Amsterdam - Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen should
convince NATO to appoint an independent inspector-general to
supervise Afghanistan's reconstruction, Dutch legislator Femke
Halsema said in the Dutch parliament on Tuesday.
If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization does not want to appoint
such an official in Afghanistan, then the Netherlands should appoint
an inspector-general itself, Halsema said.
The leader of the Greens Party was speaking following the recent
report in the US daily The New York Times citing a draft US federal
government document as saying the (as of mid-2008) 117-billion-dollar
reconstruction of Iraq has failed.
Halsema said the situation with reconstruction in Afghanistan was
more complicated than that in Iraq as more countries were involved
and greater coordination was needed.
The various countries that are active in Afghanistan have
committed themselves to donate some 18.29 billion euro in aid, of
which 11 billion has already been given.
But, Halsema said, the Afghan authorities were financing 90 per
cent of their own expenditures with the money intended for
reconstruction.
Humanitarian aid organizations also noted previously much of the
funding intended for the country's reconstruction is in practise used
for political and military goals.
A total of 1,200 Dutch troops have been stationed in Afghanistan
as part of NATO's International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF)
since March 2006.
The Dutch military are predominantly located in the southern
province of Uruzghan, with some troops being deployed in Kandahar and
Kabul. The Dutch are set to stay in Afghanistan until the summer of
2010.
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