WASHINGTON – A draft report by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there, U.S. officials familiar with the document say.
The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence from militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan.
The report, a nearly completed version of a National Intelligence Estimate, is set to be finished after the November elections and will be the most comprehensive U.S. assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan. Its conclusions represent a harsh verdict on decision-making in the Bush administration, which in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made Afghanistan the central focus of a global campaign against terrorism.
Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring Pakistan, the intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan's most vexing problems are of the country's own making, the officials said.
The report cites gains in the building of Afghanistan's national army, the officials said. But they said it also laid out in stark terms what it described as the destabilizing effect of the booming heroin trade, which by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy.
The Bush administration has initiated a major review of its Afghanistan policy and has decided to send additional troops to the country.
A National Intelligence Estimate reflects the consensus judgments of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
