[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S
AFGHANISTAN POLICY SINCE THE U.S. WITHDRAWAL
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
November 14, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-60
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-430PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GREGORY MEEKS, New York, Ranking
JOE WILSON, South Carolina Member
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania BRAD SHERMAN, California
DARRELL ISSA, California GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ANN WAGNER, Missouri WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
BRIAN MAST, Florida AMI BERA, California
KEN BUCK, Colorado JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee DINA TITUS, Nevada
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee TED LIEU, California
ANDY BARR, Kentucky SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
RONNY JACKSON, Texas DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
YOUNG KIM, California COLIN ALLRED, Texas
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida ANDY KIM, New Jersey
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan SARA JACOBS, California
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
American Samoa SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK, Florida
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas GREG STANTON, ARIZONA
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
JIM BAIRD, Indiana JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York JIM COSTA, California
CORY MILLS, Florida JASON CROW, Colorado
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas
JOHN JAMES, Michigan
KEITH SELF, Texas
Brendan Shields, Staff Director
Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Sopko, the Honorable John, Inspector General, Special Inspector
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)................. 6
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 56
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 57
Hearing Attendance............................................... 58
INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD FROM REPRESENTATIVE CONNOLLY
Information submitted for the record from Representative Connolly 59
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMIITED FOR THE RECORD
Materials submitted for the record from Anna Corbert............. 61
Letter submitted for the record from Ryan Corbert family......... 64
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Responses to questions submitted for the record.................. 66
EXAMINING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S
AFGHANISTAN POLICY SINCE THE U.S. WITHDRAWAL
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:37 a.m., in
room 210, House Visitor Center, Hon. Michael McCaul (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Chairman McCaul. The Committee on Foreign Affairs will come
to order.
The purpose of this hearing is to discuss the effects of
the Biden Administration's Afghanistan policy since the U.S.
withdrawal. I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan the country
is no better off today than when the United States first
entered. After 20 years of blood and tears, any progress made
has been erased and it did not have to be this way.
This Administration's deadly and chaotic withdrawal was ill
conceived from the very start. There are no plans for enduring
peace and the support of the Afghan people. The Taliban who now
control Afghanistan are terrorists who impose theocratic edicts
to oppress the Afghan people.
They abuse women and steal humanitarian aid from starving
Afghans. They partner with terrorist organizations such as al-
Qaeda and Tehrik-e Taliban. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's
leader and Bin Laden's top lieutenant, was living downtown--in
downtown Kabul under the protection of the Haqqani Network and
the Taliban, specifically, the Taliban's minister of interior
and Haqqani leader Siraj Haqqani.
Taliban holds several American hostages. In fact, that
committee just heard from Anna Corbett whose husband Ryan has
been detained by the Taliban for over a year.
This is unacceptable and it shows the deeply flawed
approach this Administration has taken since the Taliban
regained control. Under the Taliban rule women and girls
describe their day to day lives as living under house arrest.
They are barred from public places and are not allowed to
travel outside their homes without a male chaperone.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls
are banned from receiving an education above the sixth grade.
Now Afghanistan is currently facing one of the worst
humanitarian crises in the world.
People are starving. In fact, 15.3 million Afghans are food
insecure and nearly 1 million children need life-saving
treatment last year due to malnutrition and the recent
earthquakes in October 2023 have made the deteriorating
situation even worse.
The United States is the largest donor of humanitarian
assistance to Afghanistan, spending more than $2.5 billion on
assistance for Afghanistan since the withdrawal.
Unfortunately, we know the Taliban are engaged in theft and
diversion of these funds to serve their malign purposes. What
troubles me is the Biden Administration is pursuing a policy of
engagement at all costs and has failed to hold the Taliban to
account for their crimes.
The Biden Administration meet with the Taliban frequently,
praise the Taliban often, and haphazardly send billions of
taxpayer dollars into Afghanistan. Through these policies the
Biden Administration has all but recognized the Taliban as the
legitimate government of Afghanistan and yet over the past 2
years on every metric the Taliban has only become worse under
this Administration's policies.
On women and girls seemingly every week the Taliban
announces new edicts, stripping away their rights. On diversion
of humanitarian aid Taliban interference has increased by 32
percent this year.
On support for terrorism the Tehrik-e Taliban, who the
Taliban have equipped with weapons the U.S. left behind, is
increasingly conducting terror attacks and al-Qaeda remains
safely in Afghanistan under Taliban protection.
On hostages today there are more Americans detained by
Taliban than at any point since the U.S. withdrawal. Obviously,
the Biden Administration's policies are not working.
I want to be clear that my heart is with the people of
Afghanistan who are suffering under the Taliban. I believe it
is our moral imperative to help these people who the Biden
Administration abandoned.
However, we must be clear eyed about our priorities and
must develop policies that will ensure the U.S. is supporting
innocent Afghans and not the Taliban. Anything less signals a
failure of American leadership.
With that, the chair now recognizes the Ranking Member Mr.
Meeks for an opening statement.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this
important hearing.
Despite no longer having a physical presence in the country
the United States continues to have vital interests in
Afghanistan.
We was just reminded by Anna Corbett, Ryan Corbett's wife,
the safety of Americans in Afghanistan and around the world
continues to be a priority for the Biden Administration, and
just as the Biden Administration successfully recently brought
five hostages home from Iran we need to make sure that we bring
the hostages home that were in Afghanistan.
Any stability in Afghanistan is critically important to our
national security interests. We must ensure that Afghanistan is
never again used as a base to plan attacks against the United
States or our allies and that the Taliban uphold their
commitments to that effect.
The limited assistance we provide to support the most
vulnerable in Afghanistan also ensures that the gains made over
the last 20 years are not completely lost.
During the course of our almost two decades in Afghanistan
a large segment of our assistance focused on advancing the
rights of women and girls and other minorities.
This interest remains a key priority for many members on
this committee and this Congress and the American people, and
it is vital that we continue providing critical humanitarian
assistance that benefits the Afghan people, not only because it
is the right thing to do but also because each of those other
goals I've mentioned become much harder to achieve if
Afghanistan faces a humanitarian crisis or economic collapse.
But let me be clear. I'm under no illusions about the
Taliban and I wish they were not in control of Afghanistan. But
American engagement in Afghanistan continues to serve our
national interests. It is critical that we preserve the space
to engage with the Taliban where we must.
But I do not believe we will get better policy outcomes by
denying that reality. Instead, we must be strategic about how
we can pursue our goals in a uniquely challenging environment.
I believe the Administration has been careful to strike
this delicate balance. I know Administration witnesses wanted
to appear here today and I'm disappointed that our majority
colleagues did not take the State Department and USAID up on
their offer to testify today.
It would have been useful to inform our understanding of
the Biden Administration's policy approach toward Afghanistan.
We need to hear from them.
Oversight remains a critical component of our work but this
work is more meaningful when the Administration can explain its
priorities and perspectives directly to Congress at a hearing
specifically for that purpose.
Mr. Chairman, the committee has also conducted staff-led
closed-door transcribed interviews with 10 current or former
State Department officials to date on the U.S. withdrawal from
Afghanistan.
It is imperative that final transcripts from these
interviews be made available to all members as soon as possible
to inform our ongoing oversight of Afghanistan policy.
Mr. Chairman, I know you have asked for transparency from
this Administration and expressed your desire to get answers
for the American people. So I would also urge you to make these
transcripts publicly available to all American people.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for convening
this hearing and I want to say to Mr. Sopko I look forward to
hearing your testimony.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields.
I do want to State for the record that we did invite
witnesses from State and USAID. However, they refused to
testify alongside Mr. Sopko in front of SIGAR and I thought
that was unfortunate, even though there is precedent for that.
But with that, we're pleased to have the Honorable John
Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction, before us today.
Sir, your full statement will be made part of the record
and I now recognize you for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN SOPKO, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION
(SIGAR)
Mr. Sopko. Thank you very much, Chairman McCaul, Ranking
Member Meeks, and members of the committee.
Two years after withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan
the United States remains the largest donor to the Afghan
people as they continue to suffer the unprecedented
humanitarian crisis previously alluded to.
Unfortunately, SIGAR's work has documented that the Taliban
is diverting or otherwise benefiting from a considerable amount
of that assistance. Let me outline some of what diversion and
interference by the Taliban looks like in practice.
The Taliban demands payoffs to permit the implementation of
aid projects. The Taliban dictates who receives assistance. The
Taliban pressures the U.N. and other NGO's to hire their
members, relatives, and allies to help distribute food funded--
excuse me, donor-funded assistance.
The Taliban pressures the U.N. and other NGO's to issue
contracts to Taliban--affiliated companies. The Taliban
pressured the U.N. and NGO's to partner with Taliban-affiliated
NGO's and to not partner with other NGO's. Those are
nongovernment organizations.
The Taliban have embedded intelligence officials in U.N.
agencies to supervise their work, facilitate the interference
and diversion, and censor reporting about it. The Taliban also
collect taxes and other fees from U.N. and U.S.-funded
implementing partners.
Now, such interference and diversion of U.S. assistance is
not unique to the Taliban. Nevertheless, the diversion of
humanitarian assistance by the Taliban is of particular
concern, given the unprecedented humanitarian crisis Afghans
now face as well as the Taliban's terrorist ties.
Unlike in the past, diverted U.S. assistance may now fund
terrorist activities in addition to enriching the pockets of
corrupt officials. SIGAR's work shows that there are no good
choices for policymakers when providing humanitarian assistance
in an environment like Afghanistan, only tradeoffs.
To a large degree our research confirms that those who
control the guns control the aid. Now, many would like to
believe that we are aiding the Afghan people while successfully
bypassing the Taliban. This can be viewed as a useful fiction
as it reassures but ignores the fact that it is impossible to
entirely bypass the Taliban regime.
Now, that fact alone does not mean we should end
humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people. That is a policy
decision for Congress and the Administration, not one that I or
other oversight bodies can make.
My point is that as long as the United States continues to
provide aid for the benefit of the Afghan people it is
paramount to use whatever tools are available to reduce Taliban
diversion and interference including strengthening compliance,
vetting standards, and third party monitoring.
In addition, Congress and the Administration should look to
lessons identified from other development programs around the
world for more robust practices to protect our assistance.
As we look to the future U.S. policymakers will need to
consider the following risks to our assistance: the financial
risk of wasting a sizable portion of U.S. and humanitarian and
development assistance, aid that already amounts to $2.5
billion since the Afghan government's collapse; the security
risk of U.S. funds reaching a government with long-standing
ties to terrorist groups; and the political risk of funding an
historic enemy of the United States.
For our part at SIGAR we look forward to offering
additional recommendations on this subject in our forthcoming
reports, which we have undertaken at your request.
Thank you very much and I look forward to answering your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sopko follows:]
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Chairman McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Sopko.
From what I understand it's not surprising the Taliban is
diverting funding from the United States into their own coffers
including aid to terrorist organizations?
Mr. Sopko. I'm sorry, sir?
Chairman McCaul. I understand from your testimony I'm not
surprised that the Taliban is diverting foreign aid to the
people of Afghanistan for their own purposes which would
include funding terror organizations?
Mr. Sopko. We have heard that and our analysis so far has
shown that.
Chairman McCaul. Is there any way to influence bad behavior
with this funding?
Mr. Sopko. There may be a way to do it but we have not seen
any positive response from the Taliban from us giving that aid.
Chairman McCaul. For instance, they do not allow girls to
be employed by the NGO's. Is that something that could be
brought up with the Taliban? Do you think that the funding
would have any influence over that policy?
Mr. Sopko. I believe it has been brought up by our
government and other donors in the U.N. but I do not believe it
has accomplished anything.
Chairman McCaul. But perhaps releasing Mr. Corbett--we just
heard from his wife--releasing him from prison. Do you think
that would have any pressure and leverage to release him?
Mr. Sopko. I cannot speak to that. I have not been involved
in negotiations for any of the hostages' removal. I have not
been involved in negotiations at all with the Taliban so I
cannot tell you for sure.
But all I can tell you is we have not seen any improvement
on the way they treat women, on the way they treat former
Afghan soldiers and officials. There's been a number of
killings of that and I think this committee may be hearing from
General Sami Sadat later this afternoon or at least one of the
subcommittees, and I think--I met him and have talked to him
numerous times.
He'll document the number of people, number of former
soldiers and government officials, who have been brutally
slaughtered by the Taliban. So I do not think giving the aid
has affected the Taliban at all.
Chairman McCaul. You know, on that point we had Under
Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland
testify before this committee and she said, in her words, that
there's not been a consistent pattern of our Afghan allies,
quote, ``being murdered by the Taliban,'' end quote. Do you
agree with that statement?
Mr. Sopko. No, I do not, and SIGAR has interviewed numerous
former Afghan officials and Afghans who have documented it, and
just last week my deputy just came back--we have a very
extensive outreach program for the Afghan diaspora--and
interviewed a former Afghan civil rights--human rights activist
who just gave us a horrible, horrible explanation of what
happened to her brother and sister-in-law who were brutally
shot dead and another brother who was beaten to death by the
Taliban.
So this is something we have heard from many Afghans and I
think corroborating those horrible stories the U.N. just issued
a report this summer that documented over 200 extrajudicial
killings of former government officials and I think that's an
understatement. So I totally disagree with Secretary Nuland.
Chairman McCaul. So your testimony is that the Taliban is
actively hunting down Afghan partners that we worked with, that
our troops worked with--Special Forces worked with, and they
are brutally torturing and murdering them?
Mr. Sopko. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chairman McCaul. And are they taking the biometrics that
were left behind to identify them?
Mr. Sopko. We have heard that. We have not been able to
document that. But, unfortunately, we left a lot of biometric
and a lot of other information not only on former government
officials but also on former contractors.
So the question about does the--do the Taliban know who our
former contractors were, well, we have data bases that they
have access to. So it is a very difficult situation for anybody
who worked with us who remain in Afghanistan.
Chairman McCaul. And to your knowledge what are they doing
with the $7 billion of weapons that were left behind in Bagram?
Mr. Sopko. Well, they're using them; we know that. They are
parading them around, particularly some of the higher, more
sophisticated weapons including some of the helicopters,
planes, and other hardware.
There have been allegations but we have not been able to
confirm that some of those weapons have left Afghanistan. But I
would only assume from what the Taliban is up to that it's a
buyer's market for former U.S. weapons. But we have not been
able to document that yet, sir.
Chairman McCaul. Yes, I tend to agree with you on that.
And finally, what would be your recommendation with respect
to the foreign aid that we are being very compassionate, very
generous? And, you know, from a humanitarian standpoint I want
to help these people who are starving to death but what would
be your recommendation given the corruption?
Mr. Sopko. It's an awkward situation. I'm an inspector
general. We do not do policy.
Chairman McCaul. Right.
Mr. Sopko. I mean, what I'm saying is if the decision--if
we do not give assistance I think the humanitarian disaster
that I think Mr. Meeks and yourself referred to will happen. I
mean, people will just be starving and dying on the street.
Whatever control or influence we have, which I think is
minimal, will disappear if you cut that. But if you are sending
the money what we're saying is let's learn from experiences
around the world how to do this when we're doing--and we're
doing this in other countries where we do not recognize the
host government or we do not want to deal with the host
government.
So what we're saying is, and these are the reports that
we're preparing for you, sir, and the committee are looking at
best practices and I think you have to include that.
So if you're going to give aid do it smarter because we
have very little oversight and very little control in the
country right now. So that's what we're urging.
Chairman McCaul. That's very good advice, sir.
We have votes on the House floor right now, two of them. So
the committee will take a very short recess and reconvene
following votes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Waltz [presiding]. The committee will reconvene and I
will now recognize Ranking Member Meeks for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Sopko.
Let me ask this, and I'm listening to your testimony and
some of the questions that Mr. McCaul asked. My first question,
because there's concerns, I hear on one hand that folks are
saying we abandoned women in Afghanistan and then on the other
side saying we shouldn't engage to help women and girls with
reference to the dollars that we're giving because we're giving
money to try to make sure that we help women and girls and not
lose some of the things that we benefit from--that we heard the
testimony earlier in regards to Ms. Corbett about getting her
husband out. But then at the same time if we do not engage with
the Taliban to get him out it's difficult to get him out.
So it seems to me that we cannot have it both ways and I
want to ask you this because I too am concerned about the
impact Taliban control is having on the status of women and
girls in Afghanistan and I would be remiss if I did not say I'm
also worried about any diversion of assistance, and I am also
concerned about the potential of undoing the gains that were
made during the 20 years that we were in Afghanistan.
So my question would be to you and listening to your
testimony what added oversight mechanisms do you think must be
put in place so that we can continue to limit the funding for
things like girls' education, access to employment for women
and access to health care so that we can make sure that we're
still doing that? What mechanism would you think we should put
in place?
Mr. Sopko. It's a very good question, and just so you know,
I mean, we are working on a number of requests from the
chairman. We're not finished, so these are preliminary analyses
we're doing.
One of the points that we have raised repeatedly is that
we--there's--we have been relying on international NGO's like
the U.N. and the World Bank, and although they're great
organizations we have historically documented and the AID IG
has agreed with us over time--we go back to like the first time
I spoke I think before Congress--talking about the limited
access we have to the books and records and information from
the U.N. and the World Bank and the World Food Organization, et
cetera.
So we really need to focus on getting access because these
are international organizations and if you go back to, I think,
the statute passed in 1945 we give them special authorities and
we also in a sense immunize them from normal oversight that AID
would do or State would do if there was a an organization here
in the United States.
So one of the things we're nervous about is because of the
situation--this is why I talk about this situation is a bad
situation. There are no good answers. There's no good
alternatives.
Because we cannot deal directly with the Taliban, because
we do not recognize the Taliban, because we cannot send
American contractors in there and American employees from State
and AID we have to--we actually are over reliant, I think, on
international organizations who--and, again, if you take a look
at the high risk list report which we issued we just documented
there's a problem dealing with them.
Mr. Meeks. So that's why I think it's important to have
USAID and the State Department here, you know, not to testify,
you know, like as opposed to you or anything but on a separate
panel so that we can hear from them as to what they are doing
and what they're trying to do.
For example, you know, we talk about the Afghan central
bank access which is being held in the United States. The whole
fight is whether or not they would end up in Taliban hands.
But if I understand the mechanism correctly the Afghan Fund
board makes decisions unanimously but the U.S. Treasury has a
seat on the board. So we have some oversight on what's being
utilized there by having a seat on the board that could prevent
a unanimous decision been made. That's oversight.
But, you know, what's your assessment of those safeguards
and the impact our presence may have on the ability of the
United States not only to decide what goes where but to direct
how the Afghan Fund is used?
Mr. Sopko. Well, Mr. Meeks, you raise a very good point and
we have a report that's now sitting over at State, AID, and
Treasury for their normal review--it should come out next
month, the chairman requested it--looking at the Afghan Fund
and this--I'm glad you're asking that question. I would love to
answer more. I know my time is shortly running out.
But we have some concerns about it. That's $3.5 billion
that President Biden gave to help the economy of Afghanistan
without going through the Taliban, and a noble cause. We just
do not know how it's going to be done. I mean----
Mr. Meeks. That's why we got somebody on the board and so--
and it's got to be done unanimously.
Mr. Sopko. Well, we have a question about how they pick the
people on the board and if--in our statement we raise some
serious concerns about one of the people on the board, and I do
not want to mention names in public.
We found some really derogatory information about that
person and, I mean, I know I got super sleuths working for me
but this was like just doing a Google search and when we
brought it to the State Department they said, well, we did not
know anything about that.
So one of the questions we raise is what type of due
diligence did you do to appoint some of the people on the
board. There's another person on the board who is actually a
member of the Taliban central bank and there's no conflict of
interest rules in this.
So I would love to talk in more detail. We are seriously
concerned. That's $3.5 billion. Now, that was moved from the
Federal Reserve in New York, moved to Switzerland, following
Swiss law.
Now, look, I'm an old country lawyer. I used to be a
Federal prosecutor. But when I talk about Switzerland and
funding I do not think openness. So why is the money there and
why are we following Swiss law for this?
So those are questions we're asking and, sir, I think you
are right on point. We need to look at that and you need to
answers from State, you need answers from AID, and you need
answers from Treasury about why we are doing this and how we're
doing this.
That organization has been in existence for 1 year. They
still do not have any internal regs and policies. So what have
they been doing for a year?
Those are the questions I think you should ask and we're
happy to provide them to all members of the committee when you
finally do bring Mr. West and whoever up here.
I would love to have sat with him. I have been trying to
meet with him for--since he was appointed. I have met with
every--they're called the SRAPs, senior representative for
Afghan and Pakistan.
I've met with every one of them under every Administration
until Mr. West. He refuses to meet with me. Now, I do not know
why but that is a problem. So I would have loved to been in
here with him testifying to actually meet the guy.
Mr. Meeks. I hope you get a chance to--if they're invited
to testify as you have testified today so that we can ask those
questions and get those answers.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Ranking Member Meeks.
And I'll state again for the record as the chairman has
that both State and AID were invited today and withdrew their
participation, and it's notable that you've literally never met
the man, sitting in the same building. But thank you.
I now recognize Mr. James for 5 minutes.
Mr. James. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Sopko.
We appreciate your time here and your honesty, your passion.
I remember how President Biden went in front of the cameras
and tried to reassure the world that Afghanistan could hold and
what happened it did not. Clearly this Administration is far
from functional and far from cooperative with the U.S. Congress
and far from transparent with the American people.
This Administration's failed withdrawal in Afghanistan led
to $7.12 billion in taxpayer-funded military equipment being
left behind, thousands of our Afghan allies captured and
slaughtered, and the killing of 13 precious service members at
Abbey Gate. We just heard about Ryan, who feels like he's being
left behind by his government.
Well, I would like to echo the comments from my friend
Ranking Member Gregory Meeks--Representative Gregory Meeks--
that Ryan has not been forgotten. He is not going to be left
behind. We'll do everything that we can to bring him back home
safely.
Despite all of this we are still funding Afghanistan--the
Taliban--with $11.11 billion still flowing from the United
States with the gaps and the lack of oversight that you just
mentioned.
You said that there's so much more to discuss. Well, sir, I
would like to hear more about that. I would like for you to
continue along answering the line of questioning that Mr. Meeks
asked just recently.
What additionally do you have along the details that you
shared that you would like to--that you'd like to share in the
next three and a half minutes?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I think the point I would like to make is
this entity, which I assume many of you do not know much about,
which is shocking in and of itself because that's $3.5 billion
that's been moved for the benefit of the Afghan people--again,
a noble cause to try to reorganize or help the economy of
Afghanistan and the central bank.
But the appointment of people to it, this fund, I think Mr.
West was quoted as saying that it was not a very open or
democratic process. So we----
Mr. James. And, again, you've mentioned that you work in
the same building with him and you have not seen him yet?
Mr. Sopko. No, I do not work in the same building.
Mr. James. Okay.
Mr. Sopko. I do not want to say--he's at the State part,
SRAP.
Mr. James. Okay. But you've made countless entreaties to
meet with him to gain understanding and he has not cooperated?
Mr. Sopko. And I've met with prior SRAPs. I mean, no one
has a problem with us talking. We share information. We learn
what they're--what's going on and what their issues and we try
to help them.
But the State Department has basically obfuscated and
delayed many of our reports--and it's not just him, it's other
people at State--and we have gone out of our way to try to work
with them.
But we're still not getting cooperation. Now, we are
getting cooperation from USAID and I must thank the members of
this committee and the members of other committees who have
actually come to our aid on this and USAID has been very
responsive. But we still have problems with the State
Department on not just the fund but on getting material in
general.
Mr. James. And so because the State Department is failing
all over the world and particularly with transparency with
Congress and the American people you are being forced to gain
your information from other sources.
What are some of those other sources and what are--what
makes them problematic? You mentioned the U.N. Could you go
into a little more detail from some of the areas that you're
getting your information and what you're missing?
Mr. Sopko. We still get information from USAID on a regular
basis. We do off the record get information from people at the
State Department. We have an aggressive----
Mr. James. Off the record--sir, why off the record?
Mr. Sopko. Well, because a lot of people just do not want
to be identified as talking to us. Actually, one of the things
that State Department issued and I have--they basically ordered
all of their employees not to talk to us.
Mr. James. Do you have something stating that specifically
that you could share with the committee?
Mr. Sopko. I think we could definitely share that with you,
sir. And in our last protocol that we tried to write with them
they--we asked to include that the department should rescind
any prior directive to its employees not to communicate with
SIGAR and State Department scratched that out.
Mr. James. And so we have evidence showing that employees
of the Department of State are being directed by their
leadership not to communicate with Congress and the American
people?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I'm not talking about--I'm talking about
SIGAR. I do not----
Mr. James. Well, we have experienced some of that same lack
of transparency and I think that oversight is exactly what is
needed. It seems like the State Department feels like they are
above oversight.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you. I recognize Mr. Bera for 5 minutes.
Okay. Mr. Keating for five.
Mr. Keating. Thank you so much. I just want to thank you
for your work. It's been very important work and it's work that
I think we have to look within the whole 21-year timeframe to
really learn the lessons we have to learn.
How important is it to look over the full 21 years versus
taking snapshot to snapshot when we look at this?
Mr. Sopko. I think it's very important to look at the whole
20-year experience there and to also look at our experiences
around the world and that's where we can learn some lessons
because we do not have all of the knowledge here in the United
States and, obviously, not in Afghanistan. That's what we're
doing for the chairman and this committee right now in our
reports.
Mr. Keating. What is the status right now of the U.S.
Government in terms of recognizing the Taliban formally?
Mr. Sopko. My understanding is that we do not recognize the
Taliban, period, as the government. I think we even refer to
them as sort of like--I do not know what the reference is. We
do not recognize them.
Mr. Keating. I just want to be clear on that so that it's
very clear for the record that the United States does not
recognize the Taliban. Just to clear up any conceptions that
might have been coming forth from this hearing.
Also, if you look in the context of 20 years--20, 21 years
in this conflict I also want to draw your attention to, you
know, February 29th of 2020 is when President Trump announced
that we were going to withdraw.
My understanding talking to allies there was not a great
deal of notice for that. There was not a great deal of notice
with our military for that prior to that and, indeed, when that
kind of announcement occurs does not that have an effect on how
the withdrawal is going to be conducted from that point
forward?
Mr. Sopko. It does, and we have issued reports talking
about the impact of those negotiations on the ability of the
Afghan government to respond to the Taliban.
Mr. Keating. So getting back to the importance of looking
at this over that timeframe, it's important to look through
three Administrations and to look at everything that was done
during that period if we're truly going to learn, which is what
the objective of this committee is from our actions so that
some of those actions in the future will not be replicated.
In the little time I have left I just want to shift to
Pakistan's role in terms of counter-offensive but also in terms
of the refugee issue. It's been uneven, I think, and it's
something that's critical, I think, in terms of having them be
a participant in this.
Can you just discuss, if you could, take your time and
discuss their role and what they could be doing more and some
of the unevenness I alluded to?
Mr. Sopko. I think the most recent actions by the Pakistan
government have--we have identified as causing problems and
that has to do with--I think it was in October they announced
that they were going to expel all Afghan refugees.
Now, these are refugees. These are millions of people who
had been there prior to the Taliban taking over and since then
and, you know, in our high risk list for 2023 we talked about
the problems with the resettlement program and this caused
major concerns because there are a lot of Afghans who worked
for us, who are part of this SIV program and part of this
program to get out of Afghanistan and into protection who are
covered by that initially.
And I think the U.N. estimates there's 1.6 million Afghans
sitting in Pakistan that are going to be returned. No, excuse
me, 1.6 million, I think, Afghans fled. Six hundred thousand
are in Pakistan.
Now, about 2,500 of those people--plus you got to add their
families--are waiting for resettlement to the United States. So
Pakistan just on I believe it was last week said no, we're not
going to push those people back to Afghanistan and potentially
to their doom but we do not know for sure, and so that's
causing a lot of concern for us at SIGAR because we have some
people sitting there, too.
And what was a real awkward situation is we got contacted
by the State Department again and they asked all U.S. agencies
including me, including SIGAR, to basically do a Sophie's
choice--to give them the list of the top 10 percent and they
would try to help them.
And we did, but the situation where you're asking U.S.
citizens to basically say which 10 percent are going to survive
and which--what happens to the 90 percent and, of course, there
was no promise.
So I mean, I do not want to do a Meryl Streep imitation
here from that movie but that's what every U.S. Government
agency who had SIVs or other, you know, people who were helping
us had to do. We had to decide and give the names of those 10
percent.
Mr. Keating. All right. My time has expired.
But I did wish to tell my colleagues I'm leading a letter
to the Pakistani government to try and have them reconsider
their actions they're taking because fundamentally they're at
the crux of this particular crisis.
I yield back.
Mr. Sopko. Thank you very much. I support that totally.
Mr. Waltz. Mrs. Wagner, 5 minutes.
Mrs. Wagner. I thank the chairman for convening this very
important oversight hearing. It's been stunning so far.
IG Sopko, I appreciate your time and your many years of
service as Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
I'm tempted to just let you talk but let me just say that
more than 2 years after the utter collapse of Afghanistan, the
botched U.S. withdrawal, SIGAR's work is more important than
ever to ensure that more U.S. resources are not falling into
the hands of the Taliban, as we have heard.
It was obvious from day one that the Biden Administration's
shameful flight from Afghanistan would be a disaster and a
humanitarian tragedy and it was.
It was nothing less than a betrayal of our service members
and the brave Afghans who lived and worked and fought alongside
them. We must and we will get to the bottom of this debacle.
While the State Department has done its best to hide the
incompetence that resulted in U.S. lives lost, our allies
betrayed, and thousands of noncombatants left behind, we are
forcing them to show the American people the evidence, at least
I hope we are.
This committee will not rest until the Administration takes
responsibility for its total failure to protect U.S. troops and
citizens like Ryan Corbett still being held hostage for 15
months and that there is accountability.
Mr. Sopko, I just want you to elaborate if there's anything
more we should know, because I know that last year you informed
Congress that the Biden Administration was refusing to respond
to your request for information.
Can you--you talked a little bit about the State
Department, USAID. Can you provide any additional update or
examples, sir?
Mr. Sopko. I am happy to do that.
First of all, I must say, again, I want to thank this
committee, the members, the chairman, the ranking member for
supporting us and--because it's helped. USAID is cooperating
fully. You know, God bless them. So we're getting that
information. We can use that information to do our job and to--
--
Mrs. Wagner. But where are you not getting information?
Mr. Sopko. Department of State. We have 20 outstanding
requests for information on ongoing audits with State. Four of
these date to October 2022 and one is more than over a--excuse
me, more than 1 year ago.
Thirteen of the outstanding requests for documents from
State should have been readily available--just give us reports.
But they refused to give them to us and their reason is--and
this is very interesting. I'm certain the State Department will
come up and tell you that we are responding to SIGAR. Well,
responding is different than being responsive.
Mrs. Wagner. Correct.
Mr. Sopko. For example, State Department provided responses
to our request for a description of activities to address
gender-based violence, something which I think Congress should
be interested in and we're paying money about right now in
Afghanistan and we'd be interested in.
However, State refused to provide us with documents
relating to the funding, the contract awards, or the monitoring
reports related to those activities, and the outrageous thing
is their explanation for refusing us is those documents related
to monitoring and evaluation of these programs are, quote/
unquote, ``internal.''
Well, for heaven's sakes, we're auditors. Has anybody ever
talked to an auditor or an inspector general? I do not know
what the State Department inspector general does but you look
at internal documents.
Mrs. Wagner. Correct. Correct.
Mr. Sopko. That's what you hired us to do. State Department
is saying we cannot give you anything that's internal. State
refused to provide those documents and over the last several
months my staff has been trying to negotiate with them to get
this material but it still has not been successful.
Now, as recently as Wednesday, November 8th, State
Department, quote, ``refused to resume full cooperation with
SIGAR, refused to permit SIGAR unrestricted access to its
employees and implementing partners, refused to rescind the
prior directive to the employees not to talk to SIGAR, and
refused to direct its employees and implementing partners that
they are required to cooperate.''
We actually sent them a memorandum and they scratched out
all of those things.
Mrs. Wagner. Mr. Sopko, my time is expired. I am--I am
horrified at this reckless disregard of the inspector general
and of you and the entire process here.
It is just a flagrant disregard of their oversight
responsibilities to Congress and to you through our auditor. So
I look forward to any information you want to share with us. I
have a lot of--a lot more questions, Mr. Chairman, and I will
submit them for the record.
But thank you, and I'm so sorry for what you have been
through by our government.
I yield back.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mrs. Wagner.
Mr. Bera is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to continue a line of questioning that my
colleague Mr. Keating started on. I just want to make sure I
have the numbers correct in terms of it was 1.6 million Afghans
that were displaced to Pakistan, 600,000 that remain in
Pakistan. Is that correct, Mr. Sopko?
Mr. Sopko. Let me look at my numbers. This is the U.N.
estimate----
Mr. Bera. Okay.
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. Not ours. We have not done the
accounting. More than--oh, I'm sorry. More than 1.6 million
Afghans have fled Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover. Six
hundred thousand are residing in Pakistan.
Mr. Bera. Okay. And the number I'm most interested in,
again, is of that 600,000 we, roughly, you'd say 2,500 of those
plus their families would qualify for the SIV program?
Mr. Sopko. I think we're hearing 25,000.
Mr. Bera. Twenty-five thousand?
Mr. Sopko. I'm sorry if I misspoke. It's 25,000----
Mr. Bera. Okay. Twenty-five thousand plus their----
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. Are waiting for resettlement and
that's on various programs to the United States.
Mr. Bera. Okay. So we ought to focus on those folks because
I assume those are individuals who either supported our troops,
supported our mission in Afghanistan over the last few decades,
or have ties and, you know, a reason.
What can we do to--you know, again, we can relitigate the
past and mistakes and things but one thing we can do
affirmatively--and my district, I believe, has the largest
number of Afghan refugees in Sacramento County. So a lot of
these folks, I imagine, have ties to my constituents.
For those 25,000 plus their families we have to do right by
them. We have to do everything we can to--these are folks that
helped us. What are your recommendations of what we should be
doing to speed up this process or get them to third countries
if Pakistan is not going to keep them there?
Mr. Sopko. You know, I'm going to go out on a limb on this
because we have not done an audit of the SIV program.
Mr. Bera. Would that be under your purview?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I think somebody asked us in the Congress
to do that and it's not specifically in our jurisdiction but we
offered our assistance to State and AID and then the State IG
decided to do that. So I think they're still looking at it.
But one thing I would focus on and, again, when the Taliban
took over the SIV program was saying it would take 26 months to
process an applicant. It has just been reported by the
Association of Wartime Allies that at the current pace that 26
months has now changed to 31 years.
So it's either a funding problem or it's a morale problem
or it's a not interested problem. I do not know what it is. I
have not been asked to audit it.
Mr. Bera. My guess is it's a process problem, right? I
mean, if it was the process that was in place prewithdrawal
that process was already incredibly backlogged and going slow.
I can only imagine how much more difficult it is today with
lack of paperwork, lack of--you know, to try to do these
clearances.
Again, that said, we have an obligation to, you know, look
at that, think about how we can--certainly the folks that
helped us, supported us, that are at risk if they were to get
sent back to Afghanistan I think we have got a moral obligation
to do everything we can. Would you share that?
Mr. Sopko. I agree. And, sir, it's not only those that
worked for the U.S. Government. It's the people who believed in
the U.S. Government and were independent journalists or were
judges or were--like, in our case we have people who were
prosecutors and police who actually were trying to clean up
corruption and those are people--they did not work directly for
us but they believed in us. They believed in what we were
selling and that is rule of law and those are the people who
are equally in dire straits.
Mr. Bera. Well, that's something this committee, since we
have jurisdiction over some of that process, ought to take a
look into how we can, you know, help those 25,000.
In the few minutes or seconds that I have left could you
just comment on regional stability as well in terms of, you
know--we do worry a little bit about spillover of terrorism
and, you know, to other parts of the region. Certainly
Pakistan, you know, had some of that. Are you seeing it in any
other, you know, areas?
Mr. Sopko. Well, you know, we are aware of the regional
instability in that area. We have not done any audit work. So I
would just be reporting on what we're hearing.
But I think General Sami Sadat, who was one of the best
Afghan generals and one of the most aggressive ones, I think is
speaking before this panel or a subcommittee of this panel this
afternoon and I think he can talk more about that than I can.
He told me--he gave me an earful when I met him as part of
our outreach program and actually we may be coming to your
district because that's where we're getting a lot of
information is from the Afghan diaspora.
So we're actually trying to set up some meetings out there
to learn more. So I think that's a useful----
Mr. Bera. Great. Let us know if you're in the district.
Mr. Sopko. I definitely will. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Bera.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sopko, thank you again for your tireless work over many
years on this issue. If I could just pick up where Mr. Bera was
on the SIV issue.
My understanding--if I'm hearing you correctly, Mr. Sopko,
you would like to audit the SIV program and have been denied
that cooperation or you need to be formally requested by this
committee?
Mr. Sopko. Well, look, I think it's a useful program to
look at but I think the State Department IG said they could do
it on their own so we'd defer to them. We have a process in
place which may not sound like much but we have a process in
place to deconflict with other IGs. State Department said they
could do it and we said we can give you whatever information we
can.
Mr. Waltz. So the State Department can provide--per Mrs.
Wagner's questions the State Department can provide its, quote,
``internal documents'' to an IG but not to your special IG
apparently?
Mr. Sopko. Yes, that's what it turns out, and they were
arguing----
Mr. Waltz. And is that consistent--I'm sorry, they were
arguing what now?
Mr. Sopko. They originally argued that because Afghanistan
collapsed there was no more reconstruction and we told them,
well, the statute--our statute gives us jurisdiction and never
really defined reconstruction but looking at all humanitarian
programs and basically all programs that benefited the Afghan
people.
Mr. Waltz. And what's unique is you can look across the
interagency.
Mr. Sopko. That's the point.
Mr. Waltz. DoD, USAID, State Department.
Mr. Sopko. That is the point. You hit it, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Waltz. Was this--was this your experience with the last
Administration or the--even the one--even the one prior this
lack of cooperation, the fact that you've never even met? You
were hoping to meet today the SRAP, the special Presidential
envoy?
Mr. Sopko. Well, it's been difficult. Let's just say this.
We had gotten, you know, cooperation from the Obama
Administration and the----
Mr. Waltz. Why do you think you're not getting it now?
Mr. Sopko. Well, it may be a legal argument but I think we
have proven that legal argument is not accurate and I think the
appropriators believe we are--we're correct and I think
committees like this believe we are.
I do not know.
Mr. Waltz. Along those lines when you have the acting
Deputy Secretary of State Ms. Nuland testifying that she has no
evidence of our former allies being murdered, prosecuted,
essentially hunted down, do you think that is malicious?
Misinformed? Ignorant?
I mean, the clear--I mean, just a quick Google search shows
U.N. reports, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, your
own outreach.
Mr. Sopko. You know, I think it was--I do not know who--
somebody wiser than me said do not infer evil intent when it
could just be incompetency. I do not know if that was
Napoleon----
Mr. Waltz. Okay. Well, I think we'll go with best case and
comment----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Sopko. Well, yes. Why----
Mr. Waltz. But I think we have our suspicions.
Mr. Sopko. Mr. Chairman, I do not mean to be flippant but a
lot of times what we have learned is that bad news does not
float up. People--there are people who want to keep bad news
away from----
Mr. Waltz. We have also--I've been around this town, sadly,
a long time and I've seen from top down they make it clear it's
not welcome and it's not good for your career to challenge the
orthodoxy----
Mr. Sopko. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mr. Waltz [continuing]. And the bureaucracy. Just in the
limited time I have left, on June 9th the U.N. noted that the
Taliban is providing al-Qaeda members with monthly welfare
payments and Afghan passports, which should ring
counterterrorism alarm bells all over the world.
The ministry of interior, as you know, is now run by Siraj
Haqqani, a longtime interlocutor between the Taliban and al-
Qaeda. Have you seen in your reporting how integrated al-Qaeda
is? Does this seem accurate? Do you have anything to weigh in
there?
Mr. Sopko. Up to now, sir, we have not. We're aware of the
U.N. reporting but we have not done any independent work on our
own in that area.
Mr. Waltz. What would be the process to help you do some
independent work there?
Mr. Sopko. Committee can ask us to do it. I've never
refused----
Mr. Waltz. And we also have reported--well, I'll certainly
work with the chairman to ask you to do that. We have reporting
of the U.N.'s reporting. The Taliban is using al-Qaeda training
manuals.
There are 30 to 60 senior al-Qaeda officials in
Afghanistan, 400 al-Qaeda fighters living in Afghanistan
training camps, welfare payments, suicide training. So I would
certainly hope that your office would start digging into that.
Mr. Sopko. Well, can I just mention? One thing we have been
digging into and that's, again, from our outreach program is
how the Taliban are shutting down regular schools and forcing
the kids to go to these super-duper madrassas that are
basically focused on----
Mr. Waltz. Radicalization.
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. Radicalization. And actually my
deputy and my staff that were down in Houston were talking to a
number of people and they are particularly concerned about this
because you're going to have a whole new generation of Afghans
who have been educated on becoming terrorists--little
terrorists--and that's our big concern.
Mr. Waltz. Armed with billions of our taxpayer-funded
weapons and now with taxpayer-funded aid that is being
diverted.
Thank you, Mr. Sopko. And I now recognize Ms. Titus.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
witness.
You know, through the course of this hearing we have had
some members say we need more diplomatic relations. Some say we
need less. Some say we should never talk to the Taliban. Some
say we need to bring hostages home.
One thing we do know for sure is we do not have relations
now and as we have created this vacuum China has moved in. So
we have heard about the impact on the region--I do not think
you do much study of that--or the impact on Pakistan.
But let's talk about China. We have left this vacuum. China
has moved in. They've sent an ambassador to Afghanistan. Could
you talk about how our lack of diplomatic relations gives an
opportunity to China and how--what might be the result of
Afghanistan joining in the Silk and Road--Belt and Road
Initiative?
Mr. Sopko. I wish I could. We have not looked at that so I
would just be repeating anecdotal information we have heard. We
have not done an audit on that. China was always interested in
Afghanistan.
I assumed with the Taliban takeover they continued that
interest and we are hearing anecdotally that they're involved
in--particularly with extractives. But we have not looked into
it and we cannot document why all of a sudden.
But they've always been interested in extractives in--even
under the prior regime in Afghanistan.
Ms. Titus. Well, could you comment on how you foresee the
return of our diplomats to the country and what are the risks
of not going back or some of the advantages of going back?
Mr. Sopko. Again, ma'am, I have not looked at that. There
are, obviously, risks. The decision of sending diplomats there
is a decision that really is a policy decision beyond my pay
grade.
That is a decision made by the Administration or Congress
to recognize and I think basically the president is the only
one who can recognize another country, I believe. So, you know,
I cannot really tell you what are the decision points on that.
So----
Ms. Titus. Well, if you have not studied that and it's not
your pay grade and you cannot get information from the State
Department what is it that your office does and should continue
doing?
Mr. Sopko. Well, we are trying to find out--we're doing
audits and investigations on theft or diversion of funds. We
are trying to come up with recommendations and how to do a
better job in a country like Afghanistan where we do not
recognize the host government.
Ms. Titus. Would you share with us some of those
recommendations?
Mr. Sopko. We will. We'll actually give the report. We're
not done yet. I started to talk about some of our preliminary
recommendations. One is to use the international organizations
less until you can get better oversight from the various
international organizations.
I refer to a 1945 statute that created them which basically
cuts back the amount of oversight that any U.S. Government
agency including my office can do. So that's one thing.
Ms. Titus. I do not usually think of the World Bank, which
you mentioned earlier, as a NGO. I mean, that's not exactly
what you think of as NGO's. But are there any NGO's that are
effective on the ground outside of that financial world?
Mr. Sopko. There are some NGO's that are doing work in
Afghanistan that are doing good work. The problem with the
international organizations like the World Bank and the U.N. is
they are not actually doing the work. They're basically just
another layer.
They subcontract to others to do the work. Some are Afghan
NGO's and some are international NGO's, and that's another
problem. You got multiple layers, multiple expense, because of
multiple Administrations. So we're saying that's one thing you
should look at, and there's a number of other recommendations
that we're, you know, happy to share once we have finished our
report.
Ms. Titus. And when will that be?
Mr. Sopko. Well, we're hoping in the near term in the next
few months. Some of the staff is here. It'll be a few months
before that's done.
Ms. Titus. And have you been to Afghanistan? Do you have
people on the ground there? Is that safe?
Mr. Sopko. Oh, gosh, no. There's no Americans on the ground
in Afghanistan. I used to travel----
Ms. Titus. Well, we know one is who's in prison.
Mr. Sopko. That's the problem. That's why we're not there.
I used to travel all the time to Afghanistan. We used to have
dozens--I think we were up to about 50 people at one time in
Afghanistan in the old days. But nobody there--nobody from the
embassy. Nobody from any U.S. Government agencies are in
Afghanistan right now.
Ms. Titus. And so most of your information is secondary
hearsay? Diaspora?
Mr. Sopko. Diaspora, secondary. We're interviewing U.N.
officials. We're interviewing World Bank officials. We're
interviewing NGO officials. We have actually done--we do have
some independent civil society organizations that we're working
with in Afghanistan that are providing us information.
We do get documents, and although we cannot subpoena the
State Department to get documents we do have subpoena authority
over corporations or NGO's that are working there. So we get
documents that way.
We also get material by talking to other countries that are
working there. So we have a large, you know, swath of
information that we're getting. We're not getting the internal
contract documents and materials that we would normally get
from the State Department and that's the problem.
Ms. Titus. Yes, I heard that earlier.
Mr. McCormick [presiding]. The gentlelady's time has
expired. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Perry for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. I thank the chairman.
Mr. Sopko, thanks for your attendance today. Can you tell
us how many Afghan or estimate how many Afghan refugees are
coming to the United States through Pakistan or from Pakistan
through the Special Immigrant Visa or U.S. Refugee Admission
Program referrals? Any clue about that?
Mr. Sopko. I do not have that in front of me. I thought I
did. But I----
Mr. Perry. Well, if your staff can get that even while
we're here that would be awesome. But I'd like to move on a
little bit while you're kind of looking for that.
You did explain in your testimony the use of humanitarian
aid but I'm a little bit lost on $5 billion plus appropriated
to the DoD to transport--as it says to transport, feed, and
house Afghans in Fiscal Year 1922 and 1923. Can you tell us
what this money was used for?
Mr. Sopko. We have not audited any of that moneys right now
so I cannot tell you specifically. It's basically for
resettlement.
Mr. Perry. So is it being used in the United States of
America?
Mr. Sopko. I think most of it is in the United States of
America.
Mr. Perry. Why would it be in DoD if it's being used in
America?
Mr. Sopko. I do not have an answer to that. I can find out
and get back----
Mr. Perry. Is that the appropriate place for it? Shouldn't
that be, I do not know, at least in State? Why would it be in
the Department of Defense? Why was it--why is it their job to
pay for transport, food, and housing in the United States of
America of Afghan refugees?
Mr. Sopko. My staff said initially a lot of those people
were on military bases and that may have been why they--it was
charged to the DoD accounts.
Mr. Perry. So do you think that all $5 billion--I mean,
they're not still there, are they? What happens to the rest of
that money?
Mr. Sopko. I cannot answer that question right now. I'm
happy to look into that.
Mr. Perry. Okay. I'd love you to take a look back into that
and I'd also like to know if any of that money is being
funneled back into Afghanistan. And as long as we're talking
about that and I think you've kind of gotten into that a good
bit--I have not been here the whole time--but it seems to me
that the humanitarian aid that the United States might be
sending is it's unavoidable that it falls under the Taliban
interference or influence, and we continue to use these tax
dollars for some reason in Afghanistan, which pays into a
corrupt system supporting a regime that is at war with the
United States and essentially killed United States service
members.
Based on your assessment of what you see from your
position--I know you're not going to Afghanistan and I do not
recommend that you do but our tax dollars sure do--should we
cease all assistance until some solution becomes apparent
because aren't we essentially funding our enemy?
Mr. Sopko. I am in an awkward spot and that's because I'm
an inspector general. As an IG we--no IG should be doing
policy. We do process.
Mr. Perry. Okay. You pay taxes, right?
Mr. Sopko. I do and I----
Mr. Perry. Okay. Do you want your tax dollars as a guy with
a front row seat to where those tax dollars are being spent--do
you think it's a good use of your tax dollars to be spent on
the Taliban located in Afghanistan?
Mr. Sopko. I do not think that's a good use of tax dollars
for the Taliban.
Mr. Perry. Okay. Fair enough.
Mr. Sopko. A certain percentage probably is going to the
Taliban. We know that.
Mr. Perry. Is that percentage OK? What percentage----
Mr. Sopko. I'm sorry?
Mr. Perry. What percentage is, like, acceptable to go to
the Taliban----
Mr. Sopko. You know, I do not know.
Mr. Perry [continuing]. Who murders children and women and
hates the United States and took our weapons and killed
Americans. What percentage--like, if we send a dollar how much
of that dollar should go to the Taliban?
Mr. Sopko. I would not set a dollar amount. I do not think
any money should go to somebody who's trying to kill America or
killing our friends. But----
Mr. Perry. Yes. It'd be easy to solve if we just sent zero,
would not it?
Mr. Sopko. Well, that's a policy decision that I think you
have to make then----
Mr. Perry. Well, we're trying to get the information. Let
me ask you this. I think you claim that a hundred new Taliban
NGO's emerged in Afghanistan during a single quarter in 2022.
What do you suppose the intentions are behind expanding
Taliban--aligned NGO's and how does it play out with you and
the decision to ban U.N. agencies in Afghanistan from
partnering with NGO's that the Taliban deems to be
unacceptable?
Mr. Sopko. I think that's a frightening perspective and I
think that's why we're sending a warning to State and AID and
to other donors that the moneys may be going up.
Mr. Perry. Maybe?
Mr. Sopko. You may get a Taliban NGO--if I can just finish,
sir--you may get a Taliban NGO which is, quote/unquote,
``helping women's rights'' which is trying to get money from
the U.S. Government.
Up to now we have not documented any money going to the
Taliban.
Mr. Perry. You're not going to document it because you're
not there, right? I mean, how are you going to document it?
Mr. Sopko. Well, we can still get information from other
people. Remember, we have people in the----
Mr. Perry. And I'm sure they're all truthful and not----
Mr. Sopko. Well, not all. Not all, sir.
Mr. Perry. All right. My time has expired. I yield.
Mr. McCormick. The gentleman's time has expired. I now
recognize Mr. Jackson for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Thank you very much, Dr.
McCormick.
Thank you so much for your time today and your
transparency. Can I ask you one question? Was there a
particular reason why the United States left Afghanistan
September 11th, 2021? Was the date symbolic?
Mr. Sopko. I did not pick--I do not know why they----
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Okay. But 9/11--September 1911.
Mr. Sopko. Yes, it was 9/11.
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Like, I did not know if there was
anything.
If there was something that we could pry into regarding the
State Department's actions how can we help you do your job
better and the interim information that you need from the State
Department?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I think if this committee sent a
bipartisan request or notice to State that they should be
cooperating with us we're happy to provide you chapter and
verse of where there's a lack of cooperation. That would be
very helpful.
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Okay. We see there's an
acceleration in the amount of humanitarian assistance that's
needed, that more children are going into acute care for
malnutrition.
What specifically can you add to that to share with us? Is
this going to continue to accelerate? Is it staving off? Is it
at a level that can be managed? Are we able to provide more
assistance to curtail this humanitarian crisis that's
unfolding?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I do not know if the humanitarian crisis--
the humanitarian crisis is going but I think our assistance has
not grown proportionally.
But, again, that's a decision made by State, AID, and
Congress and the amount of money you want to give. I do not
think there's been any effect of our assistance on improving
the core or the causes of the crisis in Afghanistan.
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Will there be--and under your
estimation from the boots on the ground, the general sentiment,
how are Americans perceived in Afghanistan at this moment?
Mr. Sopko. It would be hard for me to say. I know the
people who have left Afghanistan--the Afghans--love us but I
cannot speak for what the average Afghan thinks.
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Could you explain how the--is the
Taliban fulfilling any of their obligations with the agreements
that were left in place?
Mr. Sopko. Many of their obligations they are not
following. There's some question on their connections with
terrorist organizations. They have not been following that.
They promised to abide by humanitarian policies on women,
children, et cetera. They're not abiding by that.
They had promised not to use extrajudicial punishments for
prior government officials or employees or soldiers. They're
not abiding by that. I can give you a total list of all those
promises but they're not abiding by any of them.
Mr. Jackson of Illinois. Thank you so much. I yield back,
Mr. Chair.
Mr. McCormick. The gentleman yields. The next gentleman to
be recognized is Mr. Mast for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mast. Appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
I want to go to some of the--you've struck a chord with a
lot of your comments and I think a lot of my colleagues and we
appreciate your candid and open nature of conversation with
you.
You're an auditor, right? To be frank, a bean counter? Is
that----
Mr. Sopko. I'm a former Federal prosecutor. I'm a
prosecutor.
Mr. Mast. Tasked with auditing?
Mr. Sopko. Yes.
Mr. Mast. Waste, fraud, abuse in Afghan reconstruction--I
would be quantifying that correctly?
Mr. Sopko. That's correct.
Mr. Mast. Okay. And in that you used the term never--quote,
``never defined reconstruction.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Sopko. Yes. Yes, the statute does not specifically
define reconstruction is. You got to take a look at various
portions of it.
Mr. Mast. And so that's the nature--the nature of my first
question. You're tasked with auditing something. Do you--
whether it's because of some specific sentence in a document
you were given or because of something somewhere else can you
as the auditor define what reconstruction is?
Mr. Sopko. We have defined it in--basically, if you look at
the statutes, and I'm happy to give you chapter and verse----
Mr. Mast. I'm here.
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. Defined as assistance to the
benefit of the Afghan people. That's how we have interpreted
it, that's how the appropriators have interpreted it, and only
recently has the State Department interpreted it as it does not
cover anything else and does not cover any of the programs in
Afghanistan.
Even as specific humanitarian programs that we were
auditing before that the State Department and AID was
cooperating with, once the Taliban took over the State
Department said those programs are no longer reconstruction.
Mr. Mast. So to the best of your knowledge and what you can
recall seeing, reading, being lectured on, whatever, to the
benefit of the Afghan people.
Mr. Sopko. Yes.
Mr. Mast. I'm a firm believer when we look at U.S. policy
that we say in any bit of it, USAID or anything, does our
policy support what we want for each country. I have it written
on a board in my office because we should always, in my
opinion, be answering that question.
So in your statement there, you know, to support the Afghan
people can you see clearly in anything you've said what we want
out of this for the United States of America?
Mr. Sopko. Currently? Right now?
Mr. Mast. I'll let you answer it in----
Mr. Sopko. Well, right now I think that's a problem. We do
not really have a strategy articulated by the Administration on
what we're doing in Afghanistan--a specific strategy for
Afghanistan. We used to do that on a regular basis but we have
not. Yes. We do not. We do not.
Mr. Mast. That's amazing. It's not the most provocative
thing that you can hear but it is amazing that, you know, we're
talking about whether it's $11 billion since, you know, this
year or $3.5 billion since this year or whatever the timeframe
is we do not have a strategy, really, an aim for reconstruction
other than blasting a shotgun out there and saying, you know,
hopefully one of those BBs, you know, supports the Afghan
people but not an aim to support what the United States of
America wants out of that relationship.
Mr. Sopko. It's correct.
Mr. Mast. I do not know that there's another question I can
ask you because there's not an answer. There's not a specific
for you to give me in that. So I do not----
Mr. Sopko. That's a problem we have been facing in
Afghanistan I think for 20 years. We did not really know what
our objective was, or changed or it morphed, and that's very
difficult if you're an auditor or an investigator, particularly
if you're an auditor or if you're a Congressman.
If you do not know what you want to accomplish how do you
judge you're getting there? And that's what we saw on a regular
basis and we have raised that numbers of times that--you know,
we look at inputs, we look at outputs and we look at outcomes.
What's the outcome you want to achieve by being in Afghanistan?
Now, there may just be a straight humanitarian. We want to
help people not starve to death or die and that may be an
articulated objective, and I'm not saying that isn't a good
objective to have. But that----
Mr. Mast. But even that is really--like you said in your
comments as well, noble cause. You used the term noble cause to
identify that and that's true. Noble cause.
But even that we do not do that without the purpose of
saying we want to see a friendly government there or, you know,
we want to see safety in our embassy--we do not have an embassy
there. Or we want to see hostages returned or we want to--like,
there is still an end State in humanitarian support for any
entity for the United States of America and our taxpayers.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCormick. The gentleman yields. The gentleman Mr.
Sherman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sherman. There was substantial discussion earlier when
I was here about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It certainly
was not pretty. But there's almost no time in history when
there can be a retreat that is nice to look at. It was not nice
to look at in Saigon. It was not nice to look at in
Afghanistan.
One of the intelligence failures was the belief that
because the Afghan army clearly had the capacity to fight
against the Taliban for a 3-month period that they would. The
fact is that once we were withdrawn--withdrawing and everybody
expected the Taliban to take over who is going to give their
life just to provide a 3-month window between our withdrawal
and the Taliban's victory?
Our intel community confused capacity with willingness. But
I do not think that we are going to go back as we analyze this
and say, oh, if we had just done it better it would have been
beautiful.
I'll ask our witness you've--we have very few tools
available to get Afghanistan to do what we want. We can bomb
them. Nobody's suggesting that.
We can prevent them from getting other economic
relationships with private sector companies and with the IMF
but that undercuts our effort to help the Afghan people, and we
can provide direct aid. The aid we're providing is not only a
problem for those who focus on Afghanistan.
I've been advocating for 27 years now that we spend more
money providing nutrition and health and education to the
poorest people in the world and I cannot think of a better way
to undermine that effort than to let the American people know
the truth, which is that the money we send to Afghanistan is in
part purloined not just by the ordinary corruption but also by
those who want to fund terrorism.
Do we have any tools other than to tell the Afghan
government that we will not provide the aid? We can threaten
to--we can cut it off. We can threaten to cut it off. Any other
tools we have available?
Mr. Sopko. Well, there are certain auditing tools. There
are certain tools----
Mr. Sherman. There are auditing tools for us to discover
how much of our money is stolen.
Mr. Sopko. Yes.
Mr. Sherman. But do we have--and it'd be nice to get a
report--but do we have any tools to get them to stop stealing
it?
Mr. Sopko. No.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. So if----
Mr. Sopko. No. We do not have leverage. We had very
little--we had leverage before. We have no leverage now,
really.
Mr. Sherman. Now, there's a limited amount of money that
Congress will provide to providing nutrition, health care, and
education to the poorest people in the world. Every dollar we
spend in Afghanistan is a dollar we do not spend in eastern
Congo or northern Ethiopia.
Do we--if we were to not spend money in Afghanistan but to
spend more in those other places would we feed as many hungry
people? Would we educate as many people who are desperate for
education?
Mr. Sopko. I cannot answer that. We did not look into that.
Again, that's a policy decision. I think I told you, and maybe
now it has hit home, that there are no really good choices in
Afghanistan.
Mr. Sherman. Yes. I mean, there's a tendency when you have
limited resources you just spread them out and say, well, we
did something here and we did something there. We did something
here. So do not tell us that politically difficult thing, oh,
you did nothing for that.
But the fact is if we did twice as much in eastern Congo
and half as much in Afghanistan we might be helping just as
many people and the advocates for foreign aid tend not to want
to have that discussion because they believe we should be doing
both and all of the above.
But Congress is limited. So the one way that we could have
some leverage is if Afghanistan realized that if we cannot make
sure the money is spent well in Afghanistan there are other
places we can spend it.
How much do they care whether this aid gets to their
people? Is even the threat to cutoff aid leverage or are they
in favor of ignorance and starvation?
Mr. Sopko. There have been statements made by senior
Taliban officials and, again, one thing you have to realize is
the Taliban is not monolithic----
Mr. Sherman. I do.
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. And as you well realize, but there
have been some statements made by some of the, I would say, the
Kandahar Taliban who basically said, we do not really care.
Now, there may be more practical people in other areas of
the country and maybe that's what we're trying to reach out to.
But that's a diplomatic issue that I--we do not really look at.
Mr. Sherman. We need to explore whether this money can do
more in Africa. And I yield back.
Mr. McCormick. And the chair also recognizes that when the
gentleman from the other side of the aisle is talking about not
spending money then we should pay careful attention.
With that I recognize Mrs. Young Kim for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Kim of California. Thank you. I'd like to thank the
chair and the ranking member for holding today's hearing on
Afghanistan.
You know, it's been more than 2 years after the withdrawal
and we have seen today a complete reversion of progress on
women's rights in Afghanistan, and according to SIGAR's most
recent quarterly report, the several multilateral institutions
and international NGO's released a statement arguing the
Taliban's abuses against women and girls constitute crimes
against humanity.
And SIGAR previously noted that education is banned for
girls past grade six. Women and girls are banned from public
parks. Women are banned from boarding a flight without a male
guardian and women are banned from working with NGO's or the
United Nation.
While USAID does not engage directly in negotiations of
MOUs with the Taliban the USAID does have a policy on MOUs
between the Taliban and NGO's operating in Afghanistan.
So I'm interested in hearing about this policy with regard
to the protection of women and girls.
Mr. Sopko, does State or USAID require Taliban MOUs signed
by U.S.-funded NGO's to be submitted for approval before
signing?
Mr. Sopko. I believe we have not gotten--taken a real look
at those MOUs but I think AID told us in January of this year
that there's a new mission order allowing implementing partners
to sign MOUs.
Mrs. Kim of California. So you have not seen any MOUs?
Mr. Sopko. Well, provided they are approved by AID and
justified as necessary. So I do not know if my staff has seen
any of those MOUs. Let me just check.
Have we seen any of the MOUs? Yes, we have. Some of my
staff have seen it and we have samples of those MOUs.
Mrs. Kim of California. Well, I would like to see some of
that, too. OK?
Mr. Sopko. Okay. If we can arrange that, yes.
Mrs. Kim of California. Does USAID's criterion have
requirements that MOUs do not include prohibitions on women
working with NGO's? Any staff member that have seen the MOU can
you talk about that?
Mr. Sopko. I know AID is pushing against it. I do not know.
We'll have to double check those MOUs to see if they have
anything about women.
Mrs. Kim of California. Is USAID or U.N. able to enforce
protections for women NGO workers that are implementing U.S.
assistance?
Mr. Sopko. I do not believe they can from our discussion
with U.N. officials. I mean, I know they initially shut down
all of their cooperation with the Taliban over that issue. But
I believe they have eventually decided, and I will stand
corrected if my staff tells me otherwise, that it was worth
more to get the aid out. So they have not stood up to the
Taliban on that.
Mrs. Kim of California. It's really important that we
provide the protection for women workers there too--the NGO
workers. So I would hope that we can pay attention to that as
well.
Mr. Sopko. We're happy to get back to you and more
specifics on the MOU.
Mrs. Kim of California. You know, is the U.S. continuing to
fund education initiatives for children past grade six in
Afghanistan following the ban on girls attending school past
this grade level? And what about the United Nations?
Mr. Sopko. I do not know if we have looked at that. We
issued a recent audit on the education funding but I do not
know if we looked at that time that covered the period of them
preventing them from going beyond the sixth grade.
We'll have to get back to you on that.
Mrs. Kim of California. Oh, gosh. We did not get much
information out of you today, did we? Well----
Mr. Sopko. I do not know if I would agree with that, ma'am.
Mrs. Kim of California. Well, thank you. I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. McCormick. The gentlelady yields. The gentleman Mr.
Stanton is recognized now for 5 minutes.
Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you,
Inspector General Sopko, for being here today.
As we focus on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the
resulting impact I want to thank the many Afghans who did work
alongside U.S. forces and U.S. officials for 20 years,
particularly members of the Female Tactical Platoon. These
courageous women risked their lives by doing what male soldiers
could not in a majority Muslim country, searching and
questioning women and children in pursuit of Taliban targets
during the 2,000 missions they served alongside Green Berets,
Navy SEALs, and Army Rangers.
Their work to support the United States mission along with
their gender makes them and their families top targets for the
Taliban. Yet, not all of them have been allowed to come to the
United States and of those who are in the United States one-
third are still awaiting asylum.
I will continue to push Congress to pass the Afghan
Adjustment Act, a necessary step toward repaying and saving
those who served alongside the U.S. mission.
Inspector General, I know what you earlier clarified with
questioning from my colleague, Representative Bera, that you do
not have direct jurisdiction to audit the Special Immigrant
Visa Program.
However, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction's most recent quarterly report does include
updates from the State Department regarding the Afghan SIV
program.
What steps has the Biden Administration taken to address
the needs of Afghans who did partner with the United States in
various capacities but would not be eligible for SIVs?
Mr. Sopko. Again, because we have not been tasked to look
at that we have not. We're just reporting what the status is
and updating on what we're--what's happening that's
significant. We have not looked into that issue.
Mr. Stanton. What has the Biden Administration done to
expedite SIV processing?
Mr. Sopko. Again, we have not looked at the SIV program
specifically.
Mr. Stanton. Okay. The previous questioner talked about the
impact of Taliban policies--terrible policies as it relates to
women. The Taliban discriminates heavily against women,
highlighting the vulnerability of the Female Tactical Platoon
members who are still in Afghanistan or who have not been
granted United States visas.
Are you aware of any actions the international community
could have to compel or motivate the Taliban to lift some
restrictions on Afghan women and girls, particularly limits on
education and participation in civil society work force?
Mr. Sopko. I know the international community including the
U.N. and United States objected to it. But it was not
successful. I do not have an answer to what could have worked
with the Taliban. I think you have a situation where the
current leadership of the Taliban really do not care what we
think about women's rights.
Mr. Stanton. Okay. There are reports now that Pakistan
wants to forcibly remove up to 1.7 million Afghan refugees
immediately. What impact might Pakistan's plan to forcibly
remove--what might be the impacts, excuse me, of Pakistan's
plan to forcibly remove Afghan refugees?
Mr. Sopko. Well, if it includes people who worked with the
U.S. Government or assisted the prior government in doing work
it puts all of those individuals in peril. Just recently the
Pakistan government announced that their repatriation of
Afghans would not include people in Pakistan awaiting the SIV
or the P-1/P-2 process to be finalized.
The problem is we do not know if that's firm. It could
change the whims of the Pakistan government. It also does not
really address the other issue--and, again, I apologize that we
have not looked at the program. We have not been tasked to do
it. That it's going to take years for those people in Pakistan
to either hear a yea or nay to coming to the United States or
another country.
So it causes concern. I think you're concerned about and we
are too about what Pakistan is doing.
Mr. Stanton. All right. Thank you very much. I have other
questions. I'll submit it in writing and I will yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCormick. The gentleman yields. Mr. Baird is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, and,
Mr. Sopko, we appreciate you being here.
You know, the vicious attack in August 2021 killed 13
Americans, and others have made reference to that but the
reason I wanted to mention this Corporal Sanchez was from
Logansport, Indiana, which was in my district.
And then now Afghanistan faces a collapse of their economy
and they face a humanitarian crisis. Back in April during your
testimony to the House Oversight Committee you mentioned that
the State Department and USAID's refusal to provide SIGAR
information leaves it impossible to say whether the United
States provide taxpayer dollars to the Taliban or the Afghan
terror group.
So here's my question. Have you received any update and
based on what you've said so far? But have you received any
update on this from either the State or USAID and can you give
any clarity if the United States has given money for
humanitarian assistance to the Taliban or if the Taliban have
directed other funds--diverted other funds?
Mr. Sopko. I think in my testimony and my written testimony
we have documented that the Taliban are receiving U.S. funds.
We have not been able to identify the exact amount, and as I
mentioned in my statement, you know, thieves usually do not
advertise how much they steal.
We do know they have done that. We have--some of this
information came from USAID. Some of that information came from
our own hard work of our staff. We have sent out questionnaires
to NGO's and a vast majority of them have said that they have
been shook down by the Taliban, have given assistance, and some
of that is U.S. assistance, to the Taliban.
We have also documented that the Taliban has forced NGO's
to give assistance to their friends, their soldiers, and not to
give it to other people, particularly minorities like Hazara.
So we have done a pretty good fair job of doing that. We do
not have the exact amount. I think we identified of taxes and
licensing fees about $10 million for sure we have documented
that went to the Taliban.
We are still working on that and, you know, it may take
some time. But it's difficult. It's difficult to get that
information.
Mr. Baird. So do they take a tax or a fee on almost
everything? Is that how they're getting some of that? And then
they divert--in the other cases they divert it all. Is that----
Mr. Sopko. It depends. I mean, there's sort of a--I do not
know if we--one of my staff, I think, refer to it as sort of a
kleptocrat's handbook on this--that they're following
everything you can think of. You got to hire their contractors
for drivers. You got to rent the cars from their people.
So they're using multiple methods to doing it and that's
the difficult thing. And, again, I made the statement is it
corroborates, I think, an old statement that those who have the
guns have the aid and they have the guns and they're using
every attempt.
What was also troubling is that the Taliban have actually
infiltrated the U.N. organization. They've infiltrated a number
of these NGO's by placing their people in it--in those
organizations and that was documented by other organizations,
too. So it's just a myriad of ways that they are trying to get
this money.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. I appreciate--I appreciate your
information in that regard, and my time is about up so I yield
back.
Mr. McCormick. The gentleman yields. Mr. Burchett, you're
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if my
questions have already been asked. As the 435th most powerful
Member of Congress sometimes that happens. But when I ask them
I want you to respond that it's very thought provoking even
though you probably answered it three times already, if that's
all right, sir.
Is there any way that the U.S. can provide aid to
Afghanistan without any of it falling in the hands of the
Taliban?
Mr. Sopko. No.
Mr. Burchett. That's what I--like Fred Thompson said, never
be afraid of a one-word answer.
Mr. Sopko. It's impossible.
Mr. Burchett. He was a great communicator. Are you able to
track United Nations funding to the Taliban and if so how much
aid in American dollars?
Mr. Sopko. We're trying to do it--as I did mention before,
we have actually documented about $10 million, and I'm not
certain if this went through the U.N. or other NGO's but $10
million in fees and taxes that's gone to the Taliban.
Mr. Burchett. OK, and that is through U.N. dollars that are
American dollars?
Mr. Sopko. Well, it's American dollars and--you know, yes.
Mr. Burchett. Right. Okay. Ten million dollars.
What sort of military equipment is now in the hands of the
Taliban and what do you think the value of that equipment was
when it was left?
Mr. Sopko. We did a report on that estimate of how much
material was left and it was basically based upon a report done
by the Department of Defense. I do not have the exact figure in
front of me but it's multiple--yes, $7 billion in equipment and
that includes everything from airplanes to guns to bullets to
boots to you name it. So it's a massive amount of equipment.
Mr. Burchett. Seven billion?
Mr. Sopko. Billion with a B.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, sir. Ten million for United Nations and
$7 billion in armaments. Okay.
We have been told that the Taliban has more moderate
members now, which I do not know that I believe that or not.
But do you believe not allowing women and girls out of the
house is moderate?
Mr. Sopko. No, I would not believe it's moderate. You know,
it's basically a slave State over there. The women are the
slaves. So, you know, no. I mean, there are moderate compared
to--I mean, it's like comparing Attila the Hun to somebody
else. I mean, it's moderate----
Mr. Burchett. Yes. You got suicide bombers and then you've
got those that would just, like, you know, take----
Mr. Sopko. Just to kill you the normal way. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. A hand grenade kind of thing. Yes, I got you.
Okay. Well, I believe that's all of my questions. Thank you,
sir. I really appreciate it. You've been very----
Mr. Sopko. And no one else asked those questions before,
sir. Let me just tell you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burchett. Is he telling the truth, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. McCormick. As far as I--the chair has recognized, yes.
Mr. Burchett. That young lady beside you I trust her. So
all right.
Mr. McCormick. With that, the gentleman yields. And with
that I recognize the all-patient Mr. Huizenga matter of fact
for seven and a half minutes. A special privilege.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, give him my time, please.
Mr. Huizenga. Well, I appreciate that. I do have a 1
o'clock meeting but my apologies.
Earlier today I was passing a bill through the House
Financial Services Committee dealing with Iran sanctions and
that, obviously, in light of what has happened with Hamas is
very important.
But one of the lessons that we have learned is about the
fungibility of money and so that's what I want to kind of
pursue, and my colleague was asking about that equipment value
and those kinds of things that--you know, what was left,
literally, on the battlefield for the Taliban to pick up, and I
thought it was interesting.
You had one--earlier one of my other colleagues had--was
kind of pursuing trying to make the point, I think, that, you
know, the U.S. Government does not officially recognize the
Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. That might actually
be true but we also do know that we sure do communicate with
them, we sure do cooperate with them, and certainly we have
been sending them money through various--through various
channels and to think that somehow that's not fungible is
naive, I think, to be generous with that.
Mr. Sopko, I read a little bit about your background. You
were a former staffer on the Hill, correct?
Mr. Sopko. Almost 25 years. Almost 25 years. Yes
Mr. Huizenga. Former staffers unite----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Huizenga [continuing]. And, you know, at some point
sometimes we actually get into some interesting positions. But
my point is you know actually what we're supposed to be doing,
right, which is oversight, which is holding an Administration
accountable regardless of who it is.
You know, SIGAR was created, if I recall correctly, and
signed into law by President Bush. You were appointed by
President Obama, correct? You served through the Trump
Administration and now serving through this Administration and
yet if I recall hearing you earlier this is probably the least
cooperative you have seen the State Department. Is that--is
that accurate?
Mr. Sopko. Yes, I would say that. Yes, this is the least
cooperative that the State Department has been.
Mr. Huizenga. That's troubling. That's troubling, and we
have seen it on this committee. You know, in my other committee
work I used to chair the subcommittee that had oversight of the
IMF and the World Bank and it just seems outrageous.
And former Ambassador Representative Wagner was talking
about this. It's outrageous that this committee and by
extension you--and you and by extension us are getting
stonewalled like that.
It's our responsibility to get that information from you
and from them. It's your responsibility to get that information
and yet they refuse to do that.
So that, I think, is going to be a challenge for us moving
forward. I've got--very generous of the chair to grant me some
additional time and because of this patience.
But can I ask one very specific question about the
equipment that has been--has been used? Is there any evidence
that any of that equipment has made its way into battlefields
or into countries in the Middle East or Ukraine?
That has been--there's been allegations of that. Are you
aware of any evidence of that being the case?
Mr. Sopko. I'm not aware of any evidence of that and we
have not looked at it either. So we have not--but we have seen
the press reports but we have no evidence.
Mr. Huizenga. Well, I guess that would--I've got a request
for you. Please take a look at that and it would be helpful if
the State Department would cooperate on that.
Certainly--and I want to touch on the Afghan board--the
Fund's board of trustees. There's four members currently. Is
that correct?
Mr. Sopko. Four or five? Yes, five. I think five.
Mr. Huizenga. Five? Okay. I saw that there was going to be
two that were added. Who are these people? What is--what is
their background?
I mean, we know in the central bank there's people--there's
at least three senior Taliban leaders that are currently
sanctioned by the U.N. who sit on their central bank board
including the director and the deputy director.
Mr. Sopko. There are two Afghans that were appointed to the
board. There's a Treasury Department official and a Swiss
official.
Mr. Huizenga. A U.S. Treasury----
Mr. Sopko. There's only four individuals.
Mr. Huizenga. Okay.
Mr. Sopko. One of the Afghan officials is currently--I'm
trying to think his exact title. He on the Supreme Council of
the Afghan central bank. So the question we have about that is
is that a conflict of interest and is the Supreme Council--this
is the Supreme Council of the current Afghan bank so that's a
Taliban Afghan central bank.
Mr. Huizenga. Correct. That would seem like a conflict to
me because if I'm reading this correctly the Afghan Fund could
be authorized to release these dollars, correct?
Mr. Sopko. That's correct. That's what it's purpose was.
Mr. Huizenga. Okay. And so--and so they're going to go into
the DAB, the central bank, which this person sits on, which we
know there are Taliban officials on.
So isn't it--seem a little bit of a stretch that State
Department's not aware of this or would not be fighting against
that?
Mr. Sopko. Sir, you know, I have a problem with the whole
concept, which Mr. West and no one has really explained to us.
How in God's name are you going to try to recapitalize the
central bank, which is controlled by the Taliban, without
helping the Taliban?
I mean, I--look, maybe I'm just a simple country lawyer
from the Midwest. I'm from Ohio. Okay. But I just----
Mr. Huizenga. Despite that I like you.
Mr. Sopko. What's that?
Mr. Huizenga. Despite that I like you, being from Michigan.
Mr. Sopko. Yes, I know. I know. But I used to work for John
Dingell.
But I just cannot fathom it and, again, maybe I've been
doing this job too long. Maybe I've been reading too many
audits. But can somebody please explain that to somebody how
the heck are you going to do it?
Now, maybe this is, again, a mirage like I talk about--a
facade. We're helping the Afghans but we're not helping the
Afghans. I do not know. That's a policy decision that you all
should ask. But I just do not know how to do that.
Mr. Huizenga. But to do that--I agree. But to do that we
need information. You can help us with that but you need
information, correct?
Mr. Sopko. We're giving you as much information----
Mr. Huizenga. Yes. No. No.
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. And this report should be ready for
your perusal in another month we hope.
Mr. Huizenga. And I appreciate that, and I believe that you
are doing everything that you can do. But you have--you have
given us chapter and verse about how you have been stymied with
your ability to get that information from State Department and
others, and I'm glad to hear USAID is cooperating more.
And, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this. I'm going to leave it
with this, because John Dingell actually was very good to me
when I came in in 2010 and he taught me a couple of things.
One of those was he called the tyranny of the vote, which
does not matter who you're with, what you're doing, or what--
how far away you are. They ring the bells and we have to go.
The other thing that he taught me was the value and the
importance and the constitutional obligation, frankly, we have,
and he certainly did that with the famous Dingellgrams, holding
any and all Administrations accountable. This--in my opinion,
this Administration has been some of the least accountable when
it comes to this and I think your testimony has buttressed
that.
So I, sir, am going to be pledging to work with you to make
sure that this Administration gets you the information you need
to do your job so we can do our job.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your indulgence
and I yield back.
Mr. Sopko. Well, thank you very much, and we're happy to
help you and any other member of this committee on that.
Mr. McCormick. With that the gentleman yields. And with
that, I grant myself an unlimited amount of time----
[Laughter.]
Mr. McCormick [continuing]. Because this is an interesting
topic for me and I'm actually very pleased that you're here
with us today. Thank you.
I'm going to revisit what you had said about the weapons
and I know there's no way to track weapons you do not have your
hands on. In other words, you do not have serial numbers. We
cannot track numbers we do not know.
With that said, we have had our weapons, you know, the M4A1
carbine has been seen in the hands of Hamas and Pakistani
militants over in Kashmir. I'm sure it's in other places.
In your opinion--this is all theorized but this is based on
an education--you're probably one of the more educated people
on this topic--where else could those weapons come from other
from--other than Afghanistan?
And we have pretty tight controls on the other weapons that
we have disseminated throughout the world. Where else could
they be coming from other than the mass weapons storages that
we had in Afghanistan?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I mean, I hate to say that there is
another conflict going on in Ukraine----
Mr. McCormick. Certainly.
Mr. Sopko [continuing]. And we're shipping weapons like
crazy over there. I do not know if those weapons are the same
kind. I do not--I do not really know. I mean----
Mr. McCormick. So on that topic, I happen to be an expert
on that topic.
Mr. Sopko. Oh.
Mr. McCormick. I've been over to Ukraine. I've seen the
tracking and the serialization ad nauseam. With the scanning
process they have an account for every single serialized
weapon--ammunition for that matter.
So I'm pretty sure we have pretty good accountability
there. So where else could it come from?
Mr. Sopko. Well, just to differ I know the DoD IG has been
looking in Ukraine and there are some questions about how good
a job we're doing. But hopefully it's improved.
Afghanistan is a likely place. It was a weapons bazaar
before and it's a weapons bazaar probably now. I do not see any
change. The only difference is is there's--the government isn't
cooperating. At least they used to cooperate with us, the prior
Ghani regime, but it was a total weapons bazaar.
Equipment--now, you're assuming all the equipment that the
Taliban has they got after they kicked the Ghani government
out. The Taliban--I mean, we were getting information that the
Taliban basically told their people do not buy weapons--we're
getting it already from the Ghani regime.
So there was a lot of weapons flowing out before the
collapse of the Ghani government.
Mr. McCormick. Excellent point. As a matter of fact, when
you mentioned the $7 billion that the Taliban got their hands
on that's just the tip of the iceberg because most of the
weapons actually came from the Afghani government that were
basically handed over when--without a fight.
Mr. Sopko. Sure.
Mr. McCormick. It was turned over. That's part of the
botched withdrawal that we did. Matter of fact----
Mr. Sopko. Or stolen beforehand. I mean, we did that
chapter and verse on audits about how horrible the accounting
was and DoD's accounting of weapons was just horrible in
Afghanistan.
So I hope it's improved in Ukraine. I have not looked. It's
not my job.
Mr. McCormick. I could not agree with you more. As a matter
of fact, I was there in 2016 and the interpreters used to talk
about this all the time, how there was a severe lack of
accountability not just on weapons but on vehicle parts,
sending the wrong parts, oversight in general and
accountability once you pointed out something with your SIGAR
or IG.
And I want to point out--by the way, for the uneducated
public in an attempt to educate them on the difference between
IG and a SIGAR, and if you could just kind of break this down.
In your experience did your office receives special hiring
authorities from Congress and how that differentiates between
the IG and the SIGAR? If you could explain that real briefly.
Mr. Sopko. Oh, yes. We were given that authority because
we're a temporary agency. So we have special authorities for
pay and special authorities, and when we go out of existence we
go out of existence. Our employees are on a contract--an annual
contract or little bit--I think 13 months so they can get
health benefits.
But that's the--that's the benefit of having a special IG.
We're temporary. I'm a firm believer in temporary agencies.
Mr. McCormick. And it also has a little more authority, if
I understand correctly?
Mr. Sopko. We can look at the whole of government and
that's important. That's--and I've talked about this before in
relationship to other places in the world. That's a really
helpful situation where you can follow everybody's money. The
problem is the DoD IG, let's say, can only look at DoD
programs. AID IG can only look at AID programs. State can only
look at State. And it's the same thing with Homeland Security
and all that.
We gave the--you gave us the authority to look at any U.S.
dollars spent in Afghanistan on reconstruction and--by any
agency. So we looked at the FAA. We looked at the FDIC. We
looked at every agency and they all--there's common themes. You
know, if they're stealing from one U.S. Government agency
they're stealing from another and they're also stealing from
the money given to the U.N. So you allowed us to look at the
United Nations, the World Bank, and all that, which was a
fantastic opportunity.
I firmly believe in whole of government and whole of
governments and you really need to have somebody able to look
at that.
Mr. McCormick. As do I and that's why I put an IG in the
provisions for the Ukraine.
Mr. Sopko. Oh, did you? Oh, good. Thank you.
Mr. McCormick. Yes, I did. So I'm happy about that.
Mr. Sopko. Congratulations. It's not us but I think that's
a good point to do.
Mr. McCormick. Now, when we look at Afghanistan as it
exists now we could probably agree there's terrorist training
bases there, correct?
Mr. Sopko. Yes.
Mr. McCormick. I think around 27 is the last count I heard.
I do not know if, you know----
Mr. Sopko. I think so. I think the U.N. gave 27.
Mr. McCormick. That's what I've heard also. And the fact
that we're still giving money to a regime that, as you said,
and I quote from an earlier statement, ``thieves do not
advertise what they steal.'' They probably also do not
advertise what they spend their money on. Would you agree on
that, too?
Mr. Sopko. Correct.
Mr. McCormick. Okay. So I can safely assume that if you're
harboring 27 terrorist bases and you've done things complicit
with terrorist activities that you're probably--some of that
money that we're literally sending to the Taliban could in fact
be used to support these training facilities?
Mr. Sopko. You're absolutely correct, and that's a concern
we have.
Mr. McCormick. I want to let that sink in to the American
public. American taxpayer dollars that we work for and we give
to the American government semi willingly are being used to
fund terrorist bases, training people to attack Americans and
their interest around the world.
I want that to sink in.
Mr. Sopko. Well, sir, we have not documented that. We have
documented everything----
Mr. McCormick. This is a--it's a clear possibility?
Mr. Sopko. Clear possibility, and that's the distinction
between----
Mr. McCormick. The fact that we allow that possibility to
exist is far beyond egregious. But--well, I'll leave it at that
because you and I agree on this.
Mr. Sopko. But I could say that's the distinction between
the theft and diversion of the prior regime. That usually just
went to corrupt officials and it may have ended up in northern
Virginia or California where they invested their money, or
Dubai.
But we were pretty certain it was not going to terrorist
organizations. That's the problem. That's the concern. I said
in my statement that this group are a bunch of terrorists and
so very likely it's going to end up the money being diverted to
terrorism.
Mr. McCormick. So we went from corrupt to evil. Great.
As you stated--this is my last question but I think it's
very germane to what we're trying to cover today--you stated to
the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability the Biden
Administration has not at all been helpful to you in your
investigations and you said in your testimony, and I quote,
``Due to the refusal of State and USAID to fully cooperate with
SIGAR I cannot report to this committee or to the American
people on the extent to which our government may be funding the
Taliban and other nefarious groups with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
We simply do not know since the Department of State, USAID, the
United Nations, and other agencies are refusing to give us
basic information that we or any other oversight body would
need to ensure safe stewardship of tax dollars,'' which
supports what we were just talking about.
What can Congress do to reverse that trend and bring back
accountability for the very dollars that we're responsible for
and, indeed, the safety of our country?
Mr. Sopko. Well, I mean, as I mentioned this to somebody
else who asked the question is, I mean, you know, a formal
letter from the committee--a bipartisan--bipartisan, you know,
because that sends a bigger message--bipartisan letter saying,
please, you know, or provide the information. I do not know if
you can do that. That's helped in the past.
I think asking State--as I said, USAID has turned around.
You know, they've been very helpful now. I mean, I do not mean
to criticize USAID. And that's in part because of letters from
committees like this. You just need to break through with
State. I mean----
Mr. McCormick. So that's the crazy thing. I've worked with
USAID or I've been over to Bangladesh and I've seen Cox's Bazar
and I've seen the amazing work they've done. They do some
amazing things.
Mr. Sopko. They do.
Mr. McCormick. Almost miraculous things.
Mr. Sopko. They do.
Mr. McCormick. What is the deal with the State? Why are
they resisting accountability? Why is the Biden Administration
hiding instead of being transparent what they're trying to do?
Million-dollar question.
Mr. Sopko. You've got to--you got to ask them. You know,
that's what I can say. Look, I'm a former prosecutor, and I do
not know if your background you were a former prosecutor or
defense attorney or whatever, but----
Mr. McCormick. I'm just a Marine. Simple Marine.
Mr. Sopko. Just a Marine. Okay. Well, when somebody--let's
go--I'll use Shakespeare, ``He protesteth too much.'' I always
wonder what motivates people. I mean, if--that's my personal
opinion. This isn't an audit and all that. My personal opinion
is same with yours, what are they trying to hide.
I mean, is it worse than we have already uncovered? I do
not know. I remember--I think it was Joe Dunford, another
Marine, who I remember telling me--he says, you know, John,
every time you come here you uncover a rock and something ugly
comes out so how do we stop that.
And he did not try to stop me. He said, how do we stop it
beforehand, and I created a program to try to do that. These
are the type of questions--these are type of things that we
used to deal with the State Department and AID and State and we
used to help them to stop the ugly things from crawling out
underneath the rocks.
If you do not identify the problem you're never going to
fix it and that's my concern.
Mr. McCormick. Amen. Thank you.
With that, I thank the witnesses for his valuable testimony
and the members for their questions. The members of the
committee may have some additional questions for the witness
and we'll ask you to respond to these in writing.
Pursuant to the committee rules, all members may have 5
days to submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials
for the record subject to the length limitations.
Without objection, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:07 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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