U.S. has spent $14 billion on Afghan evacuees

The U.S. has spent more than $14 billion to rescue and resettle Afghans in the U.S. over the last three years, according to the inspector general who oversees the work.

Most of that paid for the U.S. military, which flew the evacuation flights and housed tens of thousands of Afghans at military bases for months after they reached the U.S. Money also went to resettle the Afghans once they left the military base camps.

Meanwhile Uncle Sam has shipped more than $3 billion to Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover in the summer of 2021, as the Biden administration tries to boost humanitarian efforts in the shattered country without also sustaining the Taliban.

“The United States remains the largest donor to the Afghan people,” Inspector General John Sopko and his team said in their latest quarterly report on the U.S. efforts in the beleaguered nation.

With the war effort over, Mr. Sopko now tracks Afghanistan’s descent into chaos and what the U.S. is doing about it.

He said the Taliban has “intensified” its campaign of oppression with a morality law that formalizes many of the rogue regime’s policies restricting women’s freedom. The law also gives the government’s morality police exceptional authority to deliver consequences to perceived violators.

“Women may not speak, sing or laugh in public. Music is forbidden. Communal prayer is compulsory for men,” Mr. Sopko said.

The laws also forbid “friendships with nonbelievers,” which he said makes it tougher for outside aid groups, whose employees may not be Muslim, to work inside the country.

Harassment of aid groups is also on the rise and more than 80 programs have shut down operations, he said.

The price tag for evacuation operations covered tens of thousands of Afghans the U.S. airlifted out amid the chaotic troop withdrawal in the summer of 2021; the cost of housing them at “lily pad” locations overseas; housing them at military bases here; and payments to help them get settled in American communities.

The inspector general said that included $8.7 billion allocated to Operation Allies Welcome and $5.3 billion for its successor operation, Enduring Welcome.

Taxpayers have also shelled out $3.2 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghans still in the country since August 2021. And Uncle Sam has also authorized $3.5 billion to fill the Afghan Central Bank’s account.

Mr. Sopko has been watching U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan since 2012.

He has recommended that his job end next summer because the wound-down U.S. effort no longer requires the intense scrutiny of a special inspector general.

“My recommendation to close the agency reflects the geopolitical realities of the Taliban takeover and the concomitant reduction in U.S. assistance to Afghanistan,” he wrote.

He said other regular inspectors general, such as the one at the State Department, can take over.