFeed News found far fewer students than were officially recorded as enrolled. Girls, whom the U.S. particularly wanted to draw into formal schooling, were overcounted in official records by about 40%.<\/p>\n

USAID program reports obtained by BuzzFeed News indicate the agency knew as far back as 2006 that enrollment figures were inflated, but American officials continued to cite them to Congress and the American public.<\/p>\n

As for schools it actually constructed, USAID claimed for years that it had built or refurbished more than 680, a figure Hillary Clinton cited to Congress in 2010 when she was secretary of state. By 2014, that number had dropped to \u201cmore than 605.\u201d After months of pressing for an exact figure, the agency told BuzzFeed News the number was 563, a drop of at least 117 schools from what it had long claimed.<\/p>\n

The military, the other main source of U.S. funding for education, said it does not know how many schools it has funded since the war began. Last month, the Pentagon told BuzzFeed News that since 2008 the military had funded the construction or refurbishment of 786 schools. This month, a spokesperson revised that number down to 605 and said the new number encompassed \u201ca variety of projects that included new construction, refurbishment, or simply donating supplies such as desks or textbooks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the schools America truly did build, U.S. officials repeatedly emphasized to Congress that they were constructed to high-quality standards. But in 2010, USAID\u2019s inspector general published a review<\/a> based on site visits to 30 schools. More than three-quarters suffered from physical problems, poor hardware, or other deficiencies that might expose students to \u201cunhealthy and even dangerous conditions.\u201d Also, the review found that \u201cthe International Building Code was not adhered to\u201d in USAID\u2019s school-building program.<\/p>\n

This year, BuzzFeed News found that the overwhelming majority of the more than 50 U.S.-funded schools it visited resemble abandoned buildings \u2014 marred by collapsing roofs, shattered glass, boarded-up windows, protruding electrical wires, decaying doors, or other structural defects. At least a quarter of the schools BuzzFeed News visited do not have running water.<\/p>\n

Back in 2010, USAID told the inspector general that whatever the condition of the buildings, almost all the schools in that review were being used for \u201cthe original intended purpose\u201d \u2014 that is, for educating students. Today, the agency echoed that point: Monitoring visits by a contractor, it said, showed that 85% of the USAID schools BuzzFeed News inspected \u201cwere operating as intended in 2013\u201314.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once schools are finished, USAID and the military hand them over to the Afghan government, which becomes responsible for maintaining them.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A U.S.-funded school in Kandahar province in March. BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

By obtaining internal records from the Afghan Ministry of Education, never before made public, BuzzFeed News also learned that more than 1,100 schools that the ministry publicly reported as active in 2011<\/a> were in fact not operating at all. Provincial documents show that teacher salaries \u2014 largely paid for with U.S. funds \u2014 continued to pour into ghost schools.<\/p>\n

Some local officials even allege that those salaries sometimes end up in the hands of the Taliban. Certainly, U.S.-funded school projects have often lined the pockets of brutal warlords and reviled strongmen, which sometimes soured the local population on the U.S. and the Afghan government.<\/p>\n

At schools America funded, the education provided varies wildly, from math and science to, at one school the U.S. military claimed it built, little more than memorizing the Qur\u2019an in a cramped mosque. Still, the U.S. effort has rectified one of its past mistakes. When Afghanistan was occupied by the Soviet Union, the U.S. funded school curricula that were staunchly anti-Soviet but also infested with jihadi ideology that al-Qaeda and the Taliban later used against America. Since 2002, U.S. funding has largely replaced those teaching materials by flooding the country with new textbooks.<\/p>\n

And, to be sure, American-funded teachers, curricula, and buildings have helped provide at least some education to millions of Afghan children. Especially in Kabul and other major cities, some American-built schools are functioning well. Many of the students at these urban schools are girls.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A school refurbished with U.S. funding in Nangarhar province in February. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen USAID began working in Afghanistan, the country was devastated by decades of conflict,\u201d the agency said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. While it acknowledged that \u201cmore work needs to be done,\u201d it said, \u201cmillions of Afghan boys and girls are in school, and as a result of USAID and the international community\u2019s investment, thousands more [are] attending universities and entering Afghanistan\u2019s growing workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in the areas where most U.S. funding was concentrated \u2014 territories that were key to winning the war \u2014 American efforts have fallen woefully short of the grand claims the government made, claims that it knew were false. In some cases, American efforts to provide education have actually backfired, embittering local people rather than winning their hearts and minds. What went wrong is a story of overhyping in Washington, of noble intentions going astray in a society America did not understand, and of the pitfalls of using humanitarian aid and \u201csoft power\u201d to support military and political goals.<\/p>\n

Omar Qargha, a former USAID program manager who worked on education in Afghanistan for years, watched the military\u2019s counterinsurgency goals steadily creep into the agency\u2019s work. USAID officials and contractors were summoned to presentations by generals, who asked how the agency\u2019s work fit into the military\u2019s counterinsurgency strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose was to get out a lot of good numbers, really quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cYou needed a good story. You needed a win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, report after report has chronicled the corruption and waste that squandered taxpayer dollars across many U.S. programs in Afghanistan. But American education efforts \u2014 long seen as a shining success \u2014 have gone mostly unexamined, a truth acknowledged even by one of the U.S. officials who has investigated corruption in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one wants to take a hard look at education,\u201d said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction, \u201cfor fear it might turn out to be less than it is cracked up to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

One place where it\u2019s a lot less than it\u2019s cracked up to be is the province where America poured more aid money than almost any other: Kandahar, home to Zhari district, where DeNenno\u2019s school sits.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was our warlord\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sitting on a flat, arid plain \u2014 dun-colored in winter and summer alike \u2014 Zhari\u2019s mud houses are home to opium traffickers, warlords, and supporters of the Taliban, which formed here in 1994. The district straddles Highway 1, a strategic artery connecting Kandahar City, Afghanistan\u2019s second-largest city, to the capital Kabul and other major urban centers.<\/p>\n

By 2009, the Taliban resurgence had reached Zhari. The district was the gateway to Kandahar City, a devastating coup if insurgents could capture it. Over the next year, thousands of American soldiers deployed to the area to protect Kandahar. The fight was vicious, and by 2011, reinforcements were pouring in, including Fort Drum\u2019s Third Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division \u2014 DeNenno\u2019s unit.<\/p>\n

When he arrived at the combat outpost, DeNenno noticed the children almost right away. Without a school to go to, about a dozen hung around the base, lured by a cash-for-work program. By March 2011, on his own time, he and a translator had started tutoring the kids in basic literacy in Pashto, the local language.<\/p>\n

On a marker board, their small hands practiced writing the alphabet, which DeNenno had learned in college and in a Pashto class at Fort Drum. He sent photos to his schoolteacher mother, back in rural Pennsylvania, who pitched in by organizing donations of lessons, pencils, paper, and crayons.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The children of Kandalay village waving in 2011 at the temporary school Joe DeNenno helped build. Courtesy Joe DeNenno<\/p><\/div>\n

Within a month, nearly 75 eager, clamoring students were showing up, which DeNenno believed would keep them from the Taliban and give them a real future. \u201cCall me a cynic, but I think the current generation that is in their thirties and forties, it\u2019s too late,\u201d he said. \u201cEven in the midst of terrible atrocities, the kids are still wide-eyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

But their presence on base posed a danger: If Afghan children were killed there, the backlash from the community could be explosive. Yet when he told the kids that he couldn\u2019t tutor them anymore, he recalled, \u201cthey all started crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, officers could spend cash lavishly with minimal oversight on humanitarian projects, part of the Commander\u2019s Emergency Response Program, or CERP. The point: Win over locals by giving them things they wanted \u2014 clinics, schools, roads. So DeNenno had no trouble getting $150,000 to renovate a building near the base to serve as a temporary school.<\/p>\n

As he looked for a place to build a permanent one, DeNenno began negotiating with the Afghan education ministry and local leaders. And that plunged him straight into Afghanistan\u2019s infamous corruption and tangled history \u2014 which, like so many Americans, he understood only dimly.<\/p>\n

\"DeNenno<\/a>

DeNenno on a security patrol in Kandalay village in August 2011. That summer was the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan since the war began. ROMEO GACAD \/ Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s long war against the Soviet occupation fomented roving, well-armed mujahideen militias. After defeating the Soviets in 1989, they turned on each other \u2014 jockeying for money and influence by setting up checkpoints, robbing, raping, and pillaging. They were no longer known as mujahideen<\/em>, but as topakiyan<\/em>, or warlords.<\/p>\n

Among them was Habibullah Jan, who seized land in what is now Zhari district. Habibullah Jan set up checkpoints along the critical Highway 1, and the money he amassed from his checkpoint \u201ctaxes\u201d brought him more arms and more men, but also a reputation for theft and brutality. Many locals loathed him.<\/p>\n

In spring 1994, a warlord tied to a trio of commanders including Habibullah Jan kidnapped two women from a checkpoint near the home of a cleric named Mullah Omar. Enough was enough. Mullah Omar gathered a band of religious guerrilla forces to free the women, only to find their naked corpses at the checkpoint<\/a>. Fueled by the community\u2019s outrage, they purged the area of the hated warlord and imposed Islamic law and order. The Taliban was born, with Mullah Omar at the helm. Within two years, the Taliban had seized Kabul.<\/p>\n

Habibullah Jan had fled the country, but when the Americans overthrew the Taliban in 2001, he returned and reimposed his checkpoints. With more than 2,000 men under his command and, soon, a seat in parliament, he became the most powerful man in Zhari. When his old foe the Taliban began to surge in 2005, the Americans turned to him for help.<\/p>\n

To put it plainly: The U.S. allied itself with a warlord so oppressive and kleptocratic that he helped create the Taliban in the first place.<\/p>\n

When Habibullah Jan was killed in 2008, his brother and trusted commander Haji Lala took over. He controlled a mix of police and militia forces, according to numerous Western and Afghan sources, and won security contracts from the Americans. By 2011, the year DeNenno arrived, Zhari had the largest local police force of any district in Afghanistan. Those police ran checkpoints, where, just as before, they shook down local residents.<\/p>\n

Under Haji Lala\u2019s watch, Zhari\u2019s police and militias have repeatedly been accused of torturing suspects and massacring civilians. One district official who was asked to collect the body of a 22-year-old man arrested by the police on suspicion of planting a bomb found the corpse riddled with marks of torture, according to a recent International Crisis Group report<\/a>. \u201cWhen they behave like this,\u201d the official said, \u201cthe ordinary people are creating their own militias to guard against\u201d the local police.<\/p>\n

\"Zhari<\/a>

Zhari strongman Haji Lala. David Gilkey \/ NPR (2010) \/ Via npr.org<\/p><\/div>\n

Reached by cell phone, Haji Lala denied having any armed men under his control, let alone engaging in human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Few American soldiers knew that Haji Lala and Habibullah Jan were brothers, let alone of Habibullah Jan\u2019s role in fomenting the Taliban. \u201cI liked Haji Lala,\u201d a soldier in DeNenno\u2019s unit said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure he did some bad stuff, but for us he was helpful.\u201d He added, \u201cI knew he was a warlord, but he was our warlord.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sort of. In fact, while Haji Lala denies it, he had a reputation for playing both sides. As DeNenno put it, he \u201cwould talk offline\u201d with Taliban commanders.<\/p>\n

One of the most common payments the military made was compensation. If U.S. soldiers killed an innocent bystander, or blew up a civilian\u2019s house, or killed someone\u2019s sheep, commanders would pay compensation. The amounts were often modest \u2014 from less than $100 to more than $25,000 \u2014 but in total they added up to more than $2.5 million<\/a>, from which strongmen could take a cut. DeNenno said that Haji Lala would sometimes tell the Taliban, \u201cGo blow up this area because we wanna get the Americans to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Haji Lala controlled a pro-government militia and was a leader of the Alizai, the largest tribal group in Zhari. The Americans couldn\u2019t afford to lose him fully to the Taliban. He was, as DeNenno puts it, a \u201cpain in the butt.\u201d As it would turn out, he was also the man DeNenno would need to build his school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers gained a life of their own\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the Taliban fell, American officials estimated that only about a third of school-aged children were officially enrolled in school, almost none of them girls. So when in April 2002 President George W. Bush announced an ambitious agenda to rebuild Afghanistan, a cornerstone was education for boys and girls.<\/p>\n

The challenges were epic. Many poor Afghan families keep their children out of school so they can work. Vast swathes of the population believe girls should not be educated. And, of course, the American effort to jump-start education occurred in the midst of war. Monitors could not visit many schools because of the danger, and several schools BuzzFeed News visited had been destroyed by bombs or shelling.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The ruins of Nahre Karez Primary School. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

Still, the money spigot opened, and to date USAID has spent more than $750 million on efforts such as constructing schools, training teachers, and building up the fledgling Afghan Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n

But the goal was never just to educate children. Education was also a means to advance America\u2019s short-term military and political objectives. In 2003, a National Security Council\u2013led \u201cAccelerating Success\u201d program demanded that USAID hasten its work and complete 314 schools by June 2004. The reason: The U.S. wanted achievements \u2014 statistics \u2014 to extol ahead of the Afghan presidential election.<\/p>\n

As a result of the NSC directive, USAID Director Patrick Fine wrote in an October 2004 internal memo<\/a>, first obtained by the Washington Post<\/em>, \u201cawards were made without having design specifications, without agreed sites selected or surveyed or a process to do this, and without adequate consultation with either the [Ministry of Education or Ministry of Health] or the beneficiary communities.\u201d The target numbers, he continued, \u201chad gained a life of their own and were driving USAID to continue to rush the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Profiteers exploited that rush. A full reckoning of the waste and outright fraud has never happened, in part because cases of corruption have often been hidden for years.<\/p>\n

When an accountant went to federal investigators in 2006 with evidence that one of USAID\u2019s largest contractors, Louis Berger Group, had been defrauding the agency of millions<\/a> for years, the investigation was kept under federal seal until late 2010<\/a>. Only then did the Justice Department reveal that two executives had pleaded guilty to fraud and announce the deal it had reached behind closed doors: The company as a whole would avoid criminal charges and be allowed to continue winning government contracts in exchange for implementing new financial controls and paying nearly $70 million in fines<\/a>. Since the whistleblower came forward, USAID has awarded the company contracts worth more than 10 times what it was fined.<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed News uncovered another case of corruption long obscured<\/a> from public view.<\/p>\n

In May 2004, during the agency\u2019s rush to build schools, a Minnesota-based Christian humanitarian group called Shelter for Life International received a $14 million contract from USAID to build 32 schools and 20 clinics. As is common with such contracts, Shelter for Life didn\u2019t carry out the work itself; instead, it subcontracted to Five Stones Group, a for-profit company.<\/p>\n

By July, however, Shelter for Life \u201cdidn\u2019t like what they were seeing,\u201d as one former employee put it, and suspended the contract, demanding that the funds already advanced be returned or accounted for. Auditors learned<\/a> that Five Stones implementer Timothy Allish spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxuries such as moving into and renovating a mansion and buying pricey cars, according to the former Shelter for Life employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Though Shelter for Life was able to seize back some of the assets from Allish, including four Land Cruisers and six Hiluxes, according to the former employee, it failed to recover nearly $200,000 in additional funds.<\/p>\n

Allish did not respond to repeated attempts to reach him by phone, text, and email, as well as through relatives.<\/p>\n

USAID told BuzzFeed News that it had \u201crequested a full repayment of the funds,\u201d which Shelter for Life said it is still paying back in monthly installments. USAID also said that in 2010 it added a new monitoring program that would retroactively check all construction projects it had funded in Afghanistan \u2014 though in practice, monitors didn\u2019t visit many projects because of security threats.<\/p>\n

That might be one reason the agency did not know what happened to the Nimatullah Khan Primary School, built by Shelter for Life in Kandahar, the province where DeNenno served. It was completed at a cost of $150,000, handed over to the Afghan government in September 2005, and sits in the little village of Nawabad. At least it does in USAID\u2019s records.<\/p>\n

Locals, as well as current and former district education directors, say this school never existed in Nawabad. True, there is a primary school in the village \u2014 in a rented house made entirely out of mud.<\/p>\n

\"Nawabad<\/a>

Nawabad Primary School in Spin Boldak District. BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

When BuzzFeed News told USAID about its findings, the agency said that the school had been visited by a third-party monitor but did not say when. A scheduled second inspection wasn\u2019t carried out \u201cdue to insecurity in the area,\u201d the agency said, but added that satellite imagery showed the school had \u201cno visible damage.\u201d Shelter for Life provided documents citing what it said was the GPS location of the Nimatullah Khan School and photos of its construction.<\/p>\n

Neither gave any indication that they knew what BuzzFeed News discovered: The GPS coordinates were not of a school named Nimatullah Khan in Nawabad but of another school, with another name, located in another village that just happens to be home to the notorious Kandahar Police Chief Abdul Raziq. A sign above its entrance makes no mistake about whom it\u2019s named after: \u201cAbdul Raziq Middle School.\u201d<\/p>\n

With command of a large contingent of the national police and other armed militias, Raziq is widely considered the most powerful warlord in southern Afghanistan. He is also accused of extrajudicial killings, drug trafficking, and torture<\/a>, documented by human rights groups and journalists for years. Raziq couldn\u2019t be reached for comment but has previously denied the accusations.<\/p>\n

\"Abdul<\/a>

Abdul Raziq Middle School. BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

How the school wound up in his family\u2019s village instead of in Nawabad is unclear. What is clear is that Abzul Raziq Middle School sat empty for three years after it was built, because there were no residents in the area to attend it. It was, as the district\u2019s former education director explained, \u201cfar away from villages; it was just in [the] desert.\u201d Meanwhile, the children of Nawabad continue to attend their tiny mud school.<\/p>\n

From 2008 to at least August 2013, USAID claimed it had built or refurbished more than 680 schools in the country since the U.S. invaded \u2014 a figure the agency sometimes used to counter bad press and that it repeated on Twitter<\/a> and in blog posts<\/a>, press releases<\/a>, and a report<\/a> from USAID\u2019s Office of the Inspector General, not to mention in Secretary Clinton\u2019s submission to Congress.<\/p>\n

But over the last two years, USAID has quietly whittled away at that number without explaining what happened to the more than 115 schools it no longer says it built or refurbished. After BuzzFeed News pressed for an answer, Larry Sampler, the head of USAID\u2019s Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, said the agency had \u201crevised its operational definition of school construction\u201d to a \u201cstricter definition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou buy people\u2019s favor\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As DeNenno went about looking for where to build the permanent school, the Zhari district governor, Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, knew the perfect place for it \u2014 a spot right off the highway, not far from the U.S. base. They convened a series of shuras<\/em>, or meetings with local elders, to move forward. And that\u2019s when Haji Lala stepped in.<\/p>\n

He said the land was his.<\/p>\n

In Afghanistan, written land deeds rarely exist, and it\u2019s not clear if he had one. But Haji Lala definitely had two things far more important than any piece of paper: control of a militia, and an occupying army \u2014 the Americans \u2014 desperate for an ally. Haji Lala wanted to sell the land, but the Ministry of Education insisted that it be donated.<\/p>\n

Haji Lala stood his ground, and the project came to a standstill. But the war didn\u2019t. The commander of a Taliban cell was targeting and killing Afghans working for the Americans. In just a few weeks in August and September, DeNenno said, the Taliban commander killed five informants he had relied on.<\/p>\n

Not long after that, a U.S. colonel, Patrick Frank, came over to Haji Lala\u2019s compound for tea. According to five U.S. and Afghan sources, he departed with a deal for enough land to build both a school and a clinic. All it took was a little grease.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked them to give me the contract for the health clinic,\u201d Haji Lala explained. \u201cThey agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long after that, Haji Lala\u2019s construction company won a $375,000 military contract<\/a> for the clinic, to be built next to the school. The clinic was still under construction, Gov. Sarhadi said, when locals began coming to him to complain about the quality of work, and he admonished the clinic contractors for using secondhand bricks. Haji Lala said the building was constructed well.<\/strong> Through a military spokesperson, Col. Frank declined to comment, and the Pentagon didn\u2019t answer questions about the clinic or the school.<\/p>\n

The clinic opened in August 2012. In October, military records show, it failed a quality inspection, and in December \u2014 under a \u201cdirective of fix what\u2019s broke\u201d \u2014 it got more than $57,000<\/a> in additional funding for improvements.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one likes to say this,\u201d DeNenno explained, \u201cbut there is a part of war where you are buying people\u2019s favor. It\u2019s inevitable at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Afghanistan, it was inevitable at many points, as America injected vast amounts of cash into a society it didn\u2019t understand and that was fractured by decades of war and corruption.<\/p>\n

Less than 20 miles southeast of DeNenno\u2019s school, Deh-e-Bagh Primary School was recorded in U.S. military records as completed in 2012, at cost and up to standard. The nine-room building, along with latrines and a security wall, would allow children to go to school regularly and provide a \u201ctangible source of community pride and legitimacy\u201d for local elders and the Afghan government, the records say.<\/p>\n

\"Deh-e-Bagh<\/a>

Deh-e-Bagh Primary School in March 2015. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

But Deh-e-Bagh Primary School has never seen a single student. Only partially completed in 2012, its doors have never opened. There are no latrines, no running water. Without a security wall surrounding it, the building has deteriorated. Windows are smashed. Rooms are littered with construction materials.<\/p>\n

U.S. military officials in Kabul confirmed the Deh-e-Bagh school construction was funded with Pentagon dollars but added: \u201cWe do not have further information about the actual administration of the project, so we are not able to provide additional background on this for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed News investigated and discovered a sorry tale of U.S. education money going to local strongmen, no matter how corrupt. In 2011, Ghulam Haider, a landowner in Deh-e-Bagh, agreed to donate a plot. The district governor, Amadullah Nazek, suggested he team up with a local firm, Fatay Khan Construction Company, or FKCC. That company just happened to be owned by the governor\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

\"Deh-e-Bagh<\/a>

Deh-e-Bagh Primary School. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

When the building was approaching completion in early 2012, Haider said, only about half of the nearly $100,000 contract awarded by the U.S. government had been used. But when he sought funds to build the boundary wall, he said, FKCC told him they didn\u2019t have it yet and were waiting on the Americans to disburse the money. As the months went by, he said, it dawned on him that FKCC had siphoned off the construction funds and had no intention of ever paying him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when I go to the company to see Fatay Khan, he hides,\u201d Haider lamented.<\/p>\n

At his Kandahar City offices, decorated with ornate chandeliers, tasseled drapes, and a framed ceremonial dagger, Khan denied he ever received the contract, insisting another company, Wali Beradaran Construction, won it instead. But according to an archived page<\/a> of FKCC\u2019s now-defunct website, that company is one of Khan\u2019s partner firms.<\/p>\n

When reached by phone, a man at Wali Beradaran Construction declined to give his name and said, \u201cNever call this number again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazek did not respond to numerous phone calls and text messages.<\/p>\n

An internal military intelligence assessment from 2011 reveals that the U.S. was well aware of Gov. Nazek\u2019s business relationship with Khan:<\/p>\n

\u201c[Khan] acts both as Nazek\u2019s personal assistant as well as the representative for development projects in [the district]. Ostensibly this is because Nazek cannot trust anyone outside of his own family for security reasons,\u201d the report notes. \u201cIn reality, working solely through Fatay Khan allows Nazek to control every aspect of development contracting and to maximize his own profits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haider, who said he still hasn\u2019t received money to build the missing security wall, is effectively holding the entire project hostage. \u201cI\u2019m keeping it closed on purpose until I get paid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The village children are the ones paying the price. Instead of having classes in the new school, they study in a cramped mosque across the street. On a visit by BuzzFeed News this March, about 50 children had spilled out onto the grass outside, where they sat rocking back and forth, reading the Qur\u2019an.<\/p>\n

\"Deh-e-Bagh<\/a>

Deh-e-Bagh Mosque. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

One of them was Haider\u2019s own 10-year-old daughter, Nasima, who said she wants to be a doctor. But at the mosque school, she and all the other girls get only a religious education from the local mullah. The little time a visiting UNICEF-funded teacher has for subjects such as math and reading is reserved for the boys, such as Nasima\u2019s brother Sanaullah.<\/p>\n

When the pupils don\u2019t behave, Timorr Shah, an assistant at the mosque, has a skinny stick ready to strike. \u201cI just want to scare them,\u201d he explained, waving it in the direction of the children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is no beating,\u201d one small student responded solemnly, \u201cthere is no learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Deh-e-Bagh<\/a>

Deh-e-Bagh Mosque. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

Ghost students, ghost teachers<\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S. officials have proudly proclaimed the number of students American tax dollars are educating. \u201cOver three million Afghan girls and boys returned to school,\u201d the State Department reported in 2003, \u201cfar exceeding the most optimistic target of 1.5 million children.\u201d Two years later, USAID officials announced that there were five times as many children in school \u2014 35% of them girls \u2014 than under the Taliban regime. In 2008, the count climbed to more than 6 million children, and by 2012, more than 8 million.<\/p>\n

That same year, 2012, a military unit distributed supplies to the Sher Mohammad Hotak Primary School, located just a few miles down Highway 1 from DeNenno\u2019s base. Fifty girls attended the school, according to the unit\u2019s records. In photos<\/a> the unit posted to Facebook, both girls and boys are seen smiling and collecting new backpacks. Together, USAID and the Pentagon have pumped more than $200,000 into the school.<\/p>\n

But in an unannounced visit to the school this March, not a single girl was in attendance. Instead, the seven tents that made up the school were filled with boys, some of whom had no chairs or desks. They sat on rocky ground, fading backpacks emblazoned with the Afghan flag next to them.<\/p>\n

It was that way across Afghanistan, with school after school visited by BuzzFeed News showing fewer students than were on the books. In 2011 and 2012, USAID sent monitors to many of the schools it had funded to check the number of students and other key information. Since then it has relied almost exclusively<\/a> on data provided by the Afghan Ministry of Education to determine how many students and teachers are in schools. But no matter who came up with the official count, it often exaggerated the reality on the ground.<\/p>\n

At the USAID-funded Mujahed Sameullah Middle School in Kunar province, for example, there were fewer than 50 boys, sometimes sitting two per classroom. That\u2019s only about a fifth of the 274 boys USAID\u2019s quality assurance monitors recorded in 2011 or the 264 the Afghan government told BuzzFeed News are currently enrolled. Overall, in the schools BuzzFeed News visited for which comparison data was available, official figures overcounted students by an average of nearly a fifth \u2014 and girls by about two-fifths.<\/p>\n

\"Mujahed<\/a>

Mujahed Sameullah School in Kunar. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

USAID\u2019s own reports have also flagged exaggerated enrollment \u2014 for years. In a 2006 report, USAID found that one-fifth of students reportedly enrolled during the previous two years were \u201cghost students\u201d \u2014 students who had dropped out but remained listed as enrolled.<\/p>\n

Enrollment estimates, the report stated, \u201ctend to exaggerate calculations of increases in enrollment in the primary and secondary school system and underestimate the inefficiency of the system since it \u2018leaks\u2019 up to one-fifth of the student population per year.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a written response for this story, the agency maintained that the report did not state that \u201cenrollment was inflated, only that the number of students who dropout should also be considered.\u201d A USAID spokesperson said he didn\u2019t think the report had ever been made public.<\/p>\n

The ministry and the U.S. government \u201cdidn\u2019t really like our analysis, and they never officially endorsed it,\u201d said Craig Naumann, a statistician who helped calculate these findings when he was embedded within the Ministry of Education between 2003 and 2007. \u201cBecause in that specific politicized context, where high enrollment numbers, particularly high female enrollment, meant that all this fighting and all this money pumped into the country ended up achieving something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former employees of both USAID and the Pentagon said that among U.S. officials working on education, it was common knowledge that the Afghan Ministry of Education padded statistics. Indeed, the ministry counts students as enrolled even if they have been absent for as long as three years<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In response to questions, USAID said that it takes seriously any allegations of falsified data and \u201cwill continue to work with the ministry to improve reliability.\u201d It also said that beginning in 2012, the agency and other donors recommended that the ministry tighten that standard from three years to one. To date, the ministry has not done so. Still, USAID told BuzzFeed News that while it could not \u201cbe absolutely sure of all attendance numbers in all Afghan schools at all times,\u201d in general it \u201cis confident in overall attendance numbers provided by the MoE.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Elizabeth Royall, a U.S. liaison to the ministry in 2011 and 2012, said, \u201cThere was a lack of scrutiny. I would just report MOE numbers, and that\u2019s what we went with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. just went with the ministry\u2019s numbers for teachers, too. And those numbers were used to pay salaries \u2014 even when the teachers weren\u2019t teaching.<\/p>\n

BuzzFeed News obtained internal Ministry of Education data for 2011 that has never before been made public. For Afghanistan overall, the data showed 1,174 schools \u2014 almost 1 in every 12 \u2014 was a ghost school, an educational facility that the Afghan government publicly claimed was open but that was, in fact, not operating. In the provinces that are the most dangerous to monitor \u2014 and into which the U.S. poured the most aid money \u2014 that proportion soared. In Kandahar province, where DeNenno served, a full third of the 423 schools the Ministry of Education publicly reported as open in 2011 were not functioning, and in Helmand, it was more than half.<\/p>\n

But teacher salaries continued to go to these ghost schools \u2014 and still do, according to numerous Afghan and U.S. sources. While the Afghan government puts in some of its own money to pay teachers, more than two-thirds of teacher salaries are provided through a World Bank fund, to which the United States is the biggest donor. The World Bank fund did not respond to requests for comment, but USAID said that World Bank financial controls guard against salaries going to ghost teachers.<\/p>\n

And just as with ghost students, the U.S. government has known about ghost teachers for years. Back in 2005 and 2006, an internal education ministry task force calculated that at least $12 million in salaries were going to so-called ghost teachers annually, according to several former employees of the USAID contractors embedded in the ministry. A scathing, confidential 2013 USAID audit<\/a> of the Afghan education ministry obtained by BuzzFeed News reveals that the United States had been injecting hundreds of millions of dollars for more than a decade into a ministry marred by an \u201cinadequate payroll system\u201d and lacking even the most basic auditing practices.<\/p>\n

In some areas, the belief that ghost schools have enriched fat cats at the expense of Afghan children has stoked such widespread ire that American education aid is actually doing the opposite of what the U.S. intended: It\u2019s turning locals against the government.<\/p>\n

In mountainous Zabul province, members of the provincial legislature have been documenting ghost schools they say are being used to embezzle teacher salaries. The internal ministry data obtained by BuzzFeed News shows how dire Zabul\u2019s ghost school problem is: Of the 234 schools that the ministry cited as open there in 2011, more than three-quarters were actually shuttered.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Daud Gulzar, a provincial lawmaker, produced recent payroll documents showing regular payments to teachers at schools he and other local leaders say are closed.<\/p>\n

The ghost schools, widespread and well-known, were the background to a news report from Zabul that aired on Afghan Tolo TV last year. Furious tribal elders had gathered to discuss the failing school system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there any school in Khaka?\u201d the head of the provincial legislature asked the room full of elders. \u201cNo!\u201d they shout back. \u201cIs there any school in Ghawjai?\u201d Again, they shout, \u201cNo!\u201d The scene repeats several times, as more district and village names are thrown out.<\/p>\n

At one point, the provincial police chief shouts out who he thinks are commandeering the payments: \u201cEveryone knows the salaries of teachers come to the province, and then they go to the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it could be nothing\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite Haji Lala\u2019s demands, despite the roadside bombs and the beheadings, despite everything, Joe DeNenno\u2019s school opened \u2014 and the children came in droves. And no wonder. It had grown organically, from informal tutoring to a temporary school to a permanent one. It had a mom in Pennsylvania organizing donations. And it had DeNenno, a guy who\u2019s good with kids and wanted to make it work.<\/p>\n

And his success bred more schools. \u201cThere\u2019s this thing called competition,\u201d explained a senior officer deeply involved in U.S. education efforts in Kandahar. \u201cSo if one commander is seeing something in another commander\u2019s unit that\u2019s getting attention, he\u2019ll want to follow. It took on a life of its own. They started saying schools, schools, schools!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sher<\/a>

Sher Mohammad Hotak Primary School in Kandahar. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2011 alone, seven U.S.-funded schools opened in Zhari, each to a blitz of press attention. \u201cIt\u2019s victory,\u201d a U.S. command sergeant major said<\/a> of one of the schools. \u201cIt\u2019s winning.\u201d But his school and two others were just temporary tent schools. Of the permanent school buildings, at least one \u2014 which cost nearly $300,000 to construct \u2014 is no longer operating because, according to Zhari\u2019s education director, there are no children in the community to attend it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying I\u2019ve built 50 schools doesn\u2019t mean anything,\u201d said DeNenno. \u201cIt\u2019s such a farce to conclude that the number is considered a success.\u201d Looking back, he said, \u201cI do believe there was too much money pumped in way too quickly, especially in rural areas with little infrastructure to handle that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Military spending under the CERP program required very little paperwork for most projects. The point was to help win a war. But that flexibility means, quite literally, that the military does not know what it spent on education in Afghanistan, or what it got for its money. The military conceded that many CERP projects were not entered into \u201cprocurement database systems\u201d but said it \u201cdoes maintain extensive project records.\u201d Last year, however, the Defense Department told the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction just how little it knew: For more than 40% of CERP projects, the Pentagon could not say who ultimately received its money.<\/p>\n

Pressed by BuzzFeed News, the Pentagon said it could not provide an exact number of schools it actually built. It also could not say how the more than $250 million in CERP funding earmarked for education was actually spent. To try to drill down on those figures, BuzzFeed News filed a Freedom of Information request and obtained CERP funding records \u2014 but found that entire projects were missing, including Joe DeNenno\u2019s permanent school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CERP database was an absolute mess, literally a disaster,\u201d one government official familiar with the records said. \u201cSaying disaster doesn\u2019t even do it justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2002, the United States has invested more than $1 billion to provide education to Afghan children. But the American government does not know how many schools it has built, how many Afghan students are actually attending school, or how many teachers are actually teaching. What\u2019s certain is the numbers for all of those are far less than what it has been peddling.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, Joe DeNenno considers his school a success.<\/p>\n

Looking at recent pictures of the school he helped build, he sees the cracks in the building\u2019s rotting exterior. He knows the roof leaks and there is no running water. He knows no girls are taught there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building is deteriorating,\u201d he admitted. \u201cBut it could be nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kandalay<\/a>

Kandalay School in Zhari. Azmat Khan \/ BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

Azmat Khan is an investigative reporter for<\/em> BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.<\/em> azmat.khan@buzzfeed.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Bakhtyar Zadran contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 buzzfeed.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Jul 2015 – The United States trumpets education as one of its shining successes of the war in Afghanistan. But a BuzzFeed News investigation reveals U.S. claims were often outright lies, as the government peddled numbers it knew to be false and touted schools that have never seen a single student.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-central-asia-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}