Perhaps we shouldnt have. I think the days of occupying nations and reconstruction with the hope that jeffersonian democracy is going to plant seeds and roots, it may have been naive. Its a very primitive country, afghanistan. Ive been there many times. So my question, as i advise the president on syria, a residual force to protect the homeland, i dont think we can afford to stay in these countries forever and occupy them forever. I think the most important thing we can do is to have a residual force of some sort to take out terrorist threats to the homeland in a counterterrorism mission. Maybe we lost sight of what our mission was in the first place, and so i guess and i know youre not here to report on policy, per se, but id like your comments on dha, and to that end, what programs have been most effective at counterterrorism in that mission . Congressman, i think thats an excellent question, and i can bring you up to the line to policy. And i leave the policy for you. You have to remember going back to that time, the initial reason we went in there were to find the people who killed our people. Find them, punish them, but the second point was to make certain that country, afghanistan, was not a place where terrorists could breed and attack us again. We were trying to create or help create a government that could manage their country. Up to then, they couldnt. So thats where the we call it nationbuilding. I dont know. Thats a word that i think is abused more than actually defined. Its always defined in the negative. We dont do nationbuilding. Somebody else does, but we were trying to make certain that an Afghan Government could keep the terrorists out. Thats why we built roads. Were doing trained advise and assist right now. Those were the two points of our goal in going into afghanistan. Taking it to what worked and hasnt worked, we identify and this is one of the things we were briefing joe dunford and his team on on this one Lessons Learned report which i think may have helped the president in his decision on what to do in afghanistan. Where we have consistency in our training, and we bring people over there for more than six months, and you see that particularly with the special forces training. Excellent training. And if you look at the Afghan Military right now, the best units that are fighting are the special forces that our teams are connected with them. They live with them. They work with them. The other area we had Great Success has been with the afghan air force. Again, the u. S. Air force has done a wonderful job, particularly with a couple of the platforms, the 839 i think is the best one where the air force, our mentors, worked for four years, four years they spend working with the afghan air force. And thats tremendous. Thats one of the best programs we have. And we were advising the president and his team. Thats what you should do. So it goes back to we should have actually done a more of a racking and stacking of what worked and didnt. The Afghan Military and particularly the Afghan Police has been a hopeless nightmare and a disaster. And part of it is because we rotate units through who arent trained to do the work and theyre gone in six to nine months. I dont blame the military, but you cant bring in a black hawk pilot to train an Afghan Policeman on how to do police work. Thats what we were doing. Were still doing. Wow. This has been very insightful, and it will help us in making our recommendations to the administration. It seems to me the conclusion that really training their special forces, their Afghan National defense and Security Forces and their air force with the appropriate people may be the best strategy. I know the president hopes he can negotiate with the taliban im a bit skeptical, sir, that you can never negotiate with the taliban. I know a complete withdrawal would involve an overrun by the taliban, for sure. It would probably take the country over and then wed have a real mess. This is very complicated. But its something that needs to change. Status quo is not acceptable here. In response to that ranking member, i agree totally. But the important thing is you have to be given the facts. Yeah. To make that decision. And one of the concerns i have raised for almost, again, seven or eight or nine years ive been doing this, i cant remember. They kind of merge after a while, is that a lot of the facts that you need, you are not being given. They are overclassified or not being collected, or theyre just ignored. So to this day, you dont have unless you go into the classified briefing, you know how difficult it is to use that. But youre not told some of the basic facts that you need to make your decision of wherever you should Fund Programs or not. I can go through the lists at some time. Thats still a program. When we talk about lying, its not just by lying about a particular program, its lying by omissions. By saying oh, i cant tell you about the casualties. Or i cant tell you hobbit how good the afghans are good at weapons. It turns out everything thats bad news has been classified over the last few years. We appreciate your hard work on this. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mr. Sherman. We cannot deny terrorists a few acres here or there. After all, they plotted against us in an Apartment Building in hamberg. We need to prevent terrorists from getting a whole state or a Training Facility as large as torabora was in early 2001. In evaluating our afghan policy, i think we have to get away from the cost and look only at the future and see the future costs of being involved and what future benefits if any are available. The one lesson ive learned over 20 years is we are very good at breaking things. We broke the taliban and entered kabul. We broke Saddam Husseins army and entered baghdad. We are not very good at fixing things. And at nationbuilding. We should restrict our future military involvements to those where our case for involvement is so strong that we are not miranda rule morally obligated to go in and fix it. The worst example was iraq. We invaded even a few days after Saddam Hussein said hed allow all the international inspections. We found no weapons of mass destruction, and then to justify our behavior, we had to announce that we were going to turn iraq into a democracy with rule of law. I wonder how well thats working out. Youve shown us our Afghan Nation building was not done well. Foreign Affairs Magazine gives our efforts there a d minus, but Going Forward were going to be confronted with similar situations. Lets say we had done a b job with the federal government long enough not to expect an a. One view is we can do nation building at reasonable cost if we learn from the lessons of afghanistan and do it about as right as the government can do it. Another less would a b job from the federal government have done the job in afghanistan . I used to teach in college. I think if you even did a d job, d, it would have been okay in afghanistan. Youre saying if we had d minus, and it would have worked a lot better. You would have what we did was an f, f minus, Something Like that . E. You showed up. You showed up for class. Thats it. All kidding aside. Youre saying we can do nation building if we do our the kind of good job that the federal government is capable of doing . Absolutely. And what we tried to do is we tried to give the afghans and i think one of your staff asked us about misassumptions that we identified. And theres a whole list of them. One was trying to give the afghans what we had when they only wanted a little bit of peace and a little bit of justice. And if you look at our report on stabilization, we talk about that. The whole Stabilization Program was coming in after our military cleared a district. The pride to bring in a Government Services so that the locals would go back and support the central government. Well, they wanted a little bit of justice. What did we do . We built courthouses. They werent looking for courthouses. They werent looking for something that looked like this. They were looking for just simple justice. And as much as you hate the taliban, and i do. And i hate their brand of justice. To the average afghan, its better than the justice provided by the National Unity government. And that was one of my trips was the most shocking thing where and i believe congressman conley left, so they can repeat the story so no one of you will be bored. I came back as so depressed because i met separately three afghans id been working with, smart, young, brave afghans who risked their lives every day. For some reason we all started talking about their families. Their families lived in the country side in afghanistan. And every one of those young, smart, bright afghans told me a story where they recommended that their mothers and fathers that if they had a justice problem, and all of them did, g to the taliban. Dont go to the local government. Instead of creating a government similar to what afghanistan had sometime in the last 50 years, we tried to create the kind of government we have in the United States. We tried to create a little america. We tried to create i call it norway. What they wanted was fair justice. And what happened is if you went to the National Unity government justice, first, the judges werent there because they were afraid to go there. You had to pay bribes and its the bribes that determined whether you got the land or whether the dowry was recognized. The taliban came in. It was rough justice. And im not advocating taliban justice. Is there a period of time in afghans history that you would say the afghan had the kind of government that those villages would have wanted . I think it probably would have been before the soviet invasion. It goes back to that. And before the communist regime. And the communist regime and the horror of that. I believe my time expired. Thank you, mr. Sherman. Mr. Smith. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you mr. Sopko for your tenacity. Your frustration level must be just vexing. I dont know how you do it. Ranking member mccall mentioned about Osama Bin Laden. Another part of the world i visited with bashir in sudan. He was almost mocking and then when i met with one of his people mocking, they offered us Osama Bin Laden before he went to afghanistan and the Clinton Administration would not take him. In terms of hindsight being 20 20, if only. Let me ask a couple questions. 130 convictions. 1,000 investigations, criminal and civil. 60 0 audit, inspections and other reports. Maybe you could break out and do it more for the people. Who were the people in were they americans . Were they people from afghanistan convicted . What were they convicted of . Where did they do to jail . Secondly, with regard to some examples and i think your testimony is just amazing. You talk about how the in 2014 then you said administrator, i know him. I wonder if the information got to him that you were trying to provide. He said there are 3 Million Girls and 5 million boys enrolled in school compared to 90,000 when the taliban ruled. You pointed out it was given by the government, and it was contradicted and there was attempt to verify the accuracy. You point out on the rule of la of law programs, a billion dollars, that in 2013, the strategy had no performance measures. I think, you know, that is appalling and maybe you might want to touch on that. And finally, you point out in the interviews for this lesso lessonslearned program, 80 of the people interviewed wanted their names to be removed. You know, to be anonymous. Again, was there retaliation against anyone as far as you know . And thats a very, very, you know, as you pointed, they have a wellfounded fear of retribution from political and tribal enemies. Maybe you could speak to that. And, again, thank you. Those are all good questions. Let me start at the the end. On retaliation, we know of no retaliation. But we are concerned. One of the concerns i have is that theres a lawsuit now pending and the Washington Post wants to get the names of all of our people who asked for anonymity. As an ig, i cant work if i cant offer anonymity and protection to a witness or a whistleblower. You know what . Whistleblowers are a life blood as an Inspector General or any Law Enforcement agency. I have a Law Enforcement credentials. You have to have em. I mean, i find it so ironic this is the same Washington Post, if i recall, had an informant that i believe it was for 30 years they ke years, they kept the identity of deep throat from the American People. But for some reason, we have a new Washington Post where they want to know our informants. These people who spoke to us risked a lot. And you know what this town is like. You know what its like if somebody bad mouths their old boss or whatever. These people are realistic fear and whatever. We dont we dont give them a litmus test of whether your fear is reasonable or not. We just ask if they want us to use their name. And so thats so important. So but there is no retaliation that we know of. I mean, in afghanistan, the difference is these people would be killed. Simple. Okay. But i suppose the Washington Post wants their names for some reason. Why . They have the information. Why do they need the name . But i dont want to go there. The the the question i believe and i im sorry if i the rule of law. The education of children and 130 convictions. Yeah. Thats it its fact versus fantasy. This is this this problem that we identified early on. This odor of mendacity. There was this exaggeration after exaggeration of what we accomplished. And theres another example we give about the Life Expectancy where u. S. Administrator shaw and it went all the way up to the president , were saying about how we had doubled the Life Expectancy. And we talked to experts in the health field. We talked to experts at the cia that said it was statistically impossible statistically impossible to double the Life Expectancy of any country over that timeframe. But that is and im certain some president i must say the current aid administrator is totally different and he sticks to the records and he sticks to the facts. I am so proud. One of your former colleagues. Tremendous person to work with. But we find this. But i think the problem is, again, we did not send liars and thieves and troublemakers to afghanistan to work for usaid or the department of defense or whatever. We sent the bravest, the smartest i dont want to say always the smartest but we sent the best that we had. But we gave them a box of broken tools. We gave them lets say if you were a contracting officer, youre rated on how much money you put on contract, not if any of the contracts work. We rated not on outcomes but on output. We sent over military officers with nine months or less of duty. And they had to show success. You know, ive actually been briefed, at one point, about the shark tooth of assessments. The afghan you would be assigned to an afghan unit. Youd come in and say the afghan unit cant walk and chew gum at the same time. Three months later, im seeing success. Theyre getting better. At the time of the end of your tour, theyre doing very good. Theyre meeting all objectives. You leave. The next captain comes in. These people cant chew gum and walk at the same time. Why . Its not because that officer is a liar. That officer wants to get promoted. That officer wants to show success over his tour of duty. This is the problem we have. Our hr system is broken. Our procurement system is broken. Our rotation system is broken. You know, go through the whole list. The problems you see in afghanistan are the problems you see with the way the government operates here. Thats the one thing i can say having spent 30 years looking at government operations. First, for senator sam nun, then for john dingle over here in the house. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Sopko. Thank you for all your work and your teams work in conducting oversight. The publication of the afghanistan papers by the post has elevated an important discussion but not the first attempt to highlight problems with the u. S. Role in afghanistan. Congress established to help conduct oversight of the war. Cigar has written several reports, right . Thats correct. A major concern is the u. S. Was dragged into a conflict in a country that it didnt fully understand. Theres more information we should have, mr. Sopko. Ill get to that in a second. According to the afghanistan papers, in 2014, a Senior State Department official said, if i were to write a book, its cover would be america goes to war without knowing why it does. We went in reflexively after 9 11 without knowing what we were trying to achieve. I would like to write a book about having a plan and an end game before we go in. And during a lessonslearned interview in 2015, said talibans presence was a symptom but we rarely tried to understand what the disease was. Richard voucher, Career Foreign Service officer who was at state south asia from 2006 to 2009 told government interviewers in 2015, if there was ever a notion of mission creep, it is afghanistan. We have to say good enough is good enough. That is why we are there 15 years later. We are trying to achieve the unachievable instead of achieving the achievable. These quotes help demonstrate how a lack of Cohesive Strategy and clear policy goals undermine our efforts in afghanistan. We didnt fully understand our adversary, strategic environment, or the environment in which were operating. Even the positive gains remain fragile. So, mr. Sopko, if were to be honest, congress is culpable in too many of these problems. Too often, we listen to officials without adequately questioning their assumptions and conclusions. But youre here today and youve told us that part of the problem is that we dont have the facts. You said the basic facts that we need arent being given. Can can you elaborate on that . What what what are the basic facts that all these years later that weve been at this, that youve been at this, were still missing . Well, lets let lets start with strategy. The there is a strategy for afghanistan. Its classified. Now, i have clearances. You dont need a clearance to get it. You cant get it. Theres a start. Whats our strategy . Theres a strategy for there is no strategy, we think, for let me joust stust stop you. When you are referring to the strategy, what are you referring to . Youre referring to a document . Well, usually, theres strategic documents. You got to have a strategy. And then you got to lay out the programs because you dont know where your program should be going. Thats the problem weve had over 18 years. Right. And you also have to have metrics or ways to measure success. Right. But when you i just want to stop you for a second. But when you talk about the constant churn of new people coming in and starting over, theyre all operating pursuant to that strategy. No . No. They get a job assignment. They just go over there to run a program. They dont know what thats the whole problem. Theyre sent over there without knowing what the strategy is and what was the objective of the overall strategy in afghanistan. But the individual program strategy. Okay. Where whos the keeper of that strategy . Where where you make it sound as if there is this document that if we all could just see it, everything would become clear. If we shared it all the military officials and usaid, they would understand. I didnt mean to imply that this is the Silver Bullet or answer. Youre saying where are the problems . You start with the strategy. And then you look at how did the programs meet that strategy . And then you look at metrics for success. And then you look at the facts. Now, when i talked about classification, i mean, i can go through the list of whats still classified. I think that may help you. You know, a way to determine whether were doing a good job on training, advising, and assisting the afghan Security Forces, youd want to know about the Afghan National Security Forces operation data. Thats classified. The afghan Security Forces casualties. I mean, if theyre all getting killed, then obviously our training hasnt been very helpful. Youd want to know about the rs candor commanders assessment of the Afghan Security environment. Thats now classified. The attrition metrics for the ana corps and a. N. Zone level. Thats classified. Let me just close with this. So in the in the seven documents that youve produced so far and all of the times that youve been up here, have we had this conversation before . I im not trying im not being flip this this notion that if we just had this information for all the years that weve been at this, have we have you been screaming from the mountaintops about this . Is there help me understand. I think ive i have been raising the issue about classification going back at least four or five years. And repeatedly. And i think in every report we raise it. Not the Lessons Learned but the quarterly reports. And i raised it just what was it last year. The last metrics we had for success were and general nicholson said these are the metrics you have to focus on. The amount of territory the Afghan Government controls and the percentage of the population they control. They classified that. Then they stopped collecting the data. And then they said thats no longer relevant. So you have no metrics. You, as members of congress, have no public metrics to rate the billions of dollars we are spending in afghanistan. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. And for the 20 over 2,400 american lives lost and over 20,000 wounded, we certainly owe it to every one of them to make sure that were doing everything now to get this right. And i appreciate this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Perry. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Sopko, for your candor. It seems to me that your job here from from the perspective of some of my colleagues is to make sure you do a good job at bashing or affirming that President Trump is pathetic and doesnt have a strategy. And this is all his fault. And i actually applaud your efforts to kind of stay out of the fray in that regard. I dont think any of us are perfect. I think the president does want to get out of afghanistan. And its its hard to determine what the facts are. The the the posts article kind of laid out the fact that we dont know the information. And you have reaffirmed that. Classifications, even in the president s own defense when he wanted to declassify information that would buttress his own innocence on claims against him, cant seem to get that done. This town this town has a way of sequestering the information most important to it and most damning to it and the people in it. That having been said, id like to get to some of the information you highlighted challenges regarding coordination of reconstruction in afghanistan a. And the fact that theres no one in charge. Theres no culpable whether its on the afghan side or whether on the american side or some ngo, et cetera the old adage that if everyones in charge, no ones in charge. Have there been any improvements in this since since you have continued to decry that over the course of your reporting . Have there been any improvements regarding culpability . Regarding assignment for for responsibility so to speak in afghan reconstruction projects . If i could have one moment. Sure. Well, its unanimous. No. No, we havent seen improvements. And, again, i dont want to, you know, turn this into a comedy routine. The problem is this is a very complicated this is a nato operation. We have multiple donors. We have multiple donors who are just doing reconstruction. Some are providing military. We it its a problem. And i really think its something that Congress Needs to focus on because we will do this again. And there are going to be multiple people wearing multiple hats. And we actually have an entire report looking on i forget the title of it divided responsibility. And that report goes into, unfortunately, gory detail of how convoluted the process is. And, again, this isnt met as a criticism of any administration. This is meant at a criticism of the complexities of government. This has got over 900 footnotes highlighting maybe this is the difference between us and the Washington Post. You know, we go into a lot of detail on this. And, no, there is a problem. And its and its not just in the military field. Although, this report focuses on that. But it also goes to the reconstruction field. So i think this is a worthwhile area for you and congress to focus on. Divided responsibilities in afghanistan and in in in these postconflict environments. With the little time that i have, let me just a little further on that. Its your studied opinion that that should be the purview of congress to assign that those responsibilities only in the context that, look, im a blackhawk pilot and i dont want to teach Law Enforcement and i wouldnt be any good at it. But but while im surrounded by a lot of really wellintended people that are smart, im not sure congress is the best answer either. And it seems to me that somebody that that can act somewhat autonomous autonomously, determine the problem, and see the solution set, somebody like a mark green or anybody in that capacity, should be able to say, look, heres the project. Heres the agencies involved. Heres where the funding is. Youre in charge. Heres the report time. Knock yourself out. And this is what we expect from you. And if you cant get the job done, then in six months, were going to look for a replacement. Why do you think its should be congress . Im im concerned about that. But ill ill im no. No. No. I think part of the reason is some of these authorities and responsibilities are established by law. First of all. And what were dealing with in afghanistan is a whole of government and whole of governments approach. And a lot of this is going to have to be done statutorily. Im not saying that any one committee up here are the best ones to decide. But it should be recognized we have a problem. And i was going to look at the chart. My times expired, sir. But could you just do this with the chairmans indulgence . Could you give us one example regarding a statute where you think we could make a difference . So i can kind of contextualize this. Definitely. Ill ask my staff right now and get back to you. Thank you. Thank you. Be clear on one thing right off the bat that our greatest responsibility to get things right. Were going to be talking about billions and billions of dollars. But our greatest responsibility to get things right rests with those families that lost sons and daughters and loved ones to this war. And to the people that are living with devastating injuries that they suffered in this war. That forever will challenge them, both physically and mentally. Now, let me zero in on one area of concern that we raised. My colleagues and i raised it. I authored, with my colleagues, a piece of legislation ensuring that women are part of the Peace Process in afghanistan and that theyre engaged in the activity of being Meaningful Partners in creating a lasting peace. Something i hope will advance, mr. Chairman, out of this committee shortly. But you mentioned in your report that you expect and in your testimony that you expect to issue a report on womens empowerment in afghanistan. This year or early next year. And in a recently released 2019 list, there is a section focusing on over a billion dollars spent since 2002 to advance the status of women. Gains by women in afghanistan remain fragile. So how would you categorize the current state of meaningful engagement for women . And what is a clear strategy, in your mind, Going Forward to deal, effectively, with these gains that not only will help women but actually, i think, help the country achieve any semblance of a lasting peace Going Forward. Congressman, thats a very good question and im glad you highlighted our highrisk list. Because this report talks about the importance of a number of issues. And this is when i referred to Congress Needs to do something about ensuring that these risks are dealt with if we want lasting peace. I cant tell you specifically what is the answer. I can just tell you that although weve made advances helping women in afghanistan, life for a woman in afghanistan is horrible. Outside of the cities, major cities, where majority of the afghan women live, it hasnt improved much. And i have not met an afghan woman yet who trusts the taliban. So that is something and i i know youre concerned that they have a seat at the table or somebody represents them at the table so they dont get lost in this shuffle declaring victory and leaving. Thats my concern. Weve been assured that time and time again by the by the afghan leaders. Yet, youre right. Theres no place at the table. So but you categorized it as fragile right now. So could you talk to us about right now . And and what we should have done to make it less fragile . And what we can do Going Forward . You know, i dont have specific answers to that. Ill get back to you. But i i think one one of the critical things about that issue, and its a delicate issue because youre talking about cultures, but one of those things is we have to focus that the problem of women, womens rights, is men. And all of our programs have been focusing on giving certificates and things to women. Well, the problem is and mrs. Ghani ive had discussions with her. I have spoken to her, too, in the palace. And she says the womens issue is a mens issue. So the program should be focused on them. But one of the things is, if youre going to design a womens program, talk to some afghan women. And mrs. Ghani was one of the first people who highlighted the problem with the promote program, which is one of those programs that was oversold as the greatest program on earth for women. 250 million and it was going to be 250 million of donations from the European Union and european allies. And i remember meeting with the european allies in afghanistan and none of them had heard about the program. But we had already this is, again, this odor of mendacity. All right. Ive got 20 seconds left. But there is a recurrent theme, regardless whether its talking about the judiciary system, the rule of law. Whether youre talking about the narcotics system. Or what were talking about with advancing womens place in the society. Were not tailoring our programs around the traditions of the host country. And and i think probably with later testimony, thats going to be an area youre going to highlight. Thats a huge oversight on our part. I have to yield back. My time is up. We need to talk to the afghans, sir. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Sopko, thank you for being here. I apologize because i feel its like welcome back to groundhog day again. Because weve heard this over and over again and youve done a great job of highlighting this stuff. I remember when shaw was here when he was with usaid. I think afghanistan got a billion dollars for usaid and they couldnt account for a billion dollars. I think what you pointed out was a grand plan and i think congress can do that. And congress should be the one that does that and it should be the appropriate committees. I think the Foreign Affairs committee, working with dod or one of the committees, should be able to create a policy that lives beyond a presidency. So that it is something that our allies in the countries we work with can count on that this policy will not change. Yes, the president can come in and they can tweak it as needed. But it has to survive an administration. And thats something if we vote on it in the house and the senate, it will be hard to change. And that all goes back to making sure we have the correct policy. I lost my train of thought. The one thing that you picked up and you said this in the very beginning. And this is so important. Your reports come out every year. And i think theyre spot on. Its this body that doesnt act. Were the ones that are in charge of the money. Were the ones that can direct these programs or not. And i thought what you said in the very beginning, successful reconstruction is incompatible with continuing insecurity. Until we have a stable government, we can throw all the money you want. But until theres a stable government, and it doesnt need to be a democracy. Im against democracy building in a lot of these countries because theyre not ready for it. Thats something that has to come up from the top down. We cannot force feed a country that. It has to be a stable government that we can work with. And the women programs, those are all great and i agree with you. But when you look at that culture, if you dont understand that culture, their culture is you walk behind me eight or ten feet. Theyre not going to have em at the seat. Unfortunately as that is, weve been to countries where they have done that because of our policies. And the women are there. But when you go to ask a question of em, the men answer. And then ive interrupted the men. I said i dont want to hear from you. I want to hear from the the people that are here. The women here. We need to understand that culture and give them time to change and adapt. And i think we need to focus on stability. And when we have stability, then our Infrastructure Projects can start creating the economy that we need so that trade can come and a gradual change. The taliban, we ran em out and the women went to school. But when the taliban comes back, theyre going to be out of school. And we know thats going to happen. And so i think we need to be a lot smarter in how we do this. And this is a Lesson Learned that we should never repeat again. I want to get your sense. Do you feel that the military Industrial Complex that president eisenhower forewarned us about, are they playing a hand in this . Or impeding success in this . Or is it more of our policies just being, you know, where change the mental lobotomy that happens with talent that we send over there . Yeah. I i i cant really comment on that. I think the problems we have, that you have identified, the other problem is theres theres a tendency. And i talk about it in the statement of we think that just throwing money at it will answer it. Sure. And more money is a problem. We spent too much money too fast in too small a country with too little oversight. Right. And that created the corruption problem. That distorted the economy and distorted the culture. So smaller, sometimes, is better. I dont know if that has anything to do with the military Industrial Complex. I think it more has to do with maybe its a tendency of american culture. We have a view as were going to get there with the firstest with the mostest. Going back to i dont know if it was general sherman or something saying were going to do that. And we have the same thing about development aid. Were going to get there the firstest with the mostest and assume thats good. And what we need to do is focus on what do you need . What do you want . What can we help you achieve . And what you can use. And, sir, i would harken back to those seven questions, which we posed within a year of me coming on board. I was trying to what are the lessons weve learned . And one of those questions is, do the afghans know about the program . Right. Do they want the program . Will they use the program . If you answered that in affirmative, that program would probably succeed more than it will fail. But if you answer in the negative, then why are you doing the program . Exactly. And your six conclusions and recommendations is what this body needs to do and were the ones in charge of that and i thank you. Welcome, sir. Gentlemans time gentlemans time is mr. Sissolini. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to understand a little bit about the afghanistan papers. What what was the document that was being prepared . Was that going to be this report that youve provided to the committee . Or is it an internal document . Because part of what im trying to figure out is there some failure also in our current model of the Inspector General general . In terms of getting this information to congress in a way that will require action. Because i do think sunlight on this is really important. So what would you tell us a little about what the purpose like, were you preparing a report that was going to be shared publicly . Or shared with congress . Thats a good question. And, again, i think its one of the misconceptions. We didnt we werent preparing a report. We interviewed people in preparation for these seven reports, as well as were interviewing for the next series of reports. You know, we these were raw interview notes. Okay. That we had done for those reports. For for the reports that you previously prepared. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And its thats i want to get to some questions. I appreciate that. Because i do think getting this information is really valuable. I want to focus my questions very much on corruption because i think, certainly, the absence of a clear set of objectives has succumb, you know, developing an objective for our mission in afghanistan followed by a strategy and then metrics to measure it. I think thats been our challenge. But im particularly disturbed about what im learning in this most recent report with respect to the issue of corruption. The department of defense says corruption remains the top strategic threat to the legitimacy and success of the Afghan Government. You quote that in your report. And your report, in 2016, reported on corruption. I think all the reports have. And criticized the governments failure to recognize corruption, which was bad enough. But actually, the american activities contributed significantly to the corruption. And so would you speak a little bit about that . And also, about this notion that we prioritize security over our anticorruption efforts and whether that was the right judgment and how we might measure metrics in both of those areas . Well, that is you you you i think youve focused on what some military officers told us is really the major threat to reconstruction and to the war effort. And that is corruption. Its not the taliban. Its corruption. And if you talk to general miller, whos head of all of our troops right now, he will answer that is still a problem. It not only saps the money we give to the Afghan Government. But it also is used as a recruiting tool by the taliban because they can point to the corrupt officers. They can point to the corrupt warlords who are getting all of the government contracts. And they say, see, thats what the u. S. Government does. So i think you you youve honed in on a serious issue. It still is. Now, i will say, in defense of congress, congress has recognized that. And they have done legislation on that. They have actually asked us to assess the corruption situation three times. So you are aware of it. And we are currently assessing the condition there. Its still a serious problem. So one of the most mismanaged pots of money was the Commanders Emergency Response Program or cerp i guess it was called. This is a slush fund that was reminiscent of the war in iraq. Cerp was allowed military commanders in the field to bypass normal contracting rules and spend up to a Million Dollars on Infrastructure Projects, far above the cost of normal such projects. What role did cerp money play in enabling corruption . And was it ever to ensure funding streams were not working cross purposes . That seems to be a especially serious cause or contributing factor to the corruption that we saw on the ground. You youve highlighted a good point. Cerp money was not deconflicted. Like, a lot of the military that were not deconflicted. I wouldnt say cerp was the worst. I think the there were a couple other programs i could discuss that are worse. But we have not actually done an audit on those cerp funding to the granularity that youre asking. But it was deconflicted. Good intentions. But a lot of waste. And final question. Retired Brigadier General said and im quoting Congress Gives us money to spend and expects us to spend all of it. The attitude became we dont care what you do with the money so long as you spend it. End quote. This sentiment is reflected throughout the Lessons Learned report. What can congress do to counter the view among military and civilian personnel in the field that you are to spend money no matter what . I think the best answer is for the appropriators to put language or at least dont hold the agencies vulnerable or attack them for not spending the money. I know a lot of agencies were attacked for not putting money on contract or not spending or losing it. So multiyear money may be an answer to that. But there is an incentive to spend the money. And we saw an absurd situation down in at camp leatherneck where we built a building. We call it the 64k. It was 64,000 square foot headquarters for the surge. They started construction as the surge was ending. The military officers, our marine corps general down there, said i dont want it. I dont need it. I wont use it. His superior above him i think it was general alan at the time says we dont want it. We dont need it. We wont use it. And went up the chain. But there was a general back in kuwait who said, well, Congress Gave it to us so spend it. So there is a beautiful building. Unfortunately, you cant get to camp leatherneck. But when i got there, it was the most bestbuilt building i saw in afghanistan. I think it was 36 million. As far as i know, its empty still. Thank you. Mr. Wright. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Sopko, thank you for being here and thank you for what you do. Its pretty clear our experience in afghanistan is a case of winning the war but not winning the peace or we would not still be there. But i have a couple of questions with regards to some specifics. And the first has to do with deployments. There is a significant downside to long deployments in terms of the effect on our men and women in the military and and their families. But as youve pointed out, theres also a significant downside to short deployments. Not from a military perspective but from a reconstruction perspective, how do you reconcile that . How do we know when weve got it right . Thats a very good question. And i think what we can do is, again, look to where there have been successes. And what the air force has done is theyve assigned the same people for four years. They dont spend the whole four years in afghanistan. They basically work with the afghan pilots. They bring em back. So youre assigned to a similar task. Special forces has the same thing. Youre assigned. But then when youre you been there for a certain amount of time, you come back to a pool that then its the same pool that works very closely with the same units. So theres a a connectivity. So those are two examples we cite. Were actually going to be doing a lessonslearned report on what are the best practices for doing that in with aid or state or dod. How do you how are you able you dont want to send somebody over there for 18 years. Thats impossible. Right. My dad was drafted for world war ii and he was there for the length of the war, however long it lasted. But thats a little different. But there is a way to do that so you dont use that connectivity. You dont lose that experience. You dont use that connection with this afghan unit. And you Work Together and that afghan feels closer to you, the american advisor, than he does to the taliban. And i want to pick up on something mr. Yoho was talking about earlier and that is changes in administration. And im not asking you to judge the administration other other policies b policies but weve had three president s during this time. Both parties. To what extent does a change in administration hamper our ability to, in terms of the reconstruction efforts . I havent really seen that as a problem. Okay. When when when the new administration, the trump administration, came in, they did a policy review. We participated that. And they actually were very responsive to our bringing information to their attention. A lot of the career people dont change. So obviously, were dealing with them. The ambassadors dont change. The aide people out there dont change. So i dont see that as a problem. We didnt really see much of a difference between the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration or that. That, we have not seen as a problem. Okay. My last question has to do with iraq. In your based on your experience, to what extent did the war in iraq prevent us from completing what we needed to complete in afghanistan . Well, again, i havent looked at the war fighting side. Remember, weve spent 132 billion on reconstruction. Weve spent close to 700 billion on the war fighting in afghanistan. So all i can tell you is when we did an analysis on the train, advise, assist, and on the reconstruction, when what everybody told us was when the focus turned on iraq, we lost interest in a lot of the key issues in afghanistan. Thats all i can tell you. And i other than that would that include the establishment of civil governments . Yes, to some extent. Okay. Great. Thank you and i yield back. Thank you, representative wright. Thank you, mr. Chairman. So 132 billion on reconstruction. Weve spent more on afghanistan than we spent on the whole plan rebuilding. Thats right, sir. After world war ii. So its pretty amazing. And when i think about that, i think some of it is when we approach europe, we had similar cultures, similar an understanding. Of europe, similar forms of government, et cetera. So that probably contributed to some of that success. And it does seem evident from from your answers and and from what ive looked at, we dont have that same understanding of the values, culture, et cetera, in afghanistan. And that probably, you know, foundationally is one of the things that has led us to be not so efficient. I think you stated or mr. Yoho stated, you know, our goal is to define lasting peace. But the problem is how we define lasting peace may not be how the afghans define lasting peace. How would you say they describe define lasting peace . I think i would use probably the websters its its will the gains that the afghans have made continue in the future . So the womens rights. The rule of law. Some of the games gains they have made on corruption. I mean, the question is, is will a peace treaty just end up into civil war again . So its sustainability of any of the gains. And we have made some gains over the 18 years. The afghans have made some improvements. Will those continue . So then it behooves us on the committee and certainly the subcommittee has jurisdiction over afghanistan. It is an area that were going to look at. So we should define what those gains are. We should define those parameters. But we should also, you know mr. Perry isnt here but none of us is bashing President Trump here. Or any particular administration. Each administrations got some things right. But theyve also got a lot lot wrong. And we know the Current Administration wants to consider a withdrawal, drawdown in afghanistan and probably will proceed in that direction. Congress should insert itself into this process and doesnt have to be adversarial. The message to the administration is work with us on this. And if we were to do that, you know, there probably is no Peace Process that doesnt involve the taliban. Theyre not just going to disappear. So if we accept that as a reality, then we have to think about the gains within that context. And, you know, itd be my sense that, you know, some of our interests are, you know, certainly the counterterrorist terrorism space, we dont want to see a resurgence of al qaeda. So am i thinking about this correctly in terms of, well, what would that remaining force be on the counterterrorism side . And then, you know, the last thing that that i would think about and and id love for you to comment on is its my sense that weve created a dependency in afghanistan on u. S. Dollars. And theres going to be a big hole thats left in the afghan economy as as we exit. How do we fill that hole . I mean, and now that the complicating factors regional dynamics as well. Obviously, the afghans have a relationship with the indians. The indians have an economy that could step in there. The pakistanis dont like the indians. So the whole regional dynamics are challenging as well. And how do we create that conversation as were drawing down to to create some regional leadership . Am i i guess, am i thinking about this correctly . Youre absolutely. And congressman, again, i would ask you to go back to our highrisk list that we issued. And i think you these are the risks to that stable, lasting peace. And one of them definitely is finances. The afghan economy is abysmal. Its reality. 70 of their budget for their government comes from the United States taxpayer and the european taxpayers and whatever. And thats not going to change once you sign peace. Now, maybe the cost of the war fighting may change. But just because you sign peace with the taliban doesnt mean youre going to have peace with isis or the other 30 some terrorist groups and the other warlords and gangs operating. So youre going to have a cost. We have to face the reality there and try to work with them. But thats one of the biggest concerns we have in here because you also have to reintegrate. Lets assume its a successful peace. You have 60,000 talib, plus their families, who have to be reintegrated. That costs money. Can the afghans do that . No. We just had a major surrender of isis troops. I have seen no evidence that the Afghan Government has done anything to reintegrate those isis troops. And actually, if you talk to general milley, you talk to our im sorry. But i think those are the issues. Im terribly sorry. I didnt hear you. I apologize. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for that recognition. Im probably not as intellectual but probably more entertaining to you so i appreciate that. And i do notice how important you are. Usually, they have this whole line of people up here and they get their five minutes and then they tweet about it and go home. Youre by yourself and then you turn around to the group behind you and then they they they they take note of whatever youre saying and make notes of it. So theyre doing an excellent job behind you. I dont know if you knew that or not. I had a couple of questions, brother, and thank you for being here. Your father was a world war ii veteran. My dad enlisted shortly after december 7th. So i appreciate my mama flew an airplane during the war so i appreciate you, brother. And i appreciate what youve said up here. Ive actually been listening and and and i had a couple of good questions here. Have you seen any evidence that foreign state actors have or are current currently undermining u. S. Reconstruction efforts . And can you expand specifically on the role pakistan is playing . I have not seen any evidence of that. Of foreign state actions on reconstruction. And as for pakistans role, obviously there is a lot of reporting about their involvement with supporting various terrorist groups but thats not within my jurisdiction. So im not the best person. I would just be reporting on what i read in the newspaper. Thats all right and thats probably wrong so i appreciate you saying that, brother. Should the u. S. Continue to fund the counternarcotic programs even though weve thrown 9 billion at the problem . And it seems with little success. And i say that coming to you as a state legislator for 16 years. I was a county mayor and i remember when our attorney general, randy nichols, talked to me about the price of brown tar heroin and when it when it became too high, the Opioid Epidemic would explode. And he was he was a prophet on that. It did. But i know that overseas, the markets flowing in and out. And i was just curious of your opinion on that. Well, counternarcotics is the 800pound gorilla in the room. Its the largest export from afghanistan. It dwarves the economy. So if you ignore it, you ignore it at your peril. Particularly, if were talking about developing lasting peace. You have peace with the taliban but what about the drug warlords who are probably more powerful than the taliban . They corrupt the institution. Theyre recognized by the Afghan People as that. And if we tolerate them or if we allow the Afghan Government to tolerate em, you can kick the can down the street just so far. And thats a problem. So i dont know if that answers the question, sir. Do you do you ever see it seems like these folks you know, we get a new regime in or whatever and the drug warlords just seem to transcend to the next one. Is that because of their immense power . Their cash flow . Or is it a combination thereof . I think its a combination. And, again, i dont want to downplay how difficult it is to fight drugs. We have a problem here in the United States. Huge problem. You could look at mexico. You look at columbia. You look at developed countries are having a problem with it. You put it into a country like afghanistan, it it dwarves a lot of the other problems. The sad side thing is over the last 18 years, drug usage in afghanistan has skyrocketed. And i cant remember, and i can get back to you on the data on the u. N. , i think afghanistan may have the highest addiction rate of any developing country now. But i can double check that. I may be wrong. If you can get back to me, thatd be great. No big deal. But thank you so much for being here. I yield back the remainder of my time, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, representative. I call in myself now. Im next in the lineup. I want to ask you, mr. Sopko, and thank you for your testimony. I want to ask you about our diplomatic corps and the state department and the efficacy of our diplomatic efforts. While the United States has continued to spend billions of dollars annually, we apparently did not invest enough in our Foreign Service officers and diplomacy to train and retain experts. Given that we sought to achieve peace and development in afghanistan, more military was not always the right answer. Whether rebuilding or negotiating with the taliban, personnel within the state department of course is of the utmost importance. So here are my questions for you. What can be done to empower and strengthen the diplomatic corps . I think, first of all, is i think you hit a right point on empowering and strengthening. Theyre essential. Problem in afghanistan is the the ambassador has been sort of de facto. His role as the senior u. S. Government official has been downplayed by the fact that there is a military officer sitting across the street. I was going to ask you about the interplay the interplay between our our military folks that are there and the diplomatic folks that are there. The the problem is that the state department i think you hit it on the head is underfunded. Usaid is underfunded in comparison to the military. Were fighting a war in afghanistan. And im not saying we shouldnt fund general miller and rs the way were doing it. But im just saying is you cant ignore the diplomats. You cant ignore usaid. You particularly saw this at the prts and at the regional groups when we set up, supposed to be aid and state and the military out there in the region. Well, military all showed up. They had the money. They had the manpower. They had the cerp funds. Where were the state and aide people . There werent enough of them to go around and that is a problem. Im old school. Development should be done by development experts. Those are diplomats and aide officials. They should not be done by the u. S. Military. And we highlight when we give that task to the u. S. Military, it almost automatically fails. And and thats that segues right into the next question i wanted to ask you. Why does the military appear to be at the forefront of nation building in afghanistan rather than the state department or usaid . Especially, in light of the fact that this has been going on now for 18 years. So there have been theres been plenty of opportunity to make course corrections. Why do you think this is . Because weve emphasized the war fighting and weve given short to development and reconstruction. And the military has the weapons and they have the manpower and they have the money. And what does that what does that say or what does that pretend for what our military presence is no longer there . At some point. Its a big issue. Its one of those risks you face because, for example, our military assistance programs been run by the military. Weve trained the afghans to deal with the military. They havent been trained to deal through the normal embassy function. So there is some Serious Problems here. And its an area i think Congress Needs to look at. Thank you, mr. Sopko. Im going to go now to mr. Levin from michigan. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Mr. Sopko, thank you for your public service. I really appreciate it and for coming here today. Sigar interviewees indicated that politics was partly to blame for the sheer amount of money poured into afghanistan. Even as money from prior years was left unspent and officials made clear that afghanistan didnt have the capacity to put so much money to proper use. Apparently, policymakers claimed, quote, the political signal by a Budget Reduction at a turning point in the war effort would adversely affect overall messaging and, indirectly, reconstruction efforts on the ground. The articulation of goals for the purpose of budgeting and programming was largely secondary to the political implications of budgeting, end quote. In short, it seems like shortterm political expediency was prioritized over longterm, effective policy. No one wanted to support budget cuts and risk being blamed if things went badly. In your view, to what extent were budgeting decisions in afghanistan made due to political expediency . We have not looked at that. I think we have because it really goes beyond my mandate. But that issue has come up of just too much money sloshing around. And the motivation was to spend it. And that led to a lot of the problems. But we have never looked at it back on on this side. Well, so, you know, here you are testifying before congress. And i i really want to get your advice about what we can do here to insulate the budgeting and policy making processes from political pressures when it comes to matters of war and peace. Or just narrowly speaking, this war and peace in in afghanistan. Maybe to put it another way, how do we keep this from happening . That we are spending much more were sending much more money than people on the ground think is appropriate. I mean, its a big problem when we have domestic priorities here and peaceful priorities here that, you know, we need to take care of our our babies and our prek kids. We need to educate them. We need to be able to afford our infrastructure. You bring in somebody from aide, state, and dod to explain and justify their budget. And explain not just the talk about the inputs and outputs but whats the outcome . And i i go back to why some of you may have wondered why did i attach all of those letters from 2013 . When i asked the sec def, sec state, and aide administrator, what are your ten best successes and what are your ten worst failures and why . I i firmly believe if they had honestly answered those questions, we wouldnt be here today. Because what they would have done is it would force them to answer the question, why are we spending 9 billion on narcotics if its a failure . They would answer the question, why are we spending 90 million bringing in rare italian goats from italy to develop the goat industry in afghanistan over six months . They would have been forced to look at what thats why we talk about racking and stacking. So, congressman, take a look at those letters we sent. And many of those letters and what were asking are the same questions you should be asking. I cant answer those. But if you want to stop the hemorrhage of money to a place like afghanistan, its got to start by asking people not to talk about inputs. Dont bring somebody in there from aid that only talks about how much money hes gotten. Or outputs. You know, how many kids he says they are training in afghanistan. But whats the outcome . Are any of those kids still in school . But but in the small, brief time i have left, i mean youve had multiple lessonslearned reports, right . Where sigar identified that the approach and programs that the u. S. Used to achieve stated goals were not properly tailored to the afghan context, as youre talking about here with goats from italy and so forth. What contributed to this gap . What what lesson do you take from reading all these letters . The gap between what the u. S. Is supporting and what the afghans needed on the ground. You want to take 15 seconds to answer that . I think i go back to the institutional hubris and mendacity that i talked about. We have incentivized lying to congress. And by that, i mean the whole incentive is to show success. And to ignore the failure. And when there is too much failure, classify it. Or dont report it. Congress has to weigh in and say, hold it, we want to know the truth. As gory as it is, reconstruction takes a long time. You cant do it in six months. You cant do it in nine months. You probably cant do it in one administration. So if you wanted to help the afghans, it is the long haul. Thank you. Okay. Thats im sorry. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you. Representative connolly. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Welcome back. Good to see you, sir. Mr. Sopko, and thank you for your work. I mean, frankly, that press table ought to be filled to overflowing. The story about afghanistan and the United States military and economic assistance to that country really deserves the kind of scrutiny youve been trying to provide and get attention to. Its shocking, in some ways, that the story youre telling has so little interest. By the media, the public, congress itself. We have provided at least 132 billion in Development Assistance that is of dubious value. Would that is that a fair correct. Conclusion . Imagine, 132 billion. And if i understand it, and i dont want to over state it, almost all the system put in place and design to avoid measuring progress, veterans success and for that matter, accountability and for that example, despite there are more metrics where how are we doing . Did it work . If that did not work, lets try something else. And when we have metrics, classify them to the public and congress and others cant access them. Is that true . Basically i was talking about the military where the bulk of the 132 million was spent . In report, you talked about the fact that in a sentence that the military stifle suppress usaid, a clear hold strategy and demanded that iad, despite the giving implement a cash Award Program despite protests. Is that true . That. Thats correct. How does a thing happen . How does aid lose its independence. I cant answer that. Who you give the money to. There is only one aid person at the table and there are 23 guys and gals wearing green suits, i think there is a vote. You know whos going to win. You know you talked earlier passionately about the problems with the longest war in American History and our engagement in reconstruction and you use two words that really struck me, hubris and mendacity, it sounds like a title for a novel. We have advise and consent, the modern version is going to be called hubris and mendacity. Our efforts in afghanistan after all, the stakes we invaded afghanistan after 9 11. We work with local malicious to overthrow the taliban after trying to expel and eliminate the presence of alqaida, this was a momentous decision. We are not meeting the objective. Can you give us some examples of hubris and especially mendacity. Well, i think we referred to it in my statement where i talk about some of the statements made by the Great Success of Life Expectancy. It was statistically impossible to double the Life Expectancy of the life given. The next thing you know is we are going to be walking on the water underneath programs. Education where we claims millions of children were in school and knew that the data was bad but they still reported it. As if there is millions of children, hubris verses mendacity is a combination of both. They never looked at the data. They were not going to explain that the data was faulted. You look at some of the successes about the power grid. I am running out of town and the chairman is strong. Those are some examples. I am happy to give you a lot more of those examples. Thank you. I would say representative allred. Thank you mr. Chairman. While we were there we got a chance to meet with our military and state Department Leaders and many young Army Captains who were also football players. He was tasked to training the next generation of Afghan Military leader. He was tired when we met because he had been out the night before leading a raid which we are doing every night degrading alqaida and isis as well. As often i thought about that captain, two Service Members that were killed this weekend, wondering if we are serving him as well as hes serving us as well as many of our men and women in congress serving us. I want to thank you for your work. This is one of the best parts of our democracy that we can be critical of ourselves and we can take a critical eyes and our commitment and say what are we doing wrong and what can we do better . I am not here to point fingers. There are multiple administrations involved. We all know how long and how much money is put into this. Over the years, you released a number i want to know how reexce reexcer receptive you found the agency involved. 13 of them have been adopted and tell us what you think. We had 130 recommendations from the first. Overall audits and inspections of 90 of our recommendations are adopted. The reason for smaller number i believe is because many of our recommendations are conditional on events occurring such as peace or many of our recommendations are if you do it again, you should do the following. It is hard to say to comply because it has not happened. We are happy to report that. The Lessons Learned program have been well received. Predictably the military under general dunford, we have been asked to do a training for them as well as a Foreign Service. While i was there, we were told of a new generation, afghan and military leader in particularly special forces and they were leading the connecticut fighting and doing actually a decent job. I was wondering if you can provide your opinion on the generation of leadership thats coming through the Afghan Military. Theyll be able to stand up and we stand down and i know some of it is the military consideration outside of our purview but from the reviews that you have done and how you believe thats progressing. Congressman, it is a good point. It is in our purview because it is part of the training advise and assist. I think thats a success story. Our training and advising and assisting the Afghan Special forces is a success. We highlight it and we continue to highlight it. I would give you more details and happy to brief you on it. This is i said with the air program. We are hoping for a new generation of officers in the Afghan Military. I know general nicholsson spoke that this is what we are hoping for. They finally got rid of them and they pension them off. It is too early to test. You are talking about laws thats less than a year old or older. We dont know. Below that poor level, below that officer level, you have a lot of corruption and incompetence and it is hurting the Afghan Military. The biggest problem is not casualties, it is desertion. People disappearing or people who never existed and we are paying their salaries. We all have to respect the afghans for doing what they are doing with the current situation. It is a difficult situation. Many are being paid or fed. They have to buy their own food from their officers who steal it from them. Thank you. Representative sandford. Good afternoon, thank you for being here. I recently visited our armed forces in afghanistan and had the opportunity to meet with many of our men and women who are working on Training Special forces and afghan pilots. It is good as we are discussing whats working and whats not to hear some of your discussions relating to those two successful stories. You talked a lot about the fact that we are spending too much money and the way of abuse of u. S. Tax dollars we have seen in afghanistan. As we are moving towards the congressional operation process. I was wondering if you may dive into that question a little bit more of where we are spending too much money, where there are places we are witnesses these abuses and are there things we members as congress should prioritize or consider to ensure we are not seeing the continued abuse in the way we have witnessed over the past decade or more. I cant give you specific recommendations but i would go back to look at the justification for some of these programs. What has been the outcome as the agen agency. What has been the outcome of funding of the rule of law and etcetera, so i think thats probably the only way i can help you on that. I cant tell you for sure, lets look and this is what we did when we briefed general guntry. Lets look at the you cansucces see if we can duplicate that. They still have these brigades Security Forces Assistance Brigades where theyre trying to do thachlt i am not certain if the latest brigade is going out. We can brief you on those particular issues. I am sorry i cant answer in more details. Thats a great starting point as we move into appropriation season. I appreciate that. As we are zooming out the challenges we see in afghanistan, one of the Main Findings of Lessons Learned of the war we are conducting in iraq did hammer some of our efforts in afghanistan. My question is from the experiences that you have examining what is happening in afghanistan and looking at the range of National Security challenges that we see today, do you have concerns of escalating tensions in the region particularly with iran and how that may impact our efforts in afghanistan moving forward . I think any security issue in that region causes concerns and not only the security for our people there. There is a lot of connection for iran. I think we have to be cautious about that. It is even difficult to get people in and out of afghanistan. I have to deal with that because i had people over there, i was over there at christmas time and i dont know if i can make that trip now that i did back then. But, i cant really speak because of broader issues of whats going on with us in iran and i really dont know. Obviously, that region is something we have to focus on and ultimately the success of peace there is going to have to get involved the region. If you read the book, the great gain which is a fascinating book by a british historian on it. Any one of those countries does not want anybody else there but we are there now. You mentioned corruption and sees that it exists a different level in the military. Are you seeing in particular facets of where we are spending money in particular places where we are working with afghanistan that there is a greater level of corruption in one place or another, would you point us in a particular place to have concerns or improvements . Fuels and payroll. We dont have a good way to protect it. One of the former commanders said over 50 of the fuel we buy never reaches its ultimate base. I think thats something and we are working closely with them. The other one is payroll. Even after 18 years, we dont have the payroll system right and we dont know how many afghans we have been paying for. Thank you. I yield back. Representative houlahan. I want to thank you for being here. You are fully honest and not just waiting for the right question to not answer. Thank you for that genuinely. Given that you effectively testified and talked about the last couple of hours and the fact that he basically failed all of our objectives in the last 18 years. Can you reflect of what we should be aware of . Not everything is a failure. There had been some successes. There are more women in the economy and there are more women going to school and there are more kids to go to school. So we have an f plus. D minus. It is hard to summarize 130 recommendations in all these seven reports. I think small maybe better than large. Definitely deals with corruption early on. Before you go in and also know where you are going in. I mean people were designing and working programs in afghanistan like they were walking into norway. This is not norway, this is not kansas. Sometimes i felt like i was out of a movie. It does not look like kansas. Our staffers not our staffers, some of the people who were vague were unbelieverable able they thought they were. Theyre honest people and they dont know where they are and developing and understanding that community. Know who the war lords are who their brothers or seven cousins is. You may not want to give the contract to him but you just gave it to his cousin. We have that capability. Our intelligence people know how to do that. If we dont follow them and follow their advise, we are going to fail. I mean one of everything is we have the tendency allowing Counter Terrorism of trump oh, you are under it. I do have one more question. You spoke a little bit about the important of calendar verses condition based. Can you give us a little bit more details about why you thought our strategy in s afghanistan was not successful because of those timelines. It goes back to decisions should be made on reality and on the facts on the ground. Not an election cycle over here or a number pulled out of the year. How do we make a difference in that . We are driven by calendar and election cycles. Is there some change in funding or sources timeline that we can be helpful with . I think having an educatedd electorate. I think being honest to ourselves that Development Takes a long time. Hopefully thats one lesson that we have learned from afghanistan is it takes a long time to try to build a government thats not corrupted or can keep the bad guys out, the terrorists. If we think we can do it in one year, nine months, or two years, we are smoking something. You are asking me how do we this is common sense. I dont know if that answers the question. Thank you, i have half a minute left. I want to conclude with appreciation on the emphasis of a lot of the information in the classified information is not available for us here in congress and we cant provide oversight or fulfill the responsibility if we dont have access to that. It may be available to you but it will be in a closed vi m environment and it will be difficult for your staff to work with it and the American People to know whats going on. Theyre the ones paying for this. They have the right to know. Agree, thank you, sir. I yield back. Thank you. Great to see you mr. Sopko and thank you for what you do. There is great deal to talk about there in afghanistan. In my view, there are several fundamental mistakes and many you have touched on and the early years with the decision to try to do this on the sheet. Relying on the power of brokers who are already there and building the basic system of justice that was always the Afghan People number one demand. As you just put it, very clearly even after we recommitted, reconsistently prioritize and over corruption, the result of that, terrorism is in my ways a response in afghanistan or at least support for groups of the taliban. And then just the consistent promising of the American People that this could be done in a one or twoyear time frame. There has also been games. Your job is to look at the problems, afghanistan today is a vastly different country as i am sure you would have acknowledged of the other failed state in 2001. So let me ask you looking forward. What happens to the work you are evaluating and urging us to improve if we pwithdraw, if our military perhaps in response to a tweet from somebody, just get up the leave. We have not done an exact study on it but based on all of our work and what people are telling me and i was just there over christmas and i have gone four times a year since i started this job. If the military leaves, leaves quickly, the Afghan Community is going to have al hard time fighting on their own. We dont do the bulk of the fighting. We do a lot of support. He would have a very bloody stalemate continuing but probably decline. If we cut funding, my prediction and just my prediction,we have not done a study on it that the Afghan Government would fall. Do you see that the perception that this may happen is having an impact on choices that afghan are making. People deciding i am going to take my money and sell my money and property and business, move my money to another country, send my kids to another country because i dont have confidence that this support is going to continue in the longterm. Again, we have not done a study on it. From the afghan and i have have people there been there for years and people are moving their families out of the country. I assume money is going with it. We have seen a bit of an uptake in theft, fuel and all of that. Thats what happened the last time when we thought there is a draw down. Everybody stealing what they can before we leave. So that we have seen. Thats a problem. Do you have any confidence that there can be a Peace Agreement with the taliban that would enable us to continue honest Corruption Development work ing in afghanistan . It would be difficult. It is something that you hope the taliban also cares about. The taliban are involved in a lot of illegality. Theyre vofrinvolved in the dru trade. What happens after that . Theyre involved in extortions and kidnapping and stuff like that. So i dont know how thats going to work. Well, i would conclude by saying this is difficult and complicated. I think in all these years, there are one thing that we have not tried in afghanistan. We have tried just about everything else. If there is one thing we have not tried is simply say we are committed. We are not leaving. I wonder what impact we would have if we were to say it to the Afghan People or korean, whatever the nature that we are not going to pack up and leave. I think i am out of time. Thank you. As i have listened and read through some of the testimonies, a couple of things also stand out in addition to that excellent summary that was given. One thing of some of the jargons instead of ordering the green spot we seemed to be rewarding bad behaviors instead of helping those that are more secure. We keep on investing those that are insecure. How do we change that. The second thing is how whole pattern seems to be buying results. Well give you some money if you will do this. I think you notice some religious leaders who adopted some attitudes towards women. How do we break it and are there any other kinds of incentives that are non cash so that we can be uses so the commitment we are trying to encourage is not short term but it is really more in grained. Your first question about this timeline almost, well, this how you phrase it on a lot of that comes on our destabilization and this was driven by the timeline of the troop withdrawal that our troops there wanted to try to get as much of the territory free taliban before they knew they were leaving. They did clear a lot of places but there was nothing coming behind it. That was having timeline issues from here and not based on the reality on the ground. As for the second question and i dont know what you are referring to on the specifics of that. What it is is conditionality. We are a Firm Believer and conditionality and condition it in many ways. We call it smart conditionality and so if you do this, i will give you more money. Well, if you do this, i am going to take something away from you. Thats knowing who you are dealing with. So if you know people in the other side want their kids to go to school at nyu, well, they got to get a visa and get into the United States. Thats the conditionality that you can give and not exact limon tea he wanted an office as big as the the minister interior. We went in and built him an office and he didnt like it and totally ripped it out and rebuild another one so it was comparable. They looked the same. We spent hundreds of thousands. Not a lot but hundreds of thousands of dollars. I remember asking the specific commander after we had done that. We built an office and ripped everything out and spend u. S. Taxpayers dollars to make it look pretty again. What did you get for that . He had no idea what i was talking about. You just did a favor to him, what did you get . Did you get maybe hes going to fight corruption in some area . Thats smart conditionality. Thats knowing who you are dealing with. That in a way that you can proceed. We are right now asking for what type of conditions we are imposed on the Afghan Military and if i am not mistakenin, theyre giving us their afghanistan has been a partner since 2016. We have very difficult time engaging with them. I think it goes back to the point that you make early on of successful reconstruction is in compatible with continuing insecurity. Thats one example of how very true that is. Thank you very much, i yield back. Mr. Sopko, that concludes our witnesses. Thank you very much and all the chairman. This is very helpful. I thank you you and the American People. Thank you mr. Sopko and your candor and your hard work. The hearing is concluded and the committee stands adjourned. Today t, combatting antisemitism and domestic terrorism. The impeachment of President Trump today. Follow the process live on cspan on demand at cspan. Org impeachment and listen for free on our cspan radio app. Today House Speaker pelosi named the impeachment managers wholl prosecute the case against President Trump. The president is charged of obstruction of congress and abusive of power. Today the house will vote to send the articles of impeachment to the senate. Now, a look at the speakers remarks. Good morning everyone. This is an important day for us and no one reference our marker
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.