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From Asia Times –

General ducks Afghan scandal evidence
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON – Lieutenant General William B Caldwell, the former commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s training mission in Afghanistan, denied to a US Congressional panel that he had cited the impact on congressional elections in opposing the timing of a request for an investigation of high-level Afghan military corruption and its impact on neglect of patients at the Afghan National Military Hospital (NMH) two years ago.

But Caldwell and his former deputy, Brigadier General Gary Patton, both made statements suggesting that Caldwell had indeed wanted to stop the investigation by the Department of Defense Inspector General (DOD IG) because it might give ammunition to opponents of the US mission in Afghanistan. . . .

. . . .”The scandal involves “Criminal Patronage Networks” – the term used by the US military in Afghanistan itself – extending all the way to Mohammed Qasim Fahim, the former commander of the Northern Alliance, who is the country’s vice-president but more importantly leads the tight-knit group of Tajik generals who control the Afghan National Army (ANA).

In the late summer and autumn of 2010, Caldwell’s aides gathered evidence that the criminal military network had systematically looted tens of millions of dollars of US medical supplies and other assistance, leaving virtually nothing for patient care at the NMH.

The patients were left to lie in filth and die of untreated wounds and malnutrition, as US military personnel assigned as mentors at the hospital documented during that period. ” . .  .

. . . . Colonel Schuyler K Geller, then the command surgeon for the training mission and now retired from Army, was one of those gathering the information on the impact of corruption on patient care at NMH. Geller told IPS in an interview that the horrific “Auschwitz-like” conditions were being documented in reports filed almost every day by US military mentors stationed at the hospital beginning in August.  . . .

. . . . Caldwell continued to try to keep the conditions at the hospital secret in 2011. A memo dated September 12, 2011, signed by Geller’s replacement as command surgeon, prohibited any pictures, videos or audio recordings of conditions in the hospital from being “shared outside this command, transmitted by e-mail, or duplicated in any way without prior approval of the Command Surgeon”.  . . .

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NI15Df02.html