VZCZCXRO9958
RR RUEHDBU RUEHPW RUEHSL
DE RUEHBUL #3419/01 2991204
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 261204Z OCT 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2461
INFO RHMCSUU/FBI WASHINGTON DC
RUEABND/DEA HQS WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 003419 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/A, SRAP, INL 
FBI FOR DIRECTOR 
DEA FOR HEADQUARTERS 
DOJ FOR HEADQUARTERS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KJUS PGOV EAID KCRM KCOR AMGT AF
SUBJECT:  Major Crimes Task Force - A Key Element of the Road Map 
for Fighting Corruption and Serious Crimes in Afghanistan 
 
REF: KABUL 3185 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  The Federal Bureau of Investigation will soon 
complete construction of a facility in Kabul to house the Major 
Crimes Task Force (MCTF).  We see the MCTF as our flagship 
anti-corruption program, and hope FBI Director will be able to visit 
the facility site next month as a means of recognizing the most 
effective U.S.-Afghan action against corruption as real and 
expanding.  In partnership with the Afghan government, the UK, and 
other U.S. agencies, the MCTF will investigate serious crimes -- 
kidnapping, corruption, and organized crime -- in Afghanistan.  The 
MCTF will be a key component in U.S.-Afghan efforts to fight 
corruption.  To maximize the MCTF's effectiveness, we should support 
integral and necessary measures to strengthen the rule of law, such 
as ourproposal to create an Afghan judicial security force 
(reftel).  Our efforts against corruption will require sustained, 
skillful, foreign and Afghan investment in programs and human 
capital.  End summary. 
 
U.S. and UK Partner with Afghans to Fight 
Serious Crime and Corruption 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is working closely 
with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Combined Security 
Transition Command (CSTC-A), the State Department/INL and the UK's 
Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) to build a Major Crimes Task 
Force (MCTF).  These U.S. and UK law enforcement agencies are 
working as a team with the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MOI), 
National Directorate of Security (NDS) and Attorney General's Office 
(AGO) to fight serious crime (kidnapping, corruption, and organized 
crime) in Afghanistan. 
 
¶3. (U) The FBI will assign ten additional FBI Special Agent mentors 
to cooperate with and develop the skills of approximately 100 Afghan 
MOI and NDS investigators at the MCTF.  (Five agents are currently 
assigned.)  Most will serve one-year tours.  The FBI is initiating 
its own version of "Afghan Hands" to develop FBI officers' 
experience in support of the MCTF.  (Note: "Afghan Hands" is a DOD 
manning and training program, approved by the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, designed to develop a core cadre of expert 
personnel to conduct repeated assignments in critical billets in 
Afghanistan.  End note.)  FBI Afghan Hands will consist of four 
months of language training followed by an eight-month assignment in 
Afghanistan. 
 
¶4.  (U) In addition, four UK mentors and 30 vetted NDS and MOI 
investigators (15 each), will form the MCTF's Corruption 
Investigation Unit.  The Unit will focus on high level Afghan 
corruption with no U.S. nexus.  Trained and vetted prosecutors 
currently working at the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Afghan Attorney 
General's office will support the MCTF.  In addition, the Office of 
the Special Investigator General (SIGAR) -- with 18 investigators, 
inspectors, and auditors in Afghanistan -- and the International 
Contract and Corruption Task Force - Afghanistan (ICCTF) will also 
support the MCTF. (Note:  The ICCTF is a multi-agency law 
enforcement task force focused on combating contract fraud and 
public corruption relating to U.S. Government spending.  End Note.) 
 
 
Camp Falcon: Future Home of the MCTF 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶5. (U) Our mission interagency law enforcement team strongly 
supports the FBI's conclusion that establishing a permanent home for 
the interagency MCTF is necessary to: (1) build significant Afghan 
anti-corruption capabilities, and (2) attract like-minded entities 
to build on existing anti-corruption efforts.  We have identified 
Camp Falcon as the best site, and construction of the MCTF facility 
is underway.  The SOCA expects to move into the Camp in November 
¶2009.  The MCTF should be fully operational by January 2010.  Camp 
Falcon is located near the Kabul Airport, and adjacent to other 
U.S.-built facilities, including the new Drug Enforcement 
Administration (DEA) facility and the Counter-Narcotics Justice 
Center (CNJC). 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) The MCTF is an emerging interagency and international 
cooperation success story with the MCTF playing a pivotal role in 
U.S. and Afghan anti-corruption efforts.  It will prosecute 
high-level corruption cases referred through the corruption 
 
KABUL 00003419  002 OF 002 
 
 
reporting process recently launched by the U.S. Embassy in 
partnership with NATO (see septel and Fragmentary Order number 
498-2009).  As part of the Embassy's anti-corruption strategy, the 
MCTF could serve as the prosecution arm of the High Office of 
Oversight (or successor institution), the Afghan government's 
anti-corruption watchdog. 
 
¶7. (SBU) However, Afghan courts now cannot effectively prosecute 
MCTF cases because of severe capacity limitations, judicial 
corruption, and lack of security for judges and prosecutors. 
Ultimately, U.S.-supported Afghan efforts to fight corruption will 
fail without secure and independent courts.  We are working to build 
the capacity and independence of Afghan courts with initiatives that 
would (1) provide judicial security (reftel), (2) increase salaries 
for prosecutors, and (3) build judicial capacity at the national and 
regional levels.  We also advocate the creation of a court of 
special jurisdiction, based on the successful model of the 
Counter-Narcotics Justice Center, to prosecute MCTF cases.  All of 
these efforts will require significant and persistent human and 
program investment, necessarily from foreign sources.  As always, 
this raises the issue of sustainability.  However, without such 
investment in effective rule of law capacity, there will be little 
left of the Afghan government (and our strategic policy interest in 
its existence and effectiveness) to sustain.  End comment. 
 
EIKENBERRY