The Afghan Legacy - NYTimes.com Along with waging war in Afghanistan, the United States has worked to rebuild the country. But, after more than a decade and nearly $93 billion spent on reconstruction and security programs, there are still worrisome lapses in accountability, management and effectiveness. The special inspector general on Afghan reconstruction, John Sopko, has cataloged the problems in a series of reports and concluded that some programs are actually working against American interests. While his aides say the mismanaged money is a small percentage of the overall spending, that still amounts to billions of dollars. These problems are persisting at a critical time when American forces are withdrawing from the country, and the United States has a diminishing opportunity to ensure programs and projects are designed and carried out in a way that puts Afghanistan on a firmer footing. Since Mr. Sopko was appointed last year, here are a few of the things that his office has discovered: ■ The Pentagon has proceeded with the purchase of aircraft costing $771.8 million (including 30 Russian helicopters) despite the fact that just 7 of 47 Afghan pilots assigned to the air force unit are fully qualified to fly counterterrorism missions, which is the primary objective. The unit has a quarter of the 806 personnel needed to operate at full strength, and there is no plan for reaching that goal. It will take the air unit at least 10 years to perform crucial maintenance and logistics tasks independently, in part because of the difficulty of finding recruits who are literate and don't have criminal records. ■ The inspector general's office is investigating charges against 52 prime contractors for failing to pay their subcontractors some $62 million. This has meant delayed projects, causing Afghan subcontractors to blame the United States for the nonpayments. ■ The office has also raised questions about weaknesses in Washington's efforts to avoid contracting with those who support the Taliban and its investment in projects, like hospitals, that Afghans cannot sustain. A few months ago, Mr. Sopko asked the Pentagon, the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development for a list of their 10 most successful and least successful projects. In a critique released this week, he faulted some of their data and challenged some of their claims of progress. For instance, the administration has cited advances in health care, noting that 60 percent of Afghans are within an hour walk of a health clinic compared with 9 percent in 2001. Mr. Sopko says this may be because more Afghans now live in cities where the clinics are located. And while the United States says life expectancy increased from 44 years to 60 years, he suggests such data were "selectively chosen in order to emphasize progress" and prefers a World Bank figure of 48 years. On the Pentagon claim that 194,000 Afghan national security forces have received some level of literacy training, he says the data provided don't prove that the effort has materially improved the overall literacy rate or battlefield effectiveness. Senior officials at the United States Agency for International Development say Mr. Sopko's reports are too narrowly focused, ignore their efforts to monitor programs and give short shrift to their successes, like development of the energy sector in a difficult environment. From the start, the United States has faced daunting challenges in Afghanistan, including violence, extreme poverty, corruption and President Hamid Karzai's fecklessness. President Obama's request for $3.4 billion more for Afghanistan in 2014 would put the pot forreconstruction available to spend at $20 billion. Before Congress approves additional financing, it needs to demand precise answers from the administration to the sensible questions that Mr. Sopko has posed about the need for effective oversight and meaningful measures of success.