The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

Pakistan. And that ally, in its existence-threatening con- frontation with the Soviet Union at that time, would also ben- efit from U.S. assistance to the resistance. The overall program effectiveness and operational details of O/AID/Rep owe much to the office’s first director, Larry Crandall. He and some Washington allies moved USAID to support a non-traditional country program with an office in exile and a non-traditional counterpart. The main office was housed in Embassy Islamabad, deliberately separate from, and largely independent of, USAID/Pakistan. Operational offices were soon established in Peshawar and Quetta close to the Afghan border, where most contractors and grantees with their large, qualified Afghan staffs were housed and trained. (For security reasons, U.S. staff were not permitted to enter Afghanistan.) The non-traditional counterpart was Pakistan’s now well-known InterServices Intelligence Directorate, which proved to be a generally supportive and effective counterpart, interfering little in the movement of humanitarian and develop- mental supplies and staff. Beginning in the last two months of Fiscal Year 1985 with limited and previ- ously obligated but unexpended funds, the program grew in size and scope to about $250 million. It included PL-480 Title Two food aid and more than 100 “McCollum Flights,” which transported the Afghan war wounded for prearranged pro bono treat- ment in the U.S., Europe and Japan. The Primary and Mother/Child Health and Education programs alone totaled over $140 million, with one annual obligation of $70 million supporting 15 contractors, grantees and multinational NGOs. A little-used Foreign Assistance Act “notwithstanding clause” multiplied the U.S. budget obligations. This per- mitted binding provisions on a given program to be waived in the interests of the U.S. government. However, those interests had to be codified and reduced to a decision memo, and no unlawful activities were allowed. Medical supplies and pharmaceuticals from quality-tested and certi- fied U.S., multinational or Pakistani manufacturers, pro- duced in Pakistan, could be substituted for U.S.-made mate- rials. (Items that cost $1,000 when purchased in the United States could be delivered in Pakistan for $200.) This boost- ed the local economy, shortened supply lines and greatly magnified the humanitarian impact of the health program for Afghans. A logistics and transport program airlifted Tennessee mules for transport of donated or purchased humanitarian supplies, built roads and constructed a strategic, U.S.-sup- plied, movable steel Bailey Bridge across the Konar River. This provided access to northern Afghanistan, bypassing the principal north-south routes held by the PDPA. A mine- detecting dog program proved an effective multiethnic, humanitarian and national institution that continued into the current decade. Training and salaries to several thousand Afghan staff boosted institutions and economies in the Pakistan border areas and Afghanistan. A Unique Structure U.S. project officers and implementers operating in Pakistan enjoyed remarkable freedom from interference in carrying out these programs, due partly to the unique structure of the organiza- tion and the high morale of O/AID/Rep staff. The informal motto was “Ready, fire, AIM” (the acronym standing for “Activity Identification Memo” — an O/AID/Rep substitute for the more pon- derous USAID project development paperwork normally required). O/AID/Rep programs also enjoyed the cooperation of the Afghan resistance organizations and good relations with the Pakistani ISI to a degree not possible with the lethal assistance— the subject of “blowback.” The health and education programs, for example, were able to finesse the ISI standard that all assistance had to be distributed through one of the seven Pakistani registered political organizations, several of whom were known to be extremist. (It should also be noted that Islamic-funded health and education NGOs declined to join in coordination efforts with USAID and other donors.) The health and edu- cation programs expanded from the border areas to serve anywhere in the country based on population distribution, and regardless of dominant ethnic or party affiliation. Project implementers were encouraged to switch the focus of training and implementation from U.S. and third-country staff operating out of Pakistan to Afghan trainers working inside Afghanistan. U.S. staff in Pakistan provided logistics support and quality control. O/AID/Rep was generally the largest, and sometimes the sole, bilateral contributor to programs assisting the majority of Afghans who remained in the country. It directed assis- tance to resistance-controlled areas, whose population was estimated in 1990 as exceeding eight million (excluding refugees, war dead and populations under PDPA control). The resilience of the Afghan people and the level of outside support for those remaining in the country under often- appalling conditions contributed, as intended, to blunting the Soviet depopulation and “scorched earth” policy. This D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49 Afghans date America’s abandonment of them from April 1992.