The growing number of non-combatant deaths in fighting between the U.S.-led coalition troops and Taliban insurgents -- and more importantly, the way they are perceived by Afghans -- is likely to be a key determinant of victory in the conflict there, analysts say.

In response to the importance of the issue, and at the urging of CIVIC and other advocacy groups, the U.S. military in 2005 expanded to Afghanistan a system developed in Iraq of so-called condolence payments to the relatives of those civilians killed, and to those injured or suffering property damage, as a result of U.S.-led combat operations.

But two recent studies have found inconsistencies and the undervaluing of Afghan lives in the way the system works.

"The process of filing claims is arbitrary, ad hoc, and can create frustration leading to ill-will towards the United States," concludes CIVIC.

The group, founded by slain U.S. aid worker Marla Ruzicka, analyzed 2000 pages of U.S. military documents detailing claims for compensation by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, released in April under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, also studied the system at the request of lawmakers.

The GAO study found that beginning in October 2005, the Department of Defense authorized U.S. forces in Afghanistan to make payments to non-combatants they injured or killed. The rules allowed payments of up 100,000 Afghanis (approximately $2,400) for a death; up to $470 for serious injury; and up to $250 for property damage.

CIVIC said this represented a "low and seemingly arbitrary valuation of life."

"The system is problematic ... because they arbitrarily cap the payments at $2,500," the group's Marla Bertagnolli told United Press International.

In the 12 months after the system was set up, the GAO found, approximately $350,000 dollars worth of condolence payments were made, either from units' regular operating budgets or from a special reconstruction contingency fund, known as the Commanders Emergency Response Program, or CERP.

Condolence payments are one of 19 purposes for which funds from CERP can be spent, and made up just over half of 1 percent of all the funds disbursed under the program.

The GAO also found that Pentagon guidance on the payments did not adequately distinguish between the different types of payments that could be made, and that therefore there was "inconsistent reporting" of the handling and disposition of claims.

The authorization "does not require (U.S. military) commanders to make payments, but instead permits commanders to make payments if they choose," found the GAO. "Commanders exercise broad discretion for determining whether a payment should be made and the appropriate payment amount."

But CIVIC found that the net effect of this discretion is inconsistency.

"It is apparent that different (officials) take different approaches and come to different conclusions when faced when substantially similar facts," reads their analysis.

Finally, the group found that the military judge advocates who made decisions about the payments relied excessively on military records "over other relevant materials, often to the exclusion of important documentation supporting a claimant's case."

"The program fails properly (to) deliver justice to civilians and, ultimately therefore, to achieve its goal of winning the support of the civilian population," their analysis concludes.

In a country with illiteracy rates of up to 80 percent, said Holewinski, it was hard to explain the intricacies of even a good compensation system, let alone the arbitrary and inconsistent outcomes of the one employed by U.S. forces.

"They see U.S. forces, U.S. airstrikes ... what they are not going to understand is why they got nothing, and people in a nearby village" were compensated, she said.

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