Afghanistan watchdog accuses State Department of stonewalling oversight

The nation’s top Afghanistan watchdog is accusing the State Department of obstructing its efforts to provide oversight as House Republicans zero in on the Biden administration’s calamitous troop withdrawal in August 2021.

Testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko warned lawmakers that if the department’s stonewalling continues, it would have lasting consequences on Congress’ access to independent oversight.

“The lack of cooperation by State … is unprecedented in the nearly 12 years that I have been the SIGAR and, I must add, the two decades that I did oversight in both the Senate and the House ” Mr. Sopko said. “We cannot abide a situation in which agencies are allowed to pick and choose what information an IG gets, or who an IG can interview, or what an IG can report on.”

“If permitted to continue, it will end SIGAR’s work in Afghanistan and Congress access to independent and credible oversight of any administration,” he said.

Since starting in 2008, the SIGAR has reported on fraud, waste and mismanagement of U.S. funds in Afghanistan, providing a crucial window into the two-decade-long war.

Despite the SIGAR’s quarterly reports being a perennial source of tension with multiple administrations, the watchdog has long been afforded access to information from which to make its assessments.

But Mr. Sopko warned that access has dried up at a crucial time when the U.S. has appropriated $2 billion in assistance to the country now under the rule of the Taliban.

“Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer that we are not currently funding the Taliban,” Mr. Sopko told lawmakers Wednesday. “Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.”

In a 52-page report accompanying his testimony, Mr. Sopko detailed areas of high risk for U.S.-funded programs in Afghanistan, including Taliban interference at the U.N. 

The report also details the administration’s continued struggles to evacuate Afghans who fought alongside the U.S. throughout the war despite the Biden administration’s promise to provide the allies safe haven from the Taliban.

The State Department has raised questions “related to SIGAR’s jurisdiction” after the U.S. stopped providing reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan in August 2021. Those questions remain unresolved, a spokesperson said.

Nonetheless, the spokesperson said the department frequently works with SIGAR “within the scope of its statutory mandate” and has provided the watchdog with “thousands of response documents” describing the U.S. government’s reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

“In addition, the State Department and USAID continue to cooperate with oversight bodies — including Congressional committees and agency Inspectors General — that have jurisdiction over aid that the United States is currently providing to Afghanistan,” the spokesperson said.

Mr. Sopko’s warnings compounded Republican vitriol over the administration’s rushed withdrawal of U.S. troops that culminated in a suicide blast killing 13 U.S. service members and wounding 18 and left the country under the rule of Islamic fundamentalists.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican, who has vowed an extensive probe into the State Department’s role in the calamitous withdrawal, has been engaged in a tense back-and-forth with agency officials whom he has accused of stonewalling his request for information.

In March, Mr. McCaul subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the release of a Kabul Embassy dissent cable in July 2021 warning of the Taliban’s rapid advance and potential collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces. The cable called for the Biden administration to increase evacuation efforts to get as many people as possible out of the country.

Wednesday’s House oversight committee hearing, which featured witness testimony from Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development inspectors general in addition to Mr. Sopko, was the first in a series of hearings on the withdrawal promised by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.

“The goal of today’s hearing is simple: Explore the facts,” the Kentucky Republican said.

“In August 2021, Joe Biden lost that war. There was no exit with dignity. It was a panic, and 13 American service members were murdered by a suicide bomber,” he said. “The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has consequences that will not go away overnight, despite the Biden administration’s hope that the American people will forget.”

The White House has vehemently defended President Biden’s decision-making in Afghanistan and sought to put a shine on classified Pentagon and State Department reports on the withdrawal issued earlier this month.

In a 12-page, unclassified summary of the reports, administration officials placed heavy blame on former President Donald Trump for setting the withdrawal in motion and on Afghanistan itself. They said the nation’s military wasn’t trained, its government wasn’t competent and its people were too ready to capitulate.

The White House said Mr. Biden deserves credit for carrying out the withdrawal after 20 years of war. It said the president made the best choices possible and couldn’t have foreseen how quickly the Taliban would defeat Afghan forces without U.S. backing.

The White House again went on offense ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, accusing “extreme MAGA” Republicans of mounting “politically motivated” attacks against Mr. Biden.

The White House talking points were echoed by Democrats during the hearing.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said, “My Republican colleagues refuse to examine the elephant on the battlefield: President Trump’s disastrous decision to cut out the Afghan government and negotiate directly with the Taliban and then to enter into a dangerously lopsided agreement with these authoritarian religious fanatics.”