The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) leveled with lawmakers on Wednesday, saying that the Pentagon’s nation-building project in America’s longest running war zone has largely failed—particularly its efforts to thwart the country’s illicit drug trade.
Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, SIGAR John Sopko noted that the US has spent $8 billion to stem the cultivation and production of Afghan opium, yet the country is producing more heroin that ever before.
“If this is winning, what is losing the drug war?” Sopko asked the panel rhetorically, noting that 2014 was the most lucrative year yet for Afghanistan’s drug trade–an industry that finances militant activity in the country.
“Ashraf Ghani warned us before he was president if we didn’t do something, his country would become a narco-terrorist state,” Sopko said, referring to Afghanistan’s president. “I think his prediction is coming true.”
Aside from the failures in drug interdiction, the rest of the reconstruction outlook is also grim, partially a result of the Department of Defense’s profligate spending in the country.
“We’re stuck now with having built an Afghan infrastructure that the Afghans can’t afford,” Sopko told the committee.
SIGAR’s testimony Wednesday came on the heels of a new report cataloging previous audits of 44 Pentagon reconstruction projects, worth a total of more than $1 billion. The oversight body found that 63 percent of the developments “did not meet contact requirement or technical specifications.”
More than one-third of the projects included “deficiencies” that threatened the structural integrity and safety of the buildings.
The watchdog also reported that seven of the 44 reviewed facilities built by the Defense Department have never been used.
“In many cases, poorly prepared or unqualified contractor personnel, inferior materials, poor workmanship, and inadequate oversight by both the contractor and the US government contributed to these substandard results,” SIGAR’s report stated. It added that despite these troubles, “contractors were paid the full contract amount.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) described the report as having “echoes of Vietnam, [and] echoes of other large investments both DOD and [the US Agency for International Development].” He asked Sopko on Wednesday if his staff can pin down responsibility for the waste.
“We are in a situation now where we have built too much, too fast, with too little oversight,” Sopko responded. “I feel like the detective that shows up and the body is not only gone form the murder scene, the chalk outline has now disappeared and I’m trying to find someone accountable”
In January, Sopko accused the Pentagon of stonewalling his investigations into a now shut down development agency within the department that spent $638 million on Afghan reconstruction projects. He alleged that a hard drive turned over to him by the DOD containing information on the Task Force on Business and Stability Operations had likely been tampered with. He told lawmakers that SIGAR was using forensic accountants to search the computer for missing files.
Sopko has long informed Congress about the Pentagon’s lack of awareness of Afghan government capabilities as it embarked on the massive reconstruction project: totaling $113 billion, since 2002. He said the lack of strategy has put the US in a precarious position.
At one point, he explained how the Afghan government raises roughly $2 billion annually in revenue–far short of the $5 billion needed to maintain security forces alone. The rest of the government’s operations cost about $4 billion annually.
“If we stop funding the Afghan government, it will collapse and the bad guys will take over,” Sopko lamented.
