Inspectors call Afghan police tracking system a failure

A system designed to track the success of Afghan police training is deeply flawed, says a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR). Some 67 out of 101 Afghan National Police (ANP) units rated capable of working independently had regressed within a year, says the report that was published Tuesday. "It basically has not been a dependable system on which to determine the capability of the Afghan national security forces," says SIGAR chief Arnold Fields. Washington-based SIGAR was created by the U.S. Congress in January 2008 to conduct independent investigations of the 39 billion dollars in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance provided to Afghanistan. The 55-page report, "Actions Needed to Improve the Reliability of Afghan Security Force Assessments", is bound to complicate the Barack Obama administration's plans for Afghanistan. One of the key goals for a drawdown of U.S. troop levels by July 2011 is that at least 100,000 trained police officers should be operating in Afghan towns as well as in the scattered hamlets that make up the bulk of the country.