A U.S. soldier assigned to the 10th Mountain Division looks out the back of a CH-47 Chinook during a flight over Kabul, Afghanistan, in March 2020. (Jeffery J. Harris/U.S. Army Reserve)
WASHINGTON — The leader of the U.S. government’s watchdog for the war in Afghanistan warned Congress on Wednesday that he cannot guarantee the U.S. is not funding the Taliban through billions of dollars in humanitarian aid.
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, made the stark assessment at the first of a series of Republican-led House Oversight Committee hearings on the U.S. mission in the country.
“As I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban,” he said. “Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.”
American troops withdrew from the country in August 2021 after 20 years of war there, but the U.S. earmarked $2 billion to continue support for women’s rights, health care, food assistance, agriculture, education, and other humanitarian and economic needs. Another $3.5 billion is in a Switzerland-based Afghan Fund created by the U.S. last year to hold frozen Afghan central bank assets.
The hearing called Wednesday featured inspectors general from the Defense Department, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, and is part of a campaign by Republicans newly in control of the House to scrutinize the rapid fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban and the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops.
“Since the Afghan government’s collapse, the Oversight Committee has wanted answers from the Biden administration, and we will get them,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky, the chairman of the committee.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee focused its first hearing on the Afghanistan War in March on the deadly evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a suicide bombing on Aug. 26, 2021.
Members of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday largely fixated on accountability for the estimated $8 billion in taxpayer funds sent to Afghanistan and spent on Afghan refugees since October 2021.
“These are billions and billions out of the U.S. Treasury that if they’re not going to do what they ought to do, could be better spent at home,” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md. “They should be getting into Afghanistan to protect what we see going on with girls and women there, the tremendous suppression of human rights and if that’s not occurring then we really do, ladies and gentlemen, have a big task before us in making sure that that takes place.”
Sopko said his office has gathered information indicating the Taliban already is diverting funds and criticized international institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank for weak oversight and little transparency.
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko speaks Wednesday, April 19, 2023, during a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee concerning the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The World Bank reported last year that 70% of households in Afghanistan cannot meet their basic needs, including food. Women and girls are particularly affected because strict Taliban rules prohibit them from traveling without a male companion and accessing Western aid offices without female staff.
“I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV, they all seem to be fat, dumb and happy,” Sopko said. “I see a lot of starving Afghan children on TV so I’m wondering where all this funding is going.”
Sopko also urged lawmakers to press the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to comply with his repeated requests for information, accusing both of hindering his efforts to account for U.S. aid.
“A serious threat to our assistance is the refusal of State and USAID to answer the simplest of oversight questions: Who are your implementing partners? Can we interview them?” Sopko said. “We are not getting those answers back.”
The inspectors general for the State Department and USAID said they were aware of Sopko’s complaints but have not had any issues obtaining information for their own investigations. Robert Storch, the inspector general for the Defense Department, said he would be happy to help other inspectors general.
Sopko noted he regularly briefed senior agency officials, as well as the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under previous presidential administrations.
“But since this administration has come in, it’s been radio silence with us,” Sopko said, describing the lack of cooperation as “unprecedented” in his 12 years serving as SIGAR.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said the stonewalling was part of a pattern.
“It sounds like you’re a Republican member of Congress because Republican members of Congress send letters over to the administration, and we don’t get answers either,” Donalds told Sopko.
Republicans have placed most of the blame for the tumultuous end to the war in Afghanistan on President Joe Biden’s administration while Democrats trace the chaos to an agreement former President Donald Trump struck with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw U.S. troops.
Comer on Wednesday connected the withdrawal to Afghanistan’s resurgence as a haven for terrorists, the increased aggression of China and Russia, and billions of dollars lost to waste, fraud and abuse.
“The U.S. withdrawal has consequences that will not go away overnight despite the Biden administration’s hope that the American people will forget,” he said.
