A government watchdog said Wednesday that taxpayer dollars earmarked for Afghanistan may be wasted because the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development are not cooperating with oversight efforts — offering the latest warning about the Biden administration’s controversial Afghan policy.
Assistant President Joe Biden in the government department interfered with the audit and did not help with requests for information, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction (SIGAR) appointed by the congress, led by John Sopko, argued in the annual report “High Risk List” to Capitol Hill and the secretary of state and defense.
“If this lack of cooperation continues, it will create a greater risk of a waste of US taxpayer dollars,” the inspector general documents.
The agency released the report when Sopko appeared before the House Oversight Committee as part of a series of hearings focused on the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal operations in August 2021. Biden withdrew US troops from the country that month in accordance with an agreement reached by former President Donald Trump. Trump fell in with the Taliban, a militant group that retook Afghanistan as America ended its 20-year mission there.
Lawmakers from both parties challenged the president’s approach, noting that it involved 13 U.S. service members and hundreds of Afghan nationals, and left thousands of Afghan nationals and about 1,000 Americans eligible for evacuation. Since Republicans took over the House of Representatives this year, they have sought to pressure the Biden administration on the matter.
Biden responded this month by releasing a 12-page memo defending the policy and submitting to Congress a classified post-operative review of the various government agencies involved. People involved in the mission – including current officials and volunteer groups, including veterans’ organizations, who are trying to help the desperate Afghans – told HuffPost The memo expands on how Biden’s team was prepared to back down and appears to be an attempt to evade responsibility.
Since last year, the special inspector general has said the State Department and USAID have made it more difficult to independently and transparently analyze Biden’s picks.
Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
“Historically, State and USAID officials have supported the SIGAR mission and honored my office’s requests…. Inexplicably, this long record of cooperation seems to have come to an abrupt end,” Sopko wrote on June 22, 2022. letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power. “Agency officials now appear to have implemented their planned barrier positions.”
Typing the two agencies’ refusal to provide information on preventing US funding from reaching the Taliban and its affiliated militant faction, the Haqqani network, Sopko accused them of acting “unprecedented” and “illegal”.
State Department and USAID lawyers argued in letters in April and July of last year that the inspector general had no oversight authority over the collapse of the US-backed Afghan government, Biden’s preparations for resignation or America’s role in vulnerable Afghan resettlement. Taliban violence as it relates to the US – referred to the issue as “a matter unrelated to the reconstruction of Afghanistan” in a July 8, 2022 letter.
“Many requests for information from [the special inspector general] address topics that are currently the subject of scrutiny by other investigative agencies,” Biden administration attorneys Richard Visek and Margaret Taylor wrote in a letter April 25, 2022. “This de-duplication of efforts … will ensure that taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and that investigative expertise every body is used to the best and highest.”
But U.S. funds committed to Afghanistan’s reconstruction helped prop up — and then failed to strengthen — the Afghan government and Biden’s team may have used those funds to prepare for withdrawal. Additionally, the inspector general’s team asserted that it has strong oversight capabilities after years of reporting on Afghanistan and aims to help fund it broadly.
The inspector general “has been reviewing, auditing, investigating and reporting on these and related issues for more than 12 years, including USAID’s humanitarian assistance (eg, food aid programs) and support for Afghan refugees,” wrote John Arlington, general counsel. for watchdogs, on May 8, 2022, letter to the State and USAID. “There is no substantive difference between aid called ‘reconstruction’ and aid called ‘development’ or ‘humanitarian.'”
“It is very disappointing to see the position taken in your letter given the President’s emphasis on cooperation with the Inspector General,” Arlington said.
Biden and his top aides have often criticized his predecessor, Donald Trump, for undermining independent government oversight. “Under my administration, the watchdog has returned,” the president said on April 29, 2022.
Republican legislators have gone back and forth echo special inspector general’s complaint about State and USAID’s actions under Biden.
The US continues to funnel aid to Afghanistan and Afghanistan as the country struggles under Taliban rule.