Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
War
More money has now been spent on Afghanistan than the post-World War II
Marshall Plan for Europe
Progress being made under new Afghan government -- including a much
greater prioritisation of fighting corruption
US does not know how many Afghan security forces there are. Neither does
Afghan government
The same is true for schools
Many Western projects are simply beyond the ability of the Afghan
government to resource and keep running
Rapid turnover of western personnel through country diminishes oversight
and increases corruption
SIGAR the only oversight body that crosses agencies and has freedom to say
what it wishes
Takes a much more aggressive, assertive approach to other US government
inspector generals
This report is generated from a discussion held on Tuesday, July 21, 2015 by the
Project for Study Of the 21st Century (PS21) in conjunction with New York
University's Just Security and the Pentagon's Special Inspector General for Afghan
Reconstruction (SIGAR).
Many thanks to the Thomson Reuters office in Washington DC for hosting.
Participants
John F. Sopko: US Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction
Andy Wright: Founding Editor, Just Security
Ian Wallace (Moderator): Senior Fellow, International Security Program at New
America
You can find a transcript of the event here and video here.
place that has had forty years of war-torn economic stagnation and subsistence
sales and things, thats a huge amount of money that washing along the system.
In counterinsurgency, the supply lines are the front lines. You had a massive
distortion of the economic incentives just along the road that you were sending the
trucks.
Outside support remains vital. Afghanistan's government raises
approximately $2 billion a year in revenue. It costs $8-$10 billion a year to
keep the government afloat.
Sopko: That means paying for the teachers, the roads, the clinics, the military.
Success is more likely to happen if we don't pour too much money in that we totally
destroy and distort the system. You have to build programs that realise we're not in
Norway, we are in Afghanistan.
Make certain the program is designed to take into consideration sustainability. Why
build something if the Afghans cant sustain it? We have instances of that all the
time. I just met with the Minister of Health. We were talking about one clinic that
the fuel consumption in the new clinic is equal to his entire provincial healthcare
budget. He basically said, What am I going to do with it?
Even after 14 years of war, data on what actually happens within
Afghanistan's government is frustratingly sparse.
Sopko: We don't know how many Afghan police and military there are. I was
warned about this by President Ghani before he became president. He was
concerned about it, but we really don't know what is going on.
We know they have a problem with logistics, a problem with the tail end, the back
end of war fighting. We know they can fight, the question is where to get the
bullets, boots, the other weapons. Only time will tell.
Real achievements should not mask very real problems.
Sopko: Obviously, there has been a lot of success. There are more kids going to
school. Healthcare is improved. Fewer women are dying in childbirth. The big
question is: Could we have done more with less? Thats the issue we face.
I think if you want to look at programs in general, they are more likely to succeed if
they meet our strategic goals, the Afghans know about the program and want the
program, there is buy-in from the community, you build the program that in
coordinated, not only inside the U.S. government, but also with our allies. Make
certain you arent building a bridge that the Italians are building or the Japanese are
building.
requirements. So you should try and harmonize all the votes, but I'm not certain it's
going to happen anytime in the near future.
Despite some Afghan criticism, SIGAR says its reports are broadly wellreceived and have themselves helped Afghan officials tackle the issues
they raise.
Sopko: Every Afghan Ive talked to knows about the corruption. Every Afghan Ive
talked to knows about the bridges that fall down, the schools that are abandoned,
the money thats been wasted. The Afghans know about these problems. They know
real well. The only people that dont know about these problems are Congress. I
work for the US people, they have a right to know.
Perhaps because they are generally housed within US government
departments, other inspectors general -- such as those at the Pentagon,
State Department, etc -- have tended to be less outspoken. They have also
often been viewed with suspicion within their departments.
Many of the serious problems identified with US and other government
services in recent years -- poor care at Veteran's hospitals, problems with
body armour, the security flaws that allowed the OPM hack -- would have
been sold earlier had the Inspector Generals for those institutions made
more fuss about deficiencies they found.
Sopko: Heres the thing and its a slippery slope: when I stop Where do I stop?
Im only going to withhold information now but it just keeps going.
I dont think the IGs have, as a body, lived up to the 1978 Act (that created them). I
took an oath to do this and I think every one of them do. They cant be fired. You
know Okay, so they dont get invited to the office Christmas party. Who cares?
Whens the last time you saw the DOD IG talking about procurement? Whens the
last time you saw the VA IG talking about issues of the cleanliness in the hospitals?
Whens the last time youve seen any of them out there? Whens the last time
youve seen the OPM IG? You know You dont even know there is an OPM IG. What
Im saying is: every one of them can do this.
The reason why Im doing this is because I was lucky. I had the opportunity to learn
about oversight from (experts like) Sam Nunn, Bill Roth, Carl Levin, John Glenn, John
Dingell and Henry Waxman And I did it for 25 years. And they taught me: youre
not going to change the government unless you publicize it and repeatedly publicize
it And thats how I do it.