Afghanistan inspector general unsure if American taxpayers are ‘funding the Taliban’
Mike Brest
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The United States has provided Afghanistan with aid since the U.S. military’s withdrawal in August 2021, though it’s unclear to the inspector general whether those funds are actually going to the Afghan people.
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, or SIGAR, told members of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that he cannot confidently confirm that the money the U.S. is providing to Afghanistan is not being diverted to the Taliban.
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“As I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban. Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, the Afghan people,” he explained. “I don’t trust the Taliban as far as you can throw them, and the information we’re getting, again, not from the State Department, who isn’t talking to us, or USAID, who’s giving us access, is that the Taliban are already diverting funds.”
“If the purpose is to help the Afghan people, we have to have effective oversight to ensure the money goes to those people and not to some Taliban,” he added. “And I would just say I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV. They all seem to be fat, dumb, and happy. I see a lot of starving Afghan children on TV. So I’m wondering where all this funding is going.”
Sopko was initially tasked with overseeing U.S. spending in Afghanistan during the war, but SIGAR is now focused on monitoring more than $8 billion dedicated to Afghanistan since the withdrawal, according to CNN. Sopko’s testimony on the Hill came the same day as his office released its latest report, which noted, “The Taliban have increasingly interfered in the activities of the U.N. and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Afghanistan, limiting their ability to provide aid.”
Since the military’s departure, the U.S. has sought to provide Afghanistan with financial assistance for its people, though it has to rely on international and nonprofit organizations because they don’t have ties with the Taliban. Without U.S. personnel in Afghanistan to monitor the use of the funding, SIGAR warned in the report that aid to the Afghan people is at higher risk of being diverted before it reaches its intended recipient.
Sopko testified alongside Defense Department Inspector General Robert Storch, acting State Department Inspector General Diana Shaw, and acting deputy U.S. Agency for International Development Inspector General Nicole Angarella.
There was an obvious partisan divide among lawmakers at the hearing. Republicans used the opportunity to highlight the chaos of the withdrawal and to blame President Joe Biden for it, while Democrats often noted that the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban for the withdrawal in conversations that excluded the Afghan government.
Another underlying but frequent topic during the hearing was the State Department and USAID’s refusal to provide them with relevant documents.
“The lack of cooperation by state — and I’m not talking about the IGs; I’m talking about the Department of State and to a lesser extent USAID — is unprecedented in the nearly 12 years that I have been the SIGAR,” Sopko explained. “Due to this refusal to fully cooperate, a significant portion of SIGAR’s work … have been hindered and delayed.”
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The Biden administration released a 12-page unclassified summary of the after-action report about the withdrawal released earlier this month, and it pinned much of the blame for how the withdrawal occurred on the Trump administration. Specifically, the summary cited then-President Donald Trump’s decision to reduce the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and to agree to a withdrawal in a February 2020 deal with the Taliban as significant factors that forced Biden’s hand.
Members of the previous administration and Republicans were critical of the summary.