tate Department’s refusal to provide basic information for an audit involving efforts to ensure that ongoing programs supporting the people of Afghanistan do not result in the illegal transfer of U.S. taxpayer funds to the Taliban
Billions Keep Flowing to Afghanistan, State Dept. Blocks Audit to Disclose Where Money is Going
The U.S. has dropped a ghastly $146 billion on Afghanistan reconstruction in the last two decades and billions more continue to be spent, but the Biden administration is blocking federal auditors from conducting their congressionally mandated job of investigating where the money is going. For months the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has been trying to investigate the abrupt collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, if the State Department is complying with laws and regulations prohibiting the transfer of funds to the Taliban and ongoing humanitarian programs supporting the Afghan people. However, the State Department and its offshoot, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), refuse to cooperate as required by law.
This month the head of SIGAR, John F. Sopko, expressed outrage at the State Department’s efforts to obstruct his office’s investigation. In letters to congressional committees and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Sopko reveals that the State Department has blown off more than 20 requests for information from his office in the last eight months. The watchdog writes that the sudden refusal to cooperate is particularly surprising after more than a decade of cooperation. “Billions of dollars have been spent in Afghanistan and billions more continue to be spent,” Sopko writes. “Congress and American taxpayers deserve to know why the Afghan government collapsed after all that assistance, where the money went, and how taxpayer money is now being spent in Afghanistan.”
