Afghan president's brother denies reports he was paid by CIA to recruit

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KABUL, Afghanistan - Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president, denied reports yesterday that he has received regular payments from the CIA for much of the past eight years. The New York Times, citing current and former American officials, reported Tuesday that the CIA pays Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA's direction in and around Kandahar.

Karzai called the report "ridiculous."

"I work with the Americans, the Canadians, the British, anyone who asks for my help. They (CIA) do their own recruitment. I have no idea where they get their recruits. It's absolutely ridiculous," he told The Associated Press in Afghanistan.

The CIA's ties to Karzai, who is a suspected player in the country's illegal opium trade, have created deep divisions within the Obama administration, the Times said.

Allegations that Karzai is involved in the drug trade have circulated in Kabul for months. He denies them.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs refused to confirm, comment on or directly pass judgment on Karzai's relationship with the CIA, but suggested the Obama administration would not endorse that sort of arrangement.

"This administration is, as you know, conducting a comprehensive assessment as to where we are. And every participant in any meeting that's happened here as part of that assessment understands that we have to have and must have a partner that addresses governance issues as we move forward," Gibbs said yesterday.

CIA spokesman George Little declined to comment on the newspaper report. Critics say the ties with Karzai complicate the United States' increasingly tense relationship with his older brother, President Hamid Karzai. The CIA's practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban. Some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai undermines the U.S. push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order.