"The U.S. reconstruction management structure was overwhelmed by the challenges of building in a war zone, " the report said.

CNN: Iraq reconstruction history details waste, failures

Tokyo has differed from similar pledging conferences of recent years in one important respect: unlike in the cases of Bosnia, or Kosovo, or even East Timor, no formal international structure is being set up to co-ordinate the reconstruction effort and to shoulder much of the burden of administering a country that, after more than 20 years of strife, has only the most rudimentary governmental mechanism of its own.

ECONOMIST: Helping Afghanistan