Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said the Taliban is likely stealing US aid intended for the Afghan people while attacking defense and state departments and USAID for an “unprecedented” lack of cooperation.
“I cannot assure this committee and the American taxpayer that we are not currently funding the Taliban, nor can I assure you that the Taliban is diverting funding from its intended recipients,” Sopko told the House Oversight Committee.
Sopko noted that the US has allocated about $2 billion in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, with an additional $3.5 billion coming in through an international fund.
‘Because of this [DoD, State, USAID] refusal to cooperate a significant part of SIGAR’s work has been hindered and delayed.’
“I don’t trust the Taliban as far as you can throw them,” Sopko continued. “The information we’re getting—again, not from the State Department that isn’t talking to us or USAID…is that the Taliban are already funneling money.”
SIGAR was originally tasked with overseeing US spending in Afghanistan when the US had a large presence in the country, but now focuses on overseeing the more than $8 billion in US funding planned for aid to Afghanistan since the withdrawal in 2021.
Sopko said the Taliban is likely stealing US aid meant for the Afghan people, while he slammed defense and state departments and USAID for an ‘unprecedented’ lack of cooperation
‘I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV, they seem stupid and happy. I see starving Afghan children on TV.’
“If the intent is to help the Afghan people, we must have effective oversight,” said Sopko, who blamed an “over-reliance” on international agencies that he said have been “terrible” in providing information at his desk.
Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Democrat from Maryland, said it was “scary” to think that US dollars would end up in the hands of the Taliban.
“This is billions and billions of dollars from the US Treasury, which if they don’t start doing what they should be spending at home. But they should come into Afghanistan to protect what we see happening to girls with women.”
Meanwhile, Oversight Chair James Comer knocked Biden out for the Taliban takeover.
“Today the Taliban flag flies over Kabul,” said the Republican from Kentucky. “This is Joe Biden’s legacy.”
“To be clear, I was in favor of leaving Afghanistan, but it should never have happened this way.”
Ranking member Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, blamed Trump’s 2020 Doha deal and his decision to release Taliban prisoners as part of the deal.
“My Republican colleagues refuse to investigate the elephant on the battlefield: President Trump’s disastrous decision to sideline the Afghan government and negotiate directly with the Taliban.”
Nicole Angerella, the Inspector General of the Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted that there have been “significant barriers” to getting food to Afghan citizens.
Meanwhile, State Department inspector general Diana Shaw said that while 124,000 had been evacuated since the US withdrawal, “questions rightly remain.” She said 152,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applications are still pending.
Defense Department inspector general Robert Storch called the withdrawal a “strategic failure.”
“Despite $2 trillion in investment and 2,400 US servicemen who sacrificed their lives, the Afghan forces failed almost immediately.”
Sopko said the 2020 Doha agreement that former President Trump and the Taliban reached on a timeline for the US withdrawal and President Biden’s implementation of the withdrawal “has only exacerbated long-standing problems.”
Afghan people sit in a US military plane to leave Afghanistan, at the military airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021
Taliban take to the streets in a national holiday marking the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2022
He blamed the Afghan military’s “total reliance on US” support, in part due to the US giving them advanced US military equipment rather than what they could actually use and maintain.
“You are dealing with a largely illiterate country. We forced them to bring highly advanced American hardware that they couldn’t supply or repair.’
“They were able to repair old Soviet military equipment,” Sopko said. “We decided to give them American equipment for whatever reason.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the committee, asked whether Trump’s decision to leave the Afghan government out of talks with the Taliban in 2020 contributed to Kabul’s rapid fall.
“That decision cut the morale of the average Afghan soldier and the average Afghan civilian,” he said, adding that in order to proceed with the deal, the Biden administration lowered morale “further.”
Meanwhile, a new damning SIGAR report said the US “has left most of its allies behind and it will take an average of a year for every family to be safe.”
SIGAR identified a slew of issues, including “chronic understaffing, reliance on outdated IT systems, and inadequate inter-agency coordination.”
As of the end of September 2022, the US has only issued visas to about 20% of SIV applicants, according to SIGAR. The report estimates that it could take more than three decades to resettle and resettle all SIV applicants.
The White House gave its own preface to the hearing Wednesday morning, with White House spokesman Ian Sams — who also handles GOP hearings on Hunter Biden — dismissing the efforts of “extreme MAGA members of their caucus.”
He set up the hearing as one “where they will attack President Biden’s decision to end the nation’s longest war and bring home US troops from Afghanistan.”
He denounced GOP claims of obstruction and said the White House provided thousands of pages of documents.
His memo said Republicans relied on “politically motivated attacks” and hoped to distract from their own failure to even agree on, let alone act on, solutions that are desperately needed today to accelerate progress. protect that the Biden administration has created to be safe. evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan at the end of the war.’
President Biden has repeatedly pointed the finger at a firm withdrawal date negotiated by the Trump administration. The White House memo instead refers to individual House conservatives, accusing them of “contempt for the plight of Afghan allies.”
The new White House memo highlights statements by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called the Afghan refugees “known terrorists,” and Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, who said their entry could lead to little girls being raped and murdered in the street.