Afghanistan watchdog can’t guarantee US tax dollars ‘not currently funding the Taliban’

The U.S. government’s Afghanistan watchdog told lawmakers on Wednesday he can’t guarantee American aid to Kabul isn’t being funneled to the Taliban. 

“While I agree — and we all agree — Afghanistan faces a dire humanitarian and economic situation, it is critical that our assistance not be diverted by the Taliban,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko told the House Oversight Committee. “Unfortunately, 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, which are the poor Afghan people,” he added. 

SIGAR, the independent watchdog founded in 2008 to oversee U.S. spending in Afghanistan amid what was the ongoing war, monitors the more than $8 billion allocated to the country since the American military withdrew in August 2021. 

Because the U.S. has no formal ties with the Taliban, the Biden administration has attempted to funnel the money into Afghanistan via international organizations and nongovernment groups.  

The process is complicated, however, by a lack of U.S. monitors in the country to make sure the humanitarian dollars are going to where they’re intended and not to the Taliban or other nefarious groups. 

Speaking to lawmakers, Sopko referenced SIGAR’s 2023 High-Risk List report, released earlier Wednesday, which identifies the serious issues facing the billions of dollars the U.S. has pledged to the Afghan people, including Taliban interference and a lack of aggressive oversight controls.  

“I don’t trust the Taliban as far as you can throw them. And the information we’re getting … is that the Taliban are already diverting funds,” Sopko told lawmakers. “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 said the problems with oversight are exacerbated by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “failure to fully cooperate” with SIGAR audits and other inquiries. 

“The lack of cooperation by State … and to a lesser extent USAID, is unprecedented in the nearly 12 years that I have been the SIGAR,” said Sopko, who was appointed to his role in 2012 under the Obama administration. 

He said the agency’s refusal to fully cooperate has led to a significant portion of the watchdog’s work, including five reports for the Oversight Committee, being “hindered and delayed.” 

He implored lawmakers for help to “stop this obfuscation and delay” as “we cannot abide a situation in which agencies are allowed to pick and choose what information an IG gets or who an IG can interview or what an IG may report on.” 

He added: “If permitted to continue, it will end SIGAR’s work in Afghanistan but also Congress’s access to independent and credible oversight of any administration.” 

Asked later about Sopko’s claims that the State Department and USAID have refused to cooperate with his independent oversight and investigations, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre brushed aside the accusations.  

“The administration has consistently provided updates and information,” she told reporters. 

She added that the administration “consistently provided updates,” as well as thousands of documents, hundreds of briefings to bipartisan members and staff, and public testimonies information to “numerous” inspectors general. 

The hearing adds to the furor over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a deadly and disastrous event that has caused much finger-pointing in Congress as to who is most responsible for the outcome. 

Lawmakers have largely fallen along party lines in assessing blame, with Republicans for months vowing to closely examine the withdrawal through congressional hearings. 

The GOP did just that in March with a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing where service members and other individuals involved in the evacuation testified. 

Wednesday’s hearing took a different angle, inviting government watchdogs to give accounts of where humanitarian aid is going within Afghanistan. 

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) took the opportunity to condemn President Biden for poor leadership and planning ahead of the withdrawal. 

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), meanwhile, said it was “morally confused and politically cynical” to lay blame at Biden’s feet as the war “spanned four Republican and Democratic presidential administrations.” 

The administration also sought to stunt expected criticism of Biden with an early Wednesday memo calling the event a political stunt on the part of Republicans. It also slammed GOP lawmakers for distracting “from their own failures” on solutions to evacuate thousands of people from Afghanistan.   

And earlier this month the Pentagon and State Department provided classified after-action review findings to Congress that placed a significant amount of blame on the Trump administration for not leaving the current White House plans to execute a withdrawal.  

A summary of the findings, later released by the White House, sidestepped an admission of the administration’s own mistakes in the event.