Sigar reports, our dollars are being wasted in pretty gross ways starting with shrinked wrapped of pallets of cash being flown out of the airbase starting with contracts to deliver water to our soldiers in Forward Operating bases that ve to go up through pakistan and where their firefights are being used as ploys by warlords that want to extract much more money in order to allow safe passage for that water to get through. Buying ecent episode of uniforms that had camouflage designs that are suited for tahiti but not afghanistan. So i really appreciate your recommendations and they all make immense sense to me and i could endorse those and perhaps the committee could as well. But the question is the policy that will be advocated by the congress of the United States and whether this thing is working at all. In your investigations, can you make some general comments about the reliability of accountability systems within the afghani partners that we have . Mr. Some could he. Sopko. Mr. Sopko yes, i can. We have questions about most of the internal accountability capabilities and i actually had a conversation with president ghani on my last trip and he acknowledged there are problems in certain agencies or ministries and we actually came to an agreement and hes going to he promised the issue of president ial decree, giving us access to the internal books and records and individuals of all the ministries so we can do an in depth analysis of their internal controls. Mr. Welch we had some of our Justice Department officials there and they were teaching government officials how to detect corruption and they had to stop that program because they were teaching people about how to detect corruption who became the people who then implemented corruption. Has that changed . Mr. Sopko that is still a serious threat. Thats why there was an attempt to set up a vetted anticorruption unit of the afghan police, their prosecutors and judges. And we are looking into that. The problem is quite a few of those people were supposed to be polygraphed. They were polygraphed, and a good number failed the polygraphs but we have never followed through with removing those people. So those are some of the questions that were looking at. If youre setting up a vetted unit, by definition you have to follow through with the vetting. You dont polygraph people and let them stay when they fail a polygraph on corruption. Mr. Welch i want to thank you and mr. Cunningham for your service. I yield back. Mr. Desantis the gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Issa, for five minutes. Mr. Issa thank you, mr. Chairman. Good to see you again. I have the greatest respect for our inspector generals but particularly those who operate in combat zone as you have for so many years. And it is interesting that one of the complaints you bring to us today, one of the very valid ones is you are not being given enough access in the combat zone to do your job. And thats something hopefully that the committee can help right. Every friday night for most of the year on hbo bill maher, a very controversial figure, has this show and he always has a section called new rules, and new rules always sort of mocks, if you will, some of the most egregious things but let me go through new rules for a moment. Should the United States government have an absolute policy of not paying bribes or other corrupt things in order to get border crossings, including obviously the delivery of water that was ust mentioned . Should that be something we should not do, period . Mr. Sopko i agree with that. Mr. Issa ok. I agree with it. But we continue to do that in country after country, is that true . Mr. Sopko sir, i look at afghanistan. I agree bribes are being paid but we try to look into that and stop it. Mr. Issa i know you do. When i talk about new rules these are new rules for the Trump Administration. This problem didnt begin with this administration or even the last administration. Mr. Sopko absolutely. Mr. Issa so one of the new rules should be convoys turn around, they report to us and we deal with either pakistan or afghanistan and tell them that one of the conditions our forces doing what we do for them is in fact that we dont pay bribes, we dont do it under the foreign corruption act, we shouldnt have our vendors doing it in order to get their convoys to our troops, thats a fair statement under what should be a new rule, if you will . Mr. Sopko i think the u. S. Military is trying to enforce that rule right now. Last under the current regime and there as well as the prior one, i think theyve been trying to do that as much as they can. Using conditionality. Mr. Issa you transcends two president ial administrations, the end of the last one and now this one. Mr. Sopko thats correct. Mr. Issa this one is at least corrupt than the last one, correct . Mr. Sopko absolutely correct. Mr. Issa second new rule, we should not support a president , whether elected or not, that is putting hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in his and his familys pockets and tolerate the way we did under the last administration, fair . Mr. Sopko thats music to my ears, sir. Mr. Issa ok. I am going through my Lessons Learned because the argument of today is only really germane if its the argument of the last 16 years and we dont seem to have learned. The last one which i think is ne for this committee. We are nation building in dozens of nations, including many of them in africa every day. To be candid, the peace corps, all the way back with john f. Kennedy was part of the, if you will, shedding to a people what we know that is part of building a nation from the bottom up. So if whether each president i can think of going back a long way has said they are not going to nation build, if were going to nation build, let me ask you the most poignant question. You mentioned the problems of active duty, uniformed military personnel trying to teach things which they are not particularly suited or trained for, correct . Mr. Sopko that is correct. Mr. Issa so shouldnt the new rule be we develop capability at the state department and or at the department of defense, presumably in the reserve component, and or somewhere else that in fact finds the people around the United States or even outside, around the world, that in fact can be a productive part of nation building . Mr. Sopko thats absolutely correct and thats what were talking about in our latest report, sir. Mr. Issa so if were going to take away something after 16 years of, i call it the groundhog day in afghanistan and iraq, of being back at the same point that we were at previous times before we let things go awry and now were back fighting to a point at which were hoping not to make the same mistakes again, one of the most important things is we as a committee and we as a nation must find a way to build those institutions, whether those countries want to fully cooperate or not, find a way to build those institutions and that means we cannot continue to use the same people who as wellmeaning and hardworking as they have been are not prepared or qualified to exit the country with the kind of skills, and that includes the United States military, if you will, the war fighter trying to be a training trainer of mayors or bureaucrats . Mr. Sopko that is correct, sir. Again, its trying to align our capabilities. Were not saying we dont have the capabilities. Problem is theyre not the ones we have been sending because the way the system was set up. And thats the lowhanging fruit that we can start doing. Thats what we call about talk about find out what their needs are and what our capabilities are and make sure the right people go to the right units in afghanistan. Mr. Issa thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Desantis the gentlemans time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from kentucky, mr. Comer, for five minutes. Mr. Comb thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mr. Comb are mr. Comer thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Sopko, thank you for helping us determine a more successful fout for this mission. I also want to make note that im proud to represent the men and women of Fort Campbell military base in kentucky. They have been deployed to afghanistan countless times over the past 16 years, so this issue is very important to me and my district. My first question, in your testimony you highlighted the challenge that politically constrained timelines pose to reconstruction efforts, including readiness. I think its clear we need to move away from the previous administrations strategy of imposing arbitrary timelines and force levels that do not reflect the situation on the ground. That being said, i have serious concerns with the prospect of an openended conflict in afghanistan that could drag on for another 16 years. So my question is, can you comment on how to balance the need to respond to conditions on the ground while still maintaining key benchmarks and goals for the transition to more complete Afghan Security control . Mr. Sopko i think that can be done. Part of it is being done with overlight like this to congress. Dont give oversight like this to congress. Dont give openended funding. Dont give openended ack we essence acquiescence. That is our biggest complaint, sir, is we look at metrics, inputs, outputs and outcomes. And we find agencies that dont even know how much theyre spending. But then they can maybe tell us how much they spent it on. How many shoes they bought. How many guns they bought. They dont know what the ultimate outcome is. Your job i think in congress if i can be so bold as to suggest is to hold the u. S. Government agencies accountable just like we are trying to hold them accountable in afghanistan. But i agree with you on that point, sir. Mr. Comer next question. In your testimony you noted that u. S. Channels in afghanistan have been meandering and clogged until recently. Do you believe the Trump Administration new strategy is helping remedy these issues and what recommendations from your report do you think are most important to help improve our train, advise and assist mission . Mr. Sopko can i defer to my colleague. Mr. Cunningham helped write most of this report. Mr. Cunningham so we have seen secretary defense mattis actually embrace some of the Lesson Learned and key findings from our report. As i said during the failure analysis, we were able to implement a lot of the recommendations in our report into that discussion. The problem is some of those recommendations are not being implemented today. The next unit going out is where we may see some change. One of the biggest problems we have is we dont have a deployable Police Capability that can operate in a nonpermissive environment to develop an Afghan National police force. The department of defense dont have the capability and the civilian agencies cannot operate in high threat environment so we miss that capability and thats something we need to discuss. At the minute steerial level, a lot of the advisors are uniformed personnel who dont receive the training that the civilian advisors receive. The minister Defense Advisor run by the department of defense excludes uniformed military personnel even though they are conducting the mission at the top. Yes, i do think there can be small steps done to realign the mission. We have not seen necessarily they are being implemented today. Mr. Comer my last question. Your recent report found that 152 afghans went awol after traveling to the u. S. For training between 2005 and 2017. First, my question can you explain why these soldiers are traveling to the United States in the first place . Dont we have Training Programs in afghanistan . Mr. Sopko sir, the decision was made they be trained here. There are some training that can be trained here in the United States. Thats just the way it is. I cant really tell you specifically why a certain amount were done here. Maybe some can be done more in afghanistan but i think our capabilities were here. Mr. Comer has the government done anything to reduce these risks in the future . Mr. Sopko well, yes and no. The department of Homeland Security was very receptive. The state department refused to even consider one of our simple considerations and that is maybe they should personally sper view everyone who gets a vees interview everyone who gets a visa under this program and they brushed that aside. Es that something you can help us with. I just think its ridiculous. They interview everybody that gets a visa when they come to the United States. Now, we identified theres a problem with military Afghan Military coming here. Over half of the awols, people going awol in the United States are afghan. So obviously you got a problem here. The state Department Just brushed aside and said, we see no reason to interview them. If its good enough to interview them for other visas why not interview them for this . Mr. Desantis the gentlemans time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. Hice, for five minutes. Mr. Hice thank you, mr. Chairman. I think this is an extremely important issue that we are talking about with the numbers. High numbers going awol. Why are there so many afghans that go awol . What is the deal here . Mr. Sopko you know, we werent able to interview all of them because some have disappeared. We tried to interview as many afghans we could and also talk to people back in afghanistan and talk to other people. The reasons are mixed. Some of it is they are afraid to go back. Its a wartorn country, so stay here in the United States. Others are, they were upset when they found out that to go back to their units they would have to pay bribes to get their jobs back. And they refused to do it. Others, i think its just the fact theyre here and its a good chance to stay if they could and they claim asylum. Mr. Hice is there any National Security threat . Because you didnt mention that. Mr. Sopko i think there is a National Security threat. We have people that totally disappeared and we dont know where they are. The state department has not been helpful to the department of Homeland Security in tracking them down. Mr. Hice why have they not been responsive to help track these individuals down . Mr. Sopko you have to ask the state department there. Mr. Hice are there specific individuals we need to ask . Have you seen obstruction . Have there been individuals standing in the way of getting answers . Mr. Sopko no. I cant say that. Mean, its the bureaucracy. Mr. Hice someone is running the bureaucracy. I think the potential as you mentioned, we dont know who these people are, dont know where they are. There are a certain people gone. We need to get a handle on this. Mr. Sopko we would be happy to brief you and give you information where the bottle neck is, sir. Mr. Hice id like that. How much money is being spent, do you know, training these afghans here in the u. S. . Mr. Sopko i dont know offhand. Let me ask my staff. We dont have that number, sir. Wed be happy to give it to you. Mr. Hice we appreciate that all right. You eluded to a few moments ago its just kind of the way it is but is there a better way to train these individuals than to bring them back here to the United States . Wouldnt it be potentially save a lot of taxpayer money if we were able to train them there in their homeland . Mr. Sopko congressman, it probably would save money but sometimes they have to do it here. I would actually cite one of the places where they do the training and had few people skip town or go awol is right in your hometown. Its at in the air force best place here the to train those pilots is in moody and this is one of the Success Stories we highlight. And its interesting in that area and i think it would be worthwhile to talk to the air force and moody why they are so successful in training those pilots and mechanics and they go back. So thats one of the Success Stories. And i think there they have to do the training there. Mr. Hice right. And i agree. Ive been there and i have seen what you are talking about and its a success story. I guess my thoughts are going beyond moody in some specialized places where its succeeding and overall potential of National Security threat where we are bringing individuals here that we dont know anything about, they get military training, they go awol. It sounds there is a significant portion of this program that could wisely be done in someplace other than the United States. Would you agree with that . Mr. Sopko i think its worth looking into it. We do discuss that but i think the first spot is just requiring inperson interviews for these military trainees by the state department. Mr. Hice and youre saying thats not happening . Mr. Sopko thats not happening and thats what the state department refused to acknowledge as being helpful. Mr. Hice all right. Did i hear you correctly moments ago, too, that this does happen with others but not happening with afghans, is that correct . Mr. Sopko yes. Thats whats so perplexing. For every type of visa they do do inperson interviews but dont do it for these people. Mr. Hice is there a specific policy where these people are waived from that particular part of vetting . Mr. Sopko its a policy of the state department. Mr. Hice just for this just for afghans . Mr. Sopko i cant speak beyond that, sir. Mr. Hice who can give me an answer . Mr. Sopko ill have the staff that worked on it get back to you. Mr. Hice please do so. I want to thank you for the great work that you do, for your forth right answers here in this hearing and with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. Mr. Desantis the gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes mr. Massie from kentucky for five minutes. Mr. Massie thank you, mr. Sopko, for your work in this capacity and i appreciate your matter of fact answers. Can you give us the total tab so far for afghan reconstruction since we started in roughly 2012 . Sopko mr. Massie if you want to round it off to the nearest bil