A close look: Mission Impossible in Afghanistan?

Frank Ball's circuitous career path has taken him from the brunt-of-jokes police chief of Brainerd, Minn., to the commander of a multimillion-dollar operation training reluctant police officers in Afghanistan.

Ball spent 15 months in Afghanistan, overseeing a $340 million annual contract to recruit and train the country's nearly nonexistent national police force for DynCorp International with the U.S. State Department.

Many of the recruits he was provided -- some under threat of imprisonment if they did not show up -- did not know right from left. Some had never seen their reflection in a mirror. Opium drug lords, more than the Taliban, run provinces like plantation owners in the Old South. Government officials at the highest levels not only tolerate corruption but expect it.

The Obama administration is pinning great hope on the Afghan police initiative as part of a strategy to build up Afghan security forces to stabilize the country and turn back a resurgent Taliban. As the White House and Pentagon wrestle with ratcheting up U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Ball's firsthand experiences have left him feeling pessimistic about U.S. hopes in a primitive and geographically tortuous country that has resisted outside influences since before the days of Genghis Khan.

"Until you hold this government accountable and get past the corruption and the favoritism, it's not going to work," said Ball, 60, who left Afghanistan in 2006.

A real-life Marge Gunderson

Ball is a former Crow Wing County sheriff and directed the state's alcohol and gambling division of the Department of Public Safety. Before his work in Afghanistan, he was perhaps best known as the police chief in Brainerd when the movie "Fargo" came out.

He was the real-life Marge Gunderson. A friend encouraged him to apply for the DynCorp job and the interviews in Washington went well, especially with one official who spent most of the time asking about the movie and how much of it might be true.

Ball thought he might be in charge of one of the upstart training bases. It turned out he was tapped to be the contingent commander of the entire training program, responsible for 1,500 U.S. personnel, mostly former cops. Ball was asked to coordinate building seven training camps throughout the country and push out 3,500 graduates a month.

Confusion and ruin

The scene was post-apocalyptic when Ball landed in Kabul in 2005: overturned airplanes on an air strip; blown up Russian tanks rusting nearby; military presence everywhere; people living in huts.

"We were being taken to the bowels of whatever and this was the capital city," Ball said. "I said, 'Holy smokes.' "

The level of dysfunction was staggering among the U.S. government and more than 40 other countries involved in Afghanistan. The Japanese donated 5,000 gas-powered vehicles in a country that runs almost exclusively on diesel. The Turks provided $100,000 ambulances that were given to districts with no hospitals. The ambulances ended up being used to haul produce. Despite warnings about the need for security and encryption, Ball found it best to communicate with his people through Yahoo e-mail accounts.

In perverse Barney Fife scenarios, higher-level Afghan police officials carried weapons but were not given ammunition. Ball even turned to U.S. Gen. David Petraeus for help procuring recruits' weapons.

Andy Schmidt, a former Minneapolis police officer who worked with Ball in Afghanistan, described the situation on the ground as "mass confusion," with the State Department warring with the Pentagon, and systemic corruption bleeding resources. Through it all, Schmidt said Ball kept his focus, visiting each group of new personnel coming off the plane and spending holidays in the remote outposts.

"People who replaced him never left Kabul, but this was a guy who knew everyone's name and made the effort to get out into the dangerous places. Frank Ball was the best boss I ever had," said Schmidt, who spent 20 months as a contractor, including a stint with the now-infamous Blackwater.

Grads pulled into crime

Perhaps more than anything, a culture of corruption permeated the training and most of Afghan life, leaving doubts in Ball's mind about the wisdom of continuing the mission.

"That's the way of life, that's how things go," Ball said. "We were dealing with a corrupt government, a corrupt agency and corrupt individuals who have been taking bribes for 500 years."

Ball said recruits who graduated making $72 a month were offered $500 a month by opium drug lords to act as members of personal militias. If they didn't join the drug lord, the police chief in the province would take their pay. Weapons and uniforms provided to the graduates would quickly make their way to local bazaars for sale.

"So there goes our trained police officer, out into the poppy fields," Ball said.

Seven contractors, including three from the United States, died under his command and 17 recruits were killed when their bus was bombed.

Earning $150,000 a year with bonuses, Ball watched problems worsen as time went on. Contractors were caught smuggling more than weapons and explosives. He sent one contractor home for smuggling scorpions. Accounting irregularities were being discovered above him that Ball said were "bleeding into his program.

"You'd go 3 inches forward and 5 inches back," he said.

DynCorp, the State Department's largest contractor and a major player in the global police training industry, has been the focus of controversy in its police training programs. An October 2007 government audit revealed that $1.3 billion was spent on a contract with DynCorp for training Iraqi police. Earlier this year, the State Department inspector general began investigating whether DynCorp ignored signs of drug abuse among expatriate employees in its Afghanistan police training program.

A DynCorp spokesman said Ball left on good terms after completing his contract and there is no sign he was ever involved in anything improper.

Ball returned home in 2006 and now is the executive director of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, an industry trade group. Now, as he watches events unfold, he fears that things remain intractable.

"This is my guess: It's not going to work and we're going to start pulling out," he said. "But if we do that, all this has been for naught and these young people who are coming up, who are educated, they want a democracy, they want change. All these countries working together? Good intentions, but it probably caused more problems than what it was worth."

Mark Brunswick • 651-222-1636