Costly Afghanistan Road Project Is Marred by Unsavory Alliances

Subcontractors, flush with American money, paid Mr. Arafat at least $1 million a year to keep them safe, according to people involved in the project and Mr. Arafat himself.

The money paid to Mr. Arafat bought neither security nor the highway that American officials have long envisioned as a vital route to tie remote border areas to the Afghan government. Instead, it added to the staggering cost of the road, known as the Gardez-Khost Highway, one of the most expensive and troubled transportation projects in Afghanistan. The 64-mile highway, which has yet to be completed, has cost about $121 million so far, with the final price tag expected to reach $176 million — or about $2.8 million a mile — according to American officials. Security alone has cost $43.5 million so far, U.S.A.I.D. officials said.

The vast expenses and unsavory alliances surrounding the highway have become a parable of the corruption and mismanagement that turns so many well-intended development efforts in Afghanistan into sinkholes for the money of American taxpayers, even nine years into the war. The road is one of the most expensive construction projects per mile undertaken by U.S.A.I.D., which has built or rehabilitated hundreds of miles of Afghan highways and has faced delays and cost overruns on similar projects, according to the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction.

After years of warnings that Mr. Arafat was making a small fortune playing both sides in the war — and after recent queries by The New York Times about payments to him — American officials said they had finally moved to cut him off in April.

Despite the expense, a stretch of the highway completed just six months ago is already falling apart and remains treacherous. The unfinished portion runs through Taliban territory, raising questions about how it can be completed. Cost overruns are already more than 100 percent, all for a road where it was never certain that local Afghans wanted it as badly as the American officials who planned it.

At their worst, the failures have financed the very insurgents that NATO and Afghan forces are struggling to defeat. Some American officials and contractors involved in the project suspect that at least some of the money funneled through Mr. Arafat made its way to the Haqqani group, a particularly brutal offshoot of the Taliban.

Critics say that payoffs to insurgent groups, either directly or indirectly, by contractors working on highways and other large projects in Afghanistan are routine. Some officials say they are widely accepted in the field as a cost of doing business, especially in areas not fully under the control of the United States military or the Afghan government. As a result, contracting companies and the American officials who supervise them often look the other way.

“Does it keep the peace?” asked one United States military officer with experience in volatile eastern Afghanistan. “Definitely. If the bad guys have a stake in the project, attacks go way down.” The officer, like many of the people interviewed, did not want to be named for fear of retribution for criticizing a project that is considered a priority by the American and Afghan governments.

Some also suspected that Mr. Arafat had been staging attacks himself to extort more money for protection, a vicious cycle of blackmail that contractors and American officials acknowledged was a common risk.

In an interview, Mr. Arafat confirmed that he had been fired, but he called accusations that he had funneled money to the Haqqani group a “lie and propaganda,” and he denied staging attacks.

Lofty Goals, Lofty Price Tag

The possibility that American taxpayers’ money has been going to someone with ties to an insurgency that has killed American soldiers and Afghan civilians is just one of the many problems of the Gardez-Khost Highway.

From the beginning in 2007, no one thought that building the road would be easy. Traversing high, rugged terrain, the road rises to more than 9,000 feet. In winter, it is buried in deep snow. In summer, it is covered by a thick layer of chalky earth that engineers refer to as moon dust, which turns to mud in the rain.

But American officials judged the original price tag of $69 million to be worth the cost. The highway was seen as an important way to connect two mountainous provinces in southeast Afghanistan — Paktia and Khost — and wrest from the insurgents a route that they had long used to move money, men and guns into Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Development officials hoped that the road would better link Afghanistan’s strategic border region to the central government in the capital, Kabul, and encourage commerce. The military hoped it would provide faster access for supplies and fresh troops.

Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.

 

In a Place of Fragile Alliances, a Romance Endures

In a city known for its fractured and fragmented politics, Mr. Klein and Ms. Savino have joined forces not only politically, but also personally. They entered the State Senate together in 2005, became co-chairmen of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and gravitated toward each other in their commitment to return Democrats to the majority. Good friends, they were drawn even closer when they worked on Craig M. Johnson’s successful special election campaign for a Senate seat in 2007.

“It was very, very cold,” Mr. Klein said.

“We went socks shopping,” Ms. Savino added.

The political-personal alliance has drawn unusual attention in a Senate chamber more familiar with coups, countercoups and breakaway alliances. Mr. Klein, who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, and Ms. Savino, who represents parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn, now make up half of one such alliance. In January, they joined with Senators David J. Valesky of Oneida County and David Carlucci of Rockland County to form an independent caucus.

The formation of the group did not change the balance of power in a Senate where Republicans held a majority of two seats. But three of the independent caucus members landed committee chairmanships, and their maneuver upset the already fraught Senate Democrats, some of whom sniped that the move was driven more by romance than by political principle.

“It’s insulting, and frankly, it’s insulting to all female legislators,” Ms. Savino said. “Anyone you talk to will tell you I’m not the type of person to follow any man, anywhere.”

She grabbed Mr. Klein’s elbow and added, with a laugh: “Not that he’s not worth following.”

Mr. Klein and Ms. Savino have become the Brangelina of New York state politics, complete with their own nickname, “Klavino,” apparently bestowed by the Albany news media. Their relationship started, the couple said, over a veal chop and a bottle of red wine in the back corner of La Fontanella, an Italian restaurant in Mr. Klein’s district.

“Halfway through the meal, I realized, ‘I think we’re on a date,’?” said Ms. Savino, 47, laughing.

“At first it was kind of weird,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t think this is such a good idea,’ and he was like, ‘I’m not so sure either.’?”

The couple’s relationship, which dates to 2008, was an open secret. They were two single senators around the same age, always being spotted coming out of rooms together, attending events together and sharing smoking breaks (Ms. Savino has since quit). But they went public only in February, when The New York Post published a Page Six gossip item that began, “Political sparks are flying.”

“It was a political hit,” said Mr. Klein, 50, sitting in a booth next to Ms. Savino on a recent Wednesday night at Café Capriccio in Albany. Ms. Savino observed, “I’m not sure if it was the best kept secret. But because there’s no scandal involved — he’s not married, I’m not married — nobody cared.”

Constituents, however, have taken notice. They are perpetually offering their congratulations and, Ms. Savino joked, “I told him, ‘You have to marry me now. If not, people will be very disappointed.’?”

Though the two are often on the same page politically, they do disagree from time to time. They were split, for example, over “last in, first out” layoff policies — he supported a measure to repeal the practice in the New York City schools, while she opposed the repeal. And personally, they can seem a study in contrasts. He describes himself as “methodical,” while she calls herself “a broad-stroker.” He is a controlled creature of habit, while she is louder and more off-the-cuff. When Ms. Savino says something unprintable in a family newspaper, Mr. Klein laughs and shakes his head. He seems perpetually tickled by her candor.

“Felix and Oscar, the odd couple,” said Assemblyman Matthew Titone, a Democrat representing Staten Island who rents an apartment in the same Albany building as Ms. Savino. “When it comes to being captain of the A-type personality team, Jeff wins.”

Though Ms. Savino was initially nervous about mixing business with pleasure — “If it doesn’t work out, you run the risk of ruining not just friendship but a working relationship,” she explained — she said that in an industry full of sycophants, it was important to have a true partner.

“I can pretty much say anything to him, and the real challenge is not to abuse our personal relationship in that way,” Ms. Savino said.

Their relationship, they insist, is boring.

“In a place known for its complete dysfunction, we have a totally normal relationship,” Ms. Savino said. “Albany is the easiest part for us, because we’re here, together.”