Using Google Earth and GPS to track Afghanistan cash

In Operation Moshtarak, the current NATO offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, commanders have a powerful tool at their disposal: cash, and lots of it. According to Lindy Cameron, head of the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team, the fighting is being quickly followed by "cash-for-work" programs meant to put local communities back to work, along with other reconstruction projects. Cash for work, however, has some risks of its own. The biggest potential problem is fraud, often in the form of the "phantom project" (a task that is never actually undertaken or completed) or the "phantom staff" (payrolls that are padded with no-shows). But tracking dollars in cash-for-work schemes is essential. As the U.S. Agency for International Development learned in Iraq, money spent unwisely on public works schemes can end up in the hands of insurgents.

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