Daily Archives: July 9, 2015

We Meant Well, Afghanistan Edition: Ghost Students, Ghost Teachers, Ghost Schools, Ugh!

July 9, 2015 By in Disasters, Federal Agencies, Follow the Money, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Assistance, Foreign Policy, Foreign Service, Huh? News, Legacy, State Department, U.S. Missions, USAID, War Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted: 1:16 am  PDT
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Excerpt:

Over and over, the United States has touted education — for which it has spent more than $1 billion — 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 — the number of schools built, girls enrolled, textbooks distributed, teachers trained, and dollars spent — to help justify the 13 years and more than 2,000 Americans killed since the United States invaded.

But a BuzzFeed News investigation — 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 — 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’s 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.
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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.

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 “more than 605.” 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.
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Last week, we were looking for clinics.

What’s next … ghost soldiers? Oops, that’s already an old story?

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State Dept Suspends All Tarrant County (Texas) Passport Processing Authority

July 9, 2015 By in Consular Work, Diplomatic Security, Functional Bureaus, Security, State Department Tags: , , , ,

Posted: 12:50 am  PDT
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The Star Telegram reports that the State Department has suspended all Tarrant County (Texas – Ft Worth’s county) acceptance agents’ authority to accept passport applications.

The Tarrant County district clerk’s office cannot process passport applications until an investigation into a “possible infraction” is completed by the U.S. State Department, County Administrator G.K. Maenius said Tuesday.

The district clerk’s office has not been able to accept applications since it was notified by the State Department of the investigation on June 25, Maenius said.

The clerk’s office has processed about 33,000 applications so far this year. As a registered agent of the State Department, the office has been handling passport applications since 1999, currently at six locations around the county.

One prospective passport applicant told the Star that she could not even pick up the paperwork for the passport application nor get any information about passports from one of the processing sites in the county.
Read more here.

The Tarrant County website posted the following information:

Screen Shot 2015-07-08

via Tarrant County, TX

NBCDFW.com says that the order comes amid a federal investigation into the use of fraudulent documents to obtain passports in Tarrant County and whether clerks followed proper procedures, according to a person familiar with the case.

Later on July 8, NBC5 reports that the Department of State confirmed it is investigating Tarrant County’s passport office and had ordered the county to stop taking passport applications but would say little else.

“We can confirm that all passport acceptance facilities in Tarrant County, Texas, have temporarily suspended accepting U.S. passport applications,” a State Department spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “As a review is ongoing, we cannot comment on further details.”

Last May, a Grand Jury in the Southern District of Texas indicted three women charged with nine counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with the alleged use of U.S. passport information from the Houston Passport Office. (See U.S. Passport Agency Contractor, Two Others Indicted for Alleged Use of Stolen Passport Information). That case is currently pending in the Southern District of Texas in Houston. Jury selection and trial in that case is set for October 13, 2015.

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