U.S. COVERT AID TO AFGHANS ON THE RISE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100270037-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: January 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WASHINGTON POST
13 January 1985
U.S. Covert Aid to Afghans on the Rise
Rep. Wilson Spurs Drive for New Funds, Antiaircraft Cannon for the Insurgents
By Bob Woodward and Charles Babcock
1' mgt,m Poet Staff Writer
The Central Intelligence Agency's secret
aid to the insurgents fighting the Soviet
invaders in Afghanistan has mushroomed
into the largest U.S. covert operation since
the Vietnam war era, according to informed
sources.
With Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.) as a
chief catalyst for the rapid escalation, Con-
gress has nearly tripled the Reagan admin-
istration's initial request for the Afghan
program to what will amount to about $250
million for this fiscal year. This would
amount to more than 80 percent of the
CIA's annual expenditures for covert oper-
ations, the sources said. In addition, three
other countries in the Middle East and Asia
are expected to provide $200 million. With
this money, the annual aid package to the
Afghan insurgents is approaching $500 mil-
lion. The sources also said that there is dis-
cussion that the insurgents could use $600
million in the next fiscal year.
The Afghan operation and the manner in
which it has expanded are becoming sub-
jects of heated controversy in the admin-
istration, the CIA and Congress.
A number of these officials, who do not
want to be identified, said that the program
has grown too much and too fast. These
sources said it is in danger of getting out of
hand and may trigger an escalation of So-
viet military operations in Afghanistan.
Others, including Wilson and congres-
sional supporters, said that the U.S. gov-
ernment is not doing enough, that equip-
ment being used is second-rate and that the
insurgents are not getting enough supplies
and ammunition. Some have advocated sup-
plying new, sophisticated U.S.-made
ground-to-air missiles, but the CIA vetoed
this, according to the sources.
Of particular controversy has been Wil-
son's successful effort to obtain money for
the CIA to supply advanced, heavy antiair-
craft cannon to the insurgents, a decision a
number of officials view as a potential es-
calation.
By year's end, the U.S. program, which
supplies weapons, ammunition, clothing,
medical supplies and money for food, is ex-
pected to support an estimated 200,000 to
300,000 full- or part-time insurgents who
are battling a Soviet army of 110,000
troops in what intelligence reports and var-
ious eyewitness accounts describe as one of
the most brutal, savage conflicts of modern
times.
"This is a program that is on the verge of
blowing up," one intelligence official said. "It
is an area of the world where there are
great, tensions .... The blinking
red lights are going off in that re-
gion now, [and] the focus is shifting
from Central America."
One congressional critic of the
escalation said, "We should have
learned from Vietnam about over-
technologizing primitive people."
Another intelligence official said,
"We're going to kill the program
with success."
Though there are hundreds of
cases documenting human rights
violations by the invading Soviet
army, the U.S. government now has
confirmed reports that the CIA-sup-
ported insurgents drugged, tor-
tured and forced from 50 to 200
Soviet prisoners to live like animals
in cages.
In addition, congressional
sources said that the insurgents
may be assassinating Soviet mili-
tary officers and administrators.
U.S. intelligence officials said they
cannot and do not control the op-
erations of the resistance fighters
and have no knowledge of any as-
sassinations.
The large increases began in the
fall of 1983 with a secret Wilson
amendment to the defense appro-
priations bill rechanneling $40 mil-
lion of Defense Department money
to the CIA for the Afghan opera-
tion, the sources said.
Money Destined for Cannon
Part of this money was for the
new, foreign-made, heavy antiair-
d-aft cannon. Another $50 million
fpr more supplies and weapons was
deprogrammed at Wilson's initiative
ip the same way last July. The Sen-
ate, at the urging of Malcolm Wal-
lop (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Sen-
ate intelligence committee's budget
subcommittee, then took the lead in
increasing the annual aid to the
point where it is about $250 million
for fiscal year 1985.
The specific amount for 1985 is
difficult to calculate, according to
sources, because there is some un-
spent money from previous years
that is expected to be used this
year. But the sources said spending
will range frpm $250 million to
$280 million.
It is clear from interviews with
more than 20 officials familiar with
the Afghan covert aid program that
over the last 18 months, while pub-
lic attention has been focused on
the CIA's activities in Nicaragua,
Congress opened the dollar flow to
this much-less-visible program.
; By contrast, Congress last year
cut off funding for opponents of the
government in Nicaragua that was
one-tenth the size, costing $24 mil-
lion a year and supporting 15,000
"'contras" fighting the Sandinista
regime.
Some in the Reagan administra-
tSon and the CIA at firsv opposed
tie large' increases in the Afghan
operation and were not sure that
the supply line, which runs secretly
through neighboring Pakistan,
could absorb the increased flow.
But officials said that after facing
years of public congressional hos-
tility to the secret war in Nicara-
gua, the CIA finally went along and
welcomed support in covert oper-
ations aimed at thwarting the So-
viets. in Afghanistan.
"It was a windfall to them," said
one congressional intelligence of-
ficial. "They'd faced so much oppo-
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s_tien to covert action in Central
_.merica and here comes the Con-
ress helping and throwing money
; t them, putting money their way
nd they decided to say, 'Who are
Nye to say no?' "
Increasing the Afghan program
also gave Congress a chance to
show it is not soft on communism
and Soviet expansionism, congres-
sional sources said. "Over the last
two years," one senior administra-
tion official said, "as the Nicaraguan
operation became the bad war, the
one in Afghanistan became the good
war."
The decision to supply the new
dntiaircraft cannon, for use against
Soviet helicopter gunships that are
deployed against civilians and insur-
gents, has been especially contro-
versial. One intelligence official
said, 'When this [weapon] gets in
and if helicopters start getting shot
out of the sky with regularity,
we've got a problem .... A weap-
on like this could force the Soviets
to become more indiscriminate' in
their use of force. They could begin
much more bombing. [It could]
change the equation radically."
Some intelligence officials cite
Wilson's involvement with the new
antiaircraft cannon as an example of
what the CIA calls "micromanaging"
of their operations from Capitol
dill.
Wilson confirms his role on behalf
of the Afghan resistance but de-
clines to discuss the numbers relat-
ing to his legislative efforts. Wilson
said in an interview that the new
cannon, with armor-piercing explo-
live shells, "means there,aren't go-
ing to be any more Soviet helicop-
ters going back to Kabul [the Af-
ghan capital] with holes in them.
They're going down."
Of the covert aid package in-
crease, Wilson said, "We're talking
about peanuts. We're talking about
one B1 bomber. I'd give them five."
(The B1B bomber costs about $200
million.)
Wilson continued, "There were
58,000 dead in Vietnam and we
owe the Russians one and you can
quote me on that .... I have had a
slight obsession with it, because of
Vietnam. I thought the Soviets
ought to get a dose of it .... I've
been of the opinion that this money
was better spent to hurt our adver-
saries than other money in the De-
fense Department budget."
House colleagues and members
of the Senate tell of Wilson's-dog-
ged effort to secure support for the
Afghans and the new antiaircraft
cannon. Sources said that Wilson
even arranged a mule-breeding pro-
gram for the resistance to haul the
new cannon, ammunition and other
supplies into the mountains of Af-
ghanistan.
The sudden mushrooming of aid,
through supply pipelines set up af-
ter the Soviet invasion in December
1979, also has created massive con-
trol problems. By some accounts, as
little as 20 percent of the weapons
and supplies reach the Afghan re-
sistance because the material must
travel through a long, complicated
supply route. The CIA maintains
that 80 percent is getting into the
hands of the fighters.
Government and intelligence re-
ports also show some cases of hu-
man-rights violations by the insur-
.gents. One well-inforfned source
said recently, "There are 70 Rus-
sian prisoners living lives of inde-
scribable horror." Several admin-
istration officials said that the Unit-
ed States is going to have to face
this problem.
According to two sources, the
insurgents have made requests for
assassination equipment and asked
for information on locations of high-
ranking Soviet generals and admin-
istrators. But there are no proven,
clear cases of assassination. The
CIA is prohibited by executive or-
der from supporting assassination
directly or indirectly.
One source said that the resis-
tance is "not going to worry about a
presidential executive order and
they are certainly going to ask for
sniper weapons and if they ask for
them, they're going to get them."
CIA officials said that they have
no way of preventing individual
tribesmen or resistance leaders half
a world away from taking such ac-
tions. "We don't control the oper-
ation," one official said. "We'support
it."
A December 1984 report from
the Helsinki Watch Committee, an
independent human-rights group,
entitled "Tears, Blood and Cries,
Human Rights in Afghanistan Since
the Invasion, 1979 to 1984," de-
scribes terror tactics including tor-
ture and assassination that allegedly
are being used by both sides. The
212-page report devotes 172 pages
to the Soviets and 16 pages to the
resistance; the group apparently
found substantial violations by the
Soviets.
Through all of this, officials said
the government of Pakistani Pres-
ident Mohammed Zia ul-Haq is
walking a diplomatic tightrope be-
cause most of the covert aid is
channeled through his country. Two
key intelligence sources said that
the massive increase in the covert
program gives Zia leverage to de-
mand more U.S. aid for his country.
These sources voiced fears that, in
the extreme, Zia's position might be
so strengthened that he would re-
quest assistance in building his nu-
clear weapons, a goal at odds with
U.S. policy and denied by Pakistan.
Many details of the Afghan co-
vert aid program have been re-
ported since the operation began
during the Carter administration.
But officials said the sudden in-
crease in the last 18 months and the
lobbying of Wilson with the support
of most members of Congress jave
allowed little time for the adminis-
tration or the Hill to debate the con-
sequences of various tactical deci-
sions, such as the new antiaircraft
cannon, or the funding increases.
Wilson's efforts. began in earnest
after he and then-Rep. Clarence D.
Long (D-Md.), longtime chairman of
the appropriations subcommittee
overseeing foreign aid who was de-
feated last November, returned
from a trip to the Afghan resistance
camps in Pakistan in August 1983.
CIA aid to the insurgents was about
$30 million that year, and the agen-
cy had not requested an increase
for the next fiscal year, according to
sources.
In a recent interview, Long said
the insurgents told him during the
1983 trip that "they wanted some-
thing to knock down helicopters."
He said that Zia agreed the insur-
gents should have improved anti
aircraft weapons.
At the time, the insurgents had
only machine guns, which often hit
and damaged the Soviet helicopters
but did not have the firepower to
bring them down. In addition, the
Soviet-made SA7, a shoulder-
G,n'inued
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launched, heat-seeking missile, one
of the items purchased as part of
the covert program, has turned out
to be unreliable.
Long said that Zia suggested a
new cannon and gave its name. "If it
was American-made the Soviets
would trace it to Pakistan and he
[Zia] didn't want that. He suggested
we get [foreign-made] guns ....
He was perfectly willing to take a
chance if it couldn't be traced back
to him," Long said.
As the next step, Long said he
asked Wilson to offer the Afghan aid
increase amendment because Wil-
son was a member of the defense
appropriations subcommittee and a
member of the House-Senate con-
ference committee that worked on
the defense appropriations bill.
Wilson confirmed this, saying, "I
was the instrument of Long's idea."
Wilson said he came up with the
amount for the initial amendment,
and said he did this by pulling a
number "right out of the sky." Oth-
er sources said it was $40 million.
Wilson said he conferred with
some officials at the CIA before, but
they said that "they were shy about
increasing their budget" more than
had been approved by the House
and Senate intelligence committees
for other intelligence matters and
operations. Budget increases usu-
ally come from the authorizing com-
mittees, which, in the case of the
CIA, are the two intelligence com-
mittees. Because he is not a mem-
ber of the House intelligence com-
mittee, Wilson said, "It was the only'
vehicle I had as a member of the
House Appropriations Committee."
Amendment Proceeded
He and Long went ahead with the
amendment with the purpose, ac-
cording to Wilson, "of trying to de-
monstrate that money didn't matter
because it was such a worthy
cause." The first $40 million in-
crease was for clothing, boots, med-
ical supplies and "rapid-fire can-
nons" for antiaircraft defense,
sources said.
Wilson, who has made five trips
to the region, said, "Every trip I
made, the freedom fighters talked
about bullets bouncing off HINDs
[Soviet helicopter gunships] and
how they needed armor-piercing
explosive shells."
Wilson said it is unusual for a con-
gressman to add money to a covert
program and that he knows of no
other such case.
"It was an easy sell," he said. Wil-
son reportedly had'no trouble per-
sua' ng the members of the House-
Senate conference committee that
the insurgents were fighting cou-
rageously and were not asking for
food or medicine but some way to
defend themselves against the gun-
ships.
After the House-Senate confer-
ence approved the $40 million
amendment, Office of Management
and Budget Director David A.
Stockman sent a letter late last
February requesting the House and
Senate intelligence comnittees to
approve the reprogramming. A
source said that the administration
went along because of belief in the
Afghan program and because it was
a comparatively small amount re-
quested by the House Appropria-
tions Committee, which generally
has supported administration re-
quests for the Pentagon.
The deputy undersecretary of
defense for policy, retired Army
Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, reportedly
objected to the loss of the $40 mil-
lion from the Pentagon, and one
source said that a Defense Depart-
ment study described the new can-
non as the wrong weapon for_ a
guerrilla war.
In March 1984, the House intel-
ligence committee approved a lim-
ited release of the money, while
asking the CIA for a report showing
that the, advantages of the partic-
ular cannon outweighed its disad-
vantages.
On the Senate side, Barry Gold-
water (R-Ariz.), then-chairman of
the Senate intelligence committee,
dug in his heels and refused to ap-
prove release of the money because
he reportedly did not think it was
the right weapon.
But Goldwater changed his mind
in the first week of April 1984 after
Deputy CIA Director John N.
McMahon wrote the Senate and
House committees to say that the
CIA supported use of the weapon.
One official said that the CIA was
not familiar with the particular can-
non and had to obtain one for test-
ing.
Both committees then approved a
limited test of nine of the cannons.
30,
They are due to arrive in several
months on the battlefields in Af-
ghanistan, the sources said, and
more will be provided if the weapon
proves itself.
The cost of each new cannon,
plus transportation and initial sup-
plies of ammunition, is put at about
$1 million. Because the weapons',
are rapid-fire and the armor-pierc-
ing shells they use are expensive,
some estimates suggest that mil-
lions of dollars will have to be spent
to supply enough ammunition each
year. Concern about this expense
and the overall impact the new can-
non may have in Afghanistan was
expressed by a number of Repub-
lican and Democratic members of
the Senate intelligence committee
during a briefing on the matter last
year, according to sources.
Several sources said that there is
no effective countermeasure to the
new cannon. On the other hand, the
Soviets have been able to employ I
countermeasures against the SA7
heat-seeking missiles, and many of
those missiles supplied to the insur-
gents have turned out to be duds.
For his part, Wilson said the can-
non will not amount to an escalation
in Afghanistan, and the Soviets
should be made to pay a high price.
"I think it would be immoral not to
help .... I don't want the resis-
tance fighters to give away their
lives too cheaply."
A number of congressional sup-
porters 'wanted initially to supply
U.S.-made Redeye or Stinger
ground-to-air, heat-seeking mis-
siles, but the CIA blocked that be-
cause those missiles could be traced
too easily to the United States.
Wilson cites. reports showing a
pattern of the brutality of Soviet
operations in Afghanistan, including
massive bombing raids that have
driven millions of Afghan people
across the border to neighboring
countries, especially Pakistan. Wil-
son said that the Soviets have used
booby-trapped toys to maim Afghan
children as part of their terror cam-
paign. Another official confirmed
that there is such an intelligence
report.
Congressional support for the
Afghan covert aid program has
been bipartisan and enthusiastic.
Last fall both houses unanimously
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passed a resolution saying it should
be U.S. policy "to support effective-
ly the people of Afghanistan in their
fight for freedom." But to protect
Pakistan, the pipeline through
which most aid flows, the program
has been covert and handled by the
CIA.
Though there has been general
agreement that the Afghan oper-
ation is a "good war," there. has
been disagreement about its spe-
cific objective going back to when
the Carter administration began
covertly supplying the insurgents
after the Soviet invasion.
A senior official in the Carter ad-
ministration said there were serious
questions from the beginning. "The
question was, do we give them [the
insurgents] weapons to kill them-
selves, because that is . what we
would be doing. There was no way
they could beat the Soviets.
"The question here was whether
it was morally acceptable that, in
order to keep the Soviets off bal-
ance, which was the reason for the
operation, it was permissible to use
other lives for our geopolitical in-
terests."
General Agreement Remains
Now, five years later, there re-
mains general agreement that the
insurgents cannot win, although the
CIA has reports that the resistance
has done well 0 in the last eight
months. But supporters of the pro-
gram such as Sen. Wallop are trou-
bled by the lack of clear objectives.
"I don't know anyone who be-
lieves we will overthrow the Soviet-
supported regime in Afghanistan,"
Wallop said, "so what does anyone
define as success? You have got to
have in mind what you want to do,
and we don't in this case."
Others criticize CIA management
of the operation. One well-informed
official said that resupplies of guns
and equipment get doled out to the
resistance groups after" successful
operations, almost as rewards, rath-
er than as part of a well-orches-
trated campaign. "This whole thing
is conceived as a supply operation,
not a war operation," the official
said.
An administration official in-
volved in Afghan policy said, "Our
policy is to get the Soviets out ba-
sically .... [we] have tied up
about 1 percent of their Army
... and the cost to the Soviets is
about $4 billion a year [and the] to-
tal cost since 1979 is about $16 bil-
lion."
Other sources were skeptical
about these numbers and note that
the Soviets still would have the ex-
pense of maintaining that part of
their army even if there were no
Afghanistan war.
There is another theme that runs
throughout interviews with offi-
cials, one that reflects the delicate
nature of limited war. While de-
nouncing Soviet actions and brutal-
ity, many officials noted,. with vary-
ing degrees of emphasis, that the
Soviets have imposed some limits
on their actions.
"One of the important things is
restraint," said one administration
official, "and that includes restraint
on our part ... and restraint by the
Soviet Union. -
"You've got to consider what
they haven't done to Pakistan and
others .... Afghanistan is on their
border, and you have to believe the
Soviets could, if they chose, march
in with sufficient troops to do the
job."
One congressional official called
that statement 'ludicrous," adding,
"This represents the kind of self-de-
lusion according to which the So-
viets and we have an unspoken,
gentleman's agreement to never go
for the jugular.
"Since the Soviets have disproven
this constantly, this view can only
be held through a ' heroic effort of
self-deception," the official said.
Many of those interviewed ex-
pressed concern that the money
and supplies get passed through so
many hands-"a board of Pakistani
generals," in the words of one
source-that the hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars are not accomplish
ing that much.
Alexander Alexiev, a Rand Corp.
analyst who has visited the region
for the Defense Department, said,
"Corruption is rampant .... Some
of the political leaders live in fancy
villas and have. fat bank accounts,
while the fighters don't have boots
five years into the war."
He said he talked *to one resis-
tance leader who had only a hand-
drawn map of the province that was
his home base.
One senior member of the Senate
intelligence committee, who said he.
will continue to support the pro-
gram, said, "It's like tossing money
over the garden wall."
Staff researcher Barbara Fein matt
contributed to this report
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