US paid Karzais top aide $100,000+ a year!
December 19, 2013  15:51
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The Afghan president's top aide was on two USAID contractors' payroll, drawing more than $100,000 a year as part of a program to install West-backed technocrats in the government, reports thedailybeast.com.

'The contractor salary provided to Said Jawad was part of a US initiative to directly pay high salaries to Western-educated Afghans who helped rebuild a government from scratch in the midst of an ongoing civil war and foreign occupation,' report Eli Lake and Josh Rogin.

'Two separate contracts for Jawad, one reviewed by The Daily Beast and the other mentioned in an email to Jawad, total more than $100,000 per year when taking into account stipends for housing, food, and health insurance that were included in the contracts,' they write.

'Jawad was by no means the only Afghan technocrat to benefit from such arrangements, according to current and former top USAID officials... In the early days of the Afghanistan war, USAID had a program to recruit hundreds of highly trained Afghans living in the West to become technocrats in Karzai's government to build government capacity. Part of this program... involved providing salaries competitive with their jobs in the West,' the duo report, here.
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