[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


    DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE DURING CONFLICT: LESSONS FROM AFGHANISTAN

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
         INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
                   AND GLOBAL CORPORATE SOCIAL IMPACT

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION
                               __________

                            OCTOBER 6, 2021
                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-82
                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
        
                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]        


Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, 
                     or http://www.govinfo.gov
                     
                              ___________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
45-939PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022   


                     
                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                  GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, Chairman

BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking 
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey                  Member
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia	     CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida	     STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
KAREN BASS, California		     JOE WILSON, South Carolina
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts	     SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island	     DARRELL ISSA, California
AMI BERA, California		     ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas		     LEE ZELDIN, New York
DINA TITUS, Nevada		     ANN WAGNER, Missouri
TED LIEU, California		     BRIAN MAST, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania	     BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota	     KEN BUCK, Colorado
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		     TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
COLIN ALLRED, Texas		     MARK GREEN, Tennessee	
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		     ANDY BARR, Kentucky
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia	     GREG STEUBE, Florida
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	     DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey	     CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
ANDY KIM, New Jersey		     AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
SARA JACOBS, California		     PETER MEIJER, Michigan
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina	     NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
JIM COSTA, California		     RONNY JACKSON, Texas
JUAN VARGAS, California		     YOUNG KIM, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas		     MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois

                                     
                    Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director

               Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
                                 ------                                

Subcommittee on International Development, International Organizations 
                   and Global Corporate Social Impact

                    JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas, Chairman

SARA JACOBS, California              NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York, 
BRAD SHERMAN, California                 Ranking Member
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		     CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	     DARRELL ISSA, California
ANDY KIM, New Jersey		     LEE ZELDIN, New York

                                     
                                                                          
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Sopko, The Honorable John F., Special Inspector General for 
  Afghanistan Reconstruction.....................................     7

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    33
Hearing Minutes..................................................    34
Hearing Attendance...............................................    35

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record..................    36

 
    DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE DURING CONFLICT: LESSONS FROM AFGHANISTAN

                       Wednesday, October 6, 2021

                          House of Representatives,
         Subcommittee on International Development,
 International Organizations, and Global Corporate 
                                     Social Impact,
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:01 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Joaquin Castro (chairman of the subcommittee) 
presiding.
    Mr. Castro. The Subcommittee on International Development, 
International Organization, and Global Corporate Social Impact 
will come to order.
    Good morning, everyone. Thank you--or good afternoon. Thank 
you to our witnesses for being here today for a hearing 
entitled ``Development Assistance During Conflict: Lessons from 
Afghanistan.''
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any point. And all members will have 
5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions 
for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. 
To insert something into the record, please have your staff 
email the previously mentioned address or contact full 
committee staff.
    And please keep your video function on at all times, even 
when you are not recognized by the chair.
    Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves, 
and please remember to mute yourself after you finish speaking. 
Consistent with remote committee proceedings of H. Res. 8, 
staff will only mute members and witnesses as appropriate when 
they are not under recognition to eliminate background noise.
    I see that we have a quorum, and I will now recognize 
myself for opening remarks.
    Again, thank you all for joining us for today's hearing on 
Afghanistan and specifically the lessons that our experiences 
there hold for our Nation's development programs.
    Like many Americans, I reacted to the events of August of 
this year with sorrow. As the Taliban moved into city after 
city over the course of 2 weeks, the Afghan Government's forces 
melted away, often without a fight, and its leaders fled into 
the wilderness or to another country.
    Within 2 weeks, millions of Afghans found their lives 
fundamentally changed and have been forced to navigate a new 
reality. They were promised a different life by their leaders, 
by the United States, and by the international community. The 
gap between that promise and the reality they now face is why I 
reacted with sorrow but not necessarily with surprise.
    The seeds of the rapid collapse of the Afghan Government 
and military weren't sown by any single decision the Biden 
Administration made since taking office. It was the product of 
a failure of the Afghan people to build a durable government 
and military over 20 years and, yes, the failure of the United 
States and the international community to help them do that.
    Over the last two decades, the United States spent over $1 
trillion, including almost $150 billion in Afghan 
reconstruction and related activities. Our allies and partners 
spent billions more.
    Through two decades, measures of success constantly 
changed, and successes were quickly followed by setbacks. 
Corruption and waste by the Afghan Government, its military, 
and too often by U.S. contractors followed that money.
    There is no doubt that, in many ways, the lives of 
Afghanistan were improved over two decades. Poverty was down, 
health outcomes were better, and education was more widely 
available. But these successes were built on top of an 
unsustainable model that is collapsing as we speak.
    I called this hearing because the Congress and this 
committee need to take account of how we got here and look at 
what lessons that holds for U.S. development priorities in 
other areas of conflict and even in Afghanistan itself.
    The last time the Special Inspector General was in front of 
this committee to speak to lessons learned, the hope was that 
what we learned would help us course-correct in Afghanistan. 
The context of the conversation is very different today. There 
is no U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and international 
development, where it occurs, will have to navigate a maze of 
legal challenges, sanctions, and unsavory actors.
    A lot of the discussion in recent weeks has been how the 
lack of a U.S. presence on the ground will require the military 
to conduct, quote, ``over-the-horizon'' air strikes against 
military targets, often with uncertain intelligence. We will 
need to similarly adapt to a world of over-the-horizon 
international development, relying on multilateral 
organizations and other trusted partners to avoid a 
humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan.
    This is an entirely different set of challenges that we 
face. We cannot course-correct anymore, but we can apply the 
lessons learned to development work in other conflict zones, 
whether that is Somalia, Syria, Libya, or the Sahel. The 
challenges may not be at the same scale as Afghanistan, but 
there are real commonalities that these experiences can inform.
    The U.S. Government also has a critical tool to do 
development in conflict zones, the Global Fragility Act, 
bipartisan legislation that was signed into law in 2019. This 
legislation aims to reduce violent conflict and structure how 
we work with fragile States. The bill's genesis was informed in 
many ways by the U.S. experience in Afghanistan, and I hope 
that its implementation, which we are working with the 
Administration on now, will be informed by those experiences as 
well.
    I am looking forward to the testimony today so that we can 
develop a better record of the decisions over the two decades 
that led to the failure of the Afghan Government to withstand 
the Taliban offensive.
    And, with that, I will now turn it over to Ranking Member 
Malliotakis for her opening remarks.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Chairman Castro, for calling 
this important hearing to discuss the U.S. development 
assistance in Afghanistan. It is my hope that the committee 
continues holding hearings to discuss what went disastrously 
wrong with the U.S. withdrawal and what the future implications 
are for U.S. national security.
    Almost $145 billion has been appropriated for Afghanistan 
relief and reconstruction since 2002. And while many important 
gains were made during those years to support the people of 
Afghanistan, especially to advance the rights of women and 
children, increasing access to education, and supporting civil 
society, there were also failures impossible to miss.
    The series of reports released by the Special Inspector 
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction on lessons learned from 
our 20-year mission offers important takeaways. In the 
aftermath of the botched withdrawal, however, we do need to 
seriously question why the Biden Administration did not heed 
those lessons, and we need to ask why, even now, our priorities 
seem to be misplaced.
    Today, it is clear what our number-one priority should be--
that is, ensuring the safety and security of U.S. citizens, our 
lawful permanent residents, the SIVs, and at-risk Afghans who 
supported U.S. policy objectives over the last 20 years and now 
whose lives are in danger.
    In this vein, we must continue to focus our tax dollars on 
counterterrorism, especially in light of recent intelligence 
reports which indicate that al-Qaeda could reemerge in 1 to 2 
years in Afghanistan, notwithstanding the proven and deadly 
threat of ISIS-K. Despite what Secretary Blinken Stated before 
our committee last month, we can in no way trust the Taliban, a 
terrorist organization itself, to ensure that Afghanistan does 
not become a hotbed for violent extremism.
    So far, however, the Administration seems content with 
pursuing priorities other than national security. For example, 
I am deeply concerned about premature conversations by the 
Biden Administration to restart U.S. non-humanitarian aid 
programs. Not only do key questions remain about the makeup and 
structure of the Taliban-controlled Government of Afghanistan, 
but, in addition to our citizens left behind, there are still 
U.S. implementing partners trying to get their staff out of the 
country.
    Here is a number the Afghanistan--here is a number the 
Administration does not like to cite. Over 10,000 current and 
former USAID partner staff are still asking for help to be 
evacuated. These are men and women that have worked alongside 
us for over 20 years, implementing programs to advance critical 
stabilization and recovery priorities. Getting these people to 
safety needs to be this Administration's priority. We need to 
show up for our partners that risk their own personal safety to 
implement U.S.-funded programs. And, frankly, the lack of 
urgency to address this critical issue is astounding.
    We cannot afford to take any action, including resuming 
non-humanitarian assistance programs, that would legitimize the 
Taliban-controlled Government of Afghanistan.
    One consequence of the withdrawal of the U.S. forces and 
diplomats that is not being discussed enough is the limitations 
on our ability to effectively monitor and implement U.S. 
assistance programs. We have seen the destructive role that the 
Taliban plays in provision of assistance before, from dictating 
NGO operations to excluding women and children from 
participating in programs.
    Over 18 million Afghanistan civilians, nearly half the 
population, are in dire need of humanitarian assistance after 
the disastrous collapse of the country. With subsequent severe 
economic downturn and the rapidly approaching winter months, 
there is a clear need here, but with the Taliban in full 
control, options are extremely limited. Because, to be clear, 
we must not take any step to enable or provide any more 
leverage to the Taliban government sitting in Kabul, and we 
must be sure that not a single U.S. tax dollar ends up in their 
hands.
    So I hope that the Inspector General sheds light on how 
ongoing aid programs in other security-restrictive environments 
like Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Iraq could inform the risks and 
safeguards necessary for current and future assistance programs 
in Afghanistan.
    Mr. Sopko, I really look forward to your testimony.
    And I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you.
    Mr. Castro. Well, thank you, Ranking Member.
    And before I introduce our distinguished witness, I want to 
ask unanimous consent that Representative Meijer be allowed to 
join this committee and ask questions following all the other 
subcommittee members.
    Without objection, we will allow Rep. Meijer to join.
    And now I want to introduce our witness. We have with us 
today the Honorable John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector 
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Mr. Sopko has been in 
this position since 2012 and has seen the situation in 
Afghanistan change significantly over the last decade.
    Thank you for joining us here today to speak about your 
work, your findings, and help Congress chart a path forward.
    I will now recognize Mr. Sopko for 5 minutes.
    And, without objection, your prepared written statement 
will be made part of the record, Mr. Sopko. Please.

  STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN F. SOPKO, SPECIAL INSPECTOR 
             GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION

    Mr. Sopko. Thank you very much.
    Chairman Castro, Ranking Member Malliotakis, distinguished 
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to 
testify today.
    Without a doubt, our country's experience in Afghanistan 
has been costly. It lasted over 20 years, we spent over $145 
billion on reconstruction, and we cannot forget that more than 
2,400 Americans paid the ultimate price in defense of liberty 
in Afghanistan. Additionally, over 21,000 of our troops were 
wounded and continue to bear the scars of conflict.
    These are sobering numbers, and we owe all who served in 
Afghanistan as well as the long-suffering American taxpayer an 
accurate accounting of what worked and what did not work in 
that country.
    Since Congress established SIGAR in 2008, we have publicly 
issued over 600 audits and other reports, including 11 
``lessons learned'' reports, in an attempt to do just that. Our 
work demonstrates that no single policy decision nor 
Administration led to the failure of our reconstruction effort. 
Rather, it was a series of decisions made over two decades that 
led to us this point.
    The seeds of the collapse in Afghanistan were sown well 
before the last 60 days, but the questions now are: What could 
we have done differently, and what must we prepare to do 
differently in the future?
    For the sake of brevity, let me highlight just three key 
areas from our reports for your consideration.
    First, the U.S. Government's inability to get the right 
people into the right jobs at the right time was one of the 
reconstruction mission's most significant failures. While the 
State Department has statutory authority, for example, to lead 
security-sector assistance efforts overseas, it does not have 
the personnel, expertise, or resources to do so.
    This left the Defense Department to fill that void, 
resulting in less-qualified and poorly trained personnel 
undertaking key diplomatic and development roles. Additionally, 
State and USAID experienced frequent staff turnovers in 
Afghanistan, of a year or even less service there, leaving 
their successors to start from scratch and make similar 
mistakes all over again.
    Second, U.S. Government agencies, including State and AID, 
rarely conducted sufficient monitoring and evaluation, or M&E, 
as we call it, to understand the impacts of their development 
efforts. The absence of periodic reality checks created the 
risk of doing the wrong thing perfectly. By that, I mean a 
project that completed required tests would be labeled 
successful, even though it did not achieve or contribute to 
broader, more important goals.
    If better monitoring and evaluation processes had been in 
place to evaluate programs, to combat corruption, develop the 
economy, build the Afghan security forces, many of the problems 
that contributed to the rapid collapse of the Afghan State 
could have been corrected. Measuring success by focusing on 
dollars and cents is no substitute for common sense.
    Third, and probably more importantly, the U.S. Government 
did not understand the Afghan political and cultural context, 
thereby leading to empowering corrupt power brokers and 
politicians, forcing inappropriate Western technocratic models 
on Afghan institutions, imposing formal Western rule of law on 
a country that addressed most disputes through informal means, 
and struggling to understand and mitigate cultural barriers to 
supporting women and girls. This failure meant projects 
intended to mitigate conflict often exacerbated it.
    To be sure, State and AID had successes, but their 
sustainability of those gains is obviously now in grave doubt.
    Now, the book on Afghanistan is not yet closed. Questions 
remain unanswered--questions that SIGAR has been tasked by 
Congress to investigate, including the sudden collapse of the 
Afghan Government and security forces. At the request of your 
colleague, Chairman Bera, we will also be conducting an audit 
of the Special Immigrant Visa program. I look forward to 
working with this subcommittee and members as we undertake 
these efforts.
    And I look forward to answering all the questions have you 
today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sopko follows:]

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    Mr. Castro. Well, thank you for your testimony, Mr. Sopko.
    And I will now recognize members for 5 minutes each. And, 
pursuant to House rules, all time yielded is for the purposes 
of questioning our witnesses.
    Because of the virtual format of this hearing, I will now 
recognize members by committee seniority, alternating between 
majority and the minority. And I can only call on you if you 
are present with your video on. If you miss you turn, please 
let our staff know, and we will circle back to you. If you seek 
recognition, you must unmute your microphone and address the 
chair verbally.
    And I will start by recognizing myself for the first 
question.
    Well, one common thread across SIGAR's work is how the 
Department of Defense, given the reconstruction 
responsibilities that it was, was ill-suited for that task 
because--because it had the resources to do it, but the State 
Department and USAID may have been able to do those things 
better.
    I asked you about this issue when you last testified in 
front of the committee, in January of last year, and one of the 
takeaways was to increase staffing and presence of diplomats in 
the field. But much of this is the product of how Washington 
decisions are made.
    Now, the Biden Administration has given the USAID 
Administrator a seat on the National Security Council, which is 
a first. And this can balance some of the discussions at the 
interagency and is a welcome recognition of the role 
development can play in advancing our national security.
    Can you speak to how the DOD was able to crowd out State or 
USAID in Afghanistan? And what more can be done to ensure that 
critical voices are not left out of the conversation when 
discussing these issues?
    Mr. Sopko. DOD did not crowd them out for nefarious 
reasons. It was just, I think, the reality of the situation. 
Their funding overwhelmed State and AID. They also had the 
capability to get into areas that were not safe. And that is 
another problem you have to realize.
    You know, some State Department and AID officials jokingly 
said, ``We were out-PowerPointed.'' You talk about some of the 
meetings and the organizations that were set up in which there 
was supposed to be equal membership from State, AID, and DOD, 
and maybe there would be 1 person from AID and 1 person from 
State and 20 people from DOD.
    That is a particular problem. It is enhanced in Afghanistan 
because we wanted fast results, quick results. And I think 
there was a frustration expressed by DOD that State and AID and 
regular development--and we all know and you particularly on 
the committee should realize that development takes time. You 
cannot do development or reconstruction in months or even half 
a year or a year. It takes time.
    And what happened is, DOD was given the reins to do a lot 
of the development aid and did not know how to do it, did not 
have the capability, did not have the expertise. And that is 
particularly a problem.
    It is a problem, basically, of funding. We tend to view 
more bodies in State and AID as a waste of money, but we do not 
if we are talking about the Defense Department. And I think 
until we get over that and realize State and AID have important 
missions, they have to be fully funded.
    Mr. Castro. All right. No, thank you.
    And in your most recent report, you note that contractors 
were often used to travel to places that were deemed too 
dangerous for U.S. Government employees. This made the U.S. 
Government dependent on contractors to do oversight of 
projects, which meant there was little to no actual oversight 
over the projects.
    This problem of U.S. personnel being stuck in embassies and 
unable to get into the field is, of course, not unique to 
Afghanistan. But as we explore doing development in other 
conflict zones, how can the United States ensure that 
diplomatic and development personnel are able to get out into 
the field in the same way that contractors are?
    Mr. Sopko. The ultimate thing is, Congress, the American 
people, and the Administration, whoever is in the White House, 
Democrat or Republican, has to realize that diplomacy is never 
going to be totally risk-free.
    We expect and we understand when DOD takes calculated 
risks. There has been a tendency--and I saw this over time in 
Afghanistan--a fear among State Department officials and AID 
officials to take risk. As a result, people did not leave the 
compounds, people did not go over the wire and do work they 
need to do. And I think it is because they were afraid they 
would get in trouble if somebody got hurt.
    I am not talking about recklessness; I am talking about--
there is State Department. If you talk to the average State 
Department official or AID official, they understand they have 
to take risks. You have to let them take those calculated 
risks. Then we do not have to worry about contractors doing 
their job or worry about DOD doing the job.
    I think that is the--it is the approach we have to risk-
taking in the diplomatic field. We have to resolve that.
    Mr. Castro. No, well, thank you, sir.
    And I want to pass it over to the ranking member for her 
questions.
    Ms. Malliotakis. No, thank you very much. I appreciate what 
you are saying here today. And it seems that, you know, this is 
an issue where, I think, Republicans and Democrats can 
certainly agree we want to make sure the taxpayer money is 
being used properly.
    I have a question relating to, you know, can we--or, if we 
can, how--can we ensure that this money does not get into 
Taliban hands?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, currently all funding, except I think a 
very small amount of humanitarian aid, has been stopped, so it 
is not getting into Taliban hands. But----
    Ms. Malliotakis. Well, if we were----
    Mr. Sopko [continuing]. If the spigot is opened--I am 
sorry?
    Ms. Malliotakis. No. Sorry. Please continue.
    Mr. Sopko. Yes. If the spigot is opened, it is going to be 
difficult to do it, far more difficult, because we do not have 
people on the ground.
    There are ways to look at it, but the first thing we should 
consider is, we should put conditions on it to make certain we 
have access, whether it is SIGAR or somebody else, has access 
to books and records and, remotely, can monitor how it is being 
done.
    It is going to be extremely difficult. We had problems 
monitoring it even with a friendly, though incompetent, 
Afghan--and corrupt Afghan Government. We will definitely have 
more problems. But you have to put those conditions on it.
    And you have to enforce the conditions. And we do not have 
a good track record on that. And we have highlighted that over 
the years. We did not really put strong conditions and hold the 
Afghans' feet to the fire on that.
    And I hope we have learned from that and we realize, if we 
give money to the Taliban, we are going to have to try to watch 
how the money is being spent.
    Ms. Malliotakis. I agree with you wholeheartedly, and that 
is why I pause when we are having this discussion about sending 
more money.
    As Inspector General, what kind of fraud have you seen? You 
have talked about waste. We know that there has been tons of 
waste. Any particular egregious examples of fraud that you can 
point to?
    Mr. Sopko. Oh, we saw it everywhere. I mean, probably the 
biggest and most talked about are the ghosts--ghost soldiers, 
ghost police we saw over there, where the Afghan Government 
created out of whole cloth individuals that did not exist. We 
ended up paying the salaries. We ended up not only paying the 
salaries, but we paid everything that went to supporting a 
soldier or a policeman.
    Likewise, the international bodies--and I know this 
subcommittee has jurisdiction over international 
organizations--we found the same problem with international 
organizations, where they were paying salaries or paying for 
things and they did not monitor and evaluate. And this, in 
particular, was very difficult for us, because a lot of the 
international organizations wouldn't let us in to take a look 
at the books and records. So that is--we saw that a lot.
    Fuel disappearing. Over 50 percent of the fuel we bought 
for the Afghan Government, for their police, their soldiers, 
and for the government itself, was stolen--50 percent.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Wow.
    Mr. Sopko. And we had a wonderful case that I gave to 
President Ghani shortly after he was inaugurated. He said he 
was going to do something about it. Well, we saw price fixing 
to the tune of--costing the U.S. taxpayer over $250 million 
extra on a $1 billion contract. He never did a thing on it, nor 
did his attorney general, nor did anyone else.
    Ms. Malliotakis. The same----
    Mr. Sopko. So the whole time--yes?
    Ms. Malliotakis. The same President Ghani who fled with 
$169 million, as was reported by the BBC and other outlets.
    Mr. Sopko. Well, we haven't proven that yet. We are looking 
into that. Actually, the Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee has asked us to look into that.
    But there are allegations, but not only with President 
Ghani. There are allegations with senior officials in their 
finance ministry, their central bank, and a number of other 
ministries walking off with millions of dollars. But, again, 
those are just allegations.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Yes.
    Mr. Sopko. We have not confirmed any of those yet.
    Ms. Malliotakis. And I appreciate that.
    What metrics can Congress put in place to ensure that the 
money is being spent appropriately but also that you are 
getting the intended results along the way, so, that way, 
programs can be cutoff or money can be diverted if we are not 
seeing intended results? Do you have any recommendations?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, we issued an entire report on that, and I 
do not think we have enough time in----
    Ms. Malliotakis. Yes. Yes.
    Mr. Sopko. --23 seconds. But the monitoring and evaluation 
report that we issued earlier this year, I would highly 
recommend----
    Ms. Malliotakis. OK.
    Mr. Sopko [continuing]. Taking a look at that.
    We talk about the need for effective monitoring and 
evaluation. And it has to be realistic. And you have to look at 
what the end result is. We are pretty good at doing inputs and 
outputs, but never looking at the outcomes. And you have to 
hold State, AID, and DOD to having met the outcomes that they 
tell you they are supposed to result in. And if you do not--
that is the biggest problem we saw.
    The ultimate monitoring and evaluation that was done in 
Afghanistan was at the end, because they falsified or ignored 
all the bad results on M&E for the years and years that we have 
been raising concerns. And the ultimate M&E, the ultimate 
monitoring and evaluation, was: Could the Afghan Government 
stand on its own? And we saw what the results were.
    If we had had effective monitoring and evaluation, if we 
had actually held their feet to the fire over the last 10 
years, I say we wouldn't have ended up where we are today, with 
a nonexistent Afghan Government.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you. And if it is happening there, 
it is happening in Yemen and Syria and Iraq, potentially, and 
other countries.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sopko. It is not my job to look at those other 
countries----
    Ms. Malliotakis. Sure.
    Mr. Sopko [continuing]. But I think, take our report--and 
we have briefed State and AID on this, and I must say they are 
listening now--and take our report and see if they are doing it 
in these other countries.
    You raise an excellent point, ma'am.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you.
    Mr. Castro. All right. Thank you.
    We will go the vice chair of the committee, Sara Jacobs.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you, Inspector General Sopko, for being here and 
for all of your work over the years to make sure that we try to 
learn some of these lessons in Afghanistan.
    First, I wanted to thank you for your answer to Chairman 
Castro's question about diplomats being able to travel and 
risk-taking. We actually are working on a bill in that regard 
right now, to try and make sure that our diplomats are able to 
get outside and actually talk to people and understand what is 
going on and take the necessary risk to do the job well.
    I wanted to ask you a little bit, kind of, a meta-question, 
let's say. I think we tend to do these big reviews and lessons 
learned. I have read many of your reports, but, you know, we 
actually know that, even though you have a lot of these great 
lessons, that there are a lot of needed reforms and lessons 
that haven't actually been implemented, and especially, as we 
are seeing now, stabilization operations across Africa, 
particularly in the Sahel, that could use some reorientation 
and potentially are suffering from many of the same failures we 
are talking about today.
    Given your experience watching this process in Afghanistan, 
how do you think we should make sure we pivot before it is too 
late? In other words, what would actually be required to 
intervene in the interagency process, identify and communicate 
the failures, identify what needs to change, and make that come 
to fruition?
    Because it is clear to me that more money and more 
strategies and more oversight reports do not necessarily lead 
to this change. So what would? And how can Congress be a 
partner on that?
    Mr. Sopko. Congresswoman, that is an excellent question, 
and you hit the nail on the head. And the answer is to look at 
the role of Congress. You control the purse strings.
    And doing oversight--and I used to work for one of the 
greatest chairmen in recent history, John Dingell. And he knew 
that oversight was what Congress should do. And this is 
bipartisan, nonpartisan oversight. And that means not just 
calling in the Secretary of State, but that means digging 
deeply and looking at particular programs.
    And, Congresswoman, if you have allegations, if you have 
concerns about what we are doing in Africa or what we are doing 
in Haiti, then the chairman and the ranking member should work 
on getting your staff to start asking some tough questions. And 
do not end by just bringing in the Secretary of State. You 
cannot require him to know everything. You have to find the 
people who are running that program.
    So, ultimately, it is Congress's role. And if you do not 
get answers, do not fund the program. And I am old-school. I 
worked for almost 25 years on the Senate and the House. And it 
is the role of Congress to protect the taxpayers' purse. And it 
is through oversight and withholding funds and sending messages 
to certain errant bureaucrats.
    Bring them up. Hold people accountable, Congresswoman. Hold 
people accountable. All of the reports we have done? No one in 
the government has been held accountable. I always joke that 
the only person who is ever going to get fired over Afghanistan 
is probably going to be me, nobody else--not the generals who 
came up and spun and spun and spun and the Ambassadors and AID 
administrators who gave bogus data to you. None of them have 
been held accountable. You have to hold people accountable, 
ma'am.
    Ms. Jacobs. OK. Well, thank you.
    And, my staff, if you are listening, sounds like we have 
some work to do.
    I wanted to move on to the Global Fragility Act. I know in 
your latest SIGAR report you talked about the lack of 
administrative capacity to carry out programs. And the Global 
Fragility Act right now dictates that no more than 5 percent 
can be spent on administrative expenses to ensure that, you 
know, the money is actually going to our partners and to 
assistance. But, obviously, as you point out, capacity of our 
agencies to carry out their work is incredibly important.
    So what kind of investment in our capacity at both State 
and USAID do you believe is required for GFA to be successful?
    [Audio interruption.]
    Mr. Sopko. I am sorry. I am hearing another question.
    I am sorry. Somebody is speaking over you, Congresswoman.
    Mr. Castro. Everybody, please mute themselves unless they 
are speaking.
    Mr. Sopko. I am terribly sorry. I couldn't hear your 
question, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Jacobs. That is OK. I was asking about GFA and the 5 
percent to Administration and what you think actually would be 
required to be able to adequately implement GFA at State and 
AID.
    Mr. Sopko. You know, we haven't specifically looked at that 
issue, and I am sorry, I cannot answer that. I can have my 
staff look into it.
    What we are just saying is that civilian agencies are going 
to be carrying out what I think is a very important statute but 
you are not giving them any more resources to do it. And we saw 
what happens when they are underresourced, in Afghanistan and 
Iraq.
    So I do not know what the number is, but I am happy to get 
back to you and try to give you a number on that.
    Ms. Jacobs. OK. That would be great.
    Thank you so much. Thank you again for all your work.
    And, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you, Vice Chair.
    All right. Darrell Issa is next. But, Darrell--you do not 
have your video on, Darrell. I will take 5 seconds to see if 
you are there.
    If not, Ms. Tenney is next, but she is not on video either. 
All right.
    Ms. Houlahan, you are up.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thanks. Can you all hear me OK?
    Mr. Sopko. Yes, I can.
    Ms. Houlahan. Excellent. Thanks.
    My questions have to do with the Taliban and particularly 
women.
    The Taliban are continuing to send a lot of mixed signals 
on whether women will be allowed to work or participate in 
social and economic activities, which, of course, directly 
impacts the ability of women and girls to access critical 
services and aid.
    So I was wondering if you could help me understand, how can 
the United States and our international partners effectively or 
better engage the Taliban on principled humanitarian access, 
ensuring for the equitable distribution of humanitarian aid, 
particularly at this time when women and girls are confined to 
home due to insecurity and the Taliban's crackdowns?
    Mr. Sopko. That is a very good question, and, 
unfortunately, I do not have a good answer. We have lost all 
ability, first of all, to really know how bad the situation is 
for women and girls, as well as a lot of other Afghans, but we 
also do not have much leverage.
    Now, the best thing I can say, Congresswoman, is, we need 
to get the intel of what is going on. We can get that from the 
media that is there and other sources, just to find out how 
good or how bad the Afghan Taliban are doing. We cannot trust 
what they say. They are pretty good at PR this time around.
    But if we do do any funding--and I am not advocating that 
we give a dime to the Taliban government, so just know that--
remember, what do they want? And how do we ensure, if we give 
them anything that they want, we get something in return?
    So I think it is going to have to be smart conditionality, 
strong conditionality. And we are going to have to be willing 
to say no if they are not living up to their commitments on a 
number of issues, including counterterrorism, human rights 
violations, et cetera.
    That is the best I can give you. We are in a very poor spot 
to try to help the women, the girls, and the average Afghans 
right now.
    Ms. Houlahan. Yes, I agree. That definitely keeps me up at 
night.
    And I am going to ask my second question and hopefully have 
time to ask a followup----
    Mr. Sopko. Sure.
    Ms. Houlahan [continuing]. To this one.
    Secretary Blinken testified before us last month, and he 
announced that the State Department would appoint a special 
envoy to focus on Afghan women's issues.
    How do we make sure that that role is effective, given what 
we have just been talking about? And how can the U.S. advance 
accountability mechanisms to prevent harm to women and girls in 
other conflict-affected contexts?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, I hope whoever they appoint is aggressive 
and savvy and has the ability to call upon all the resources of 
the U.S. Government to find out what is going on. And also I 
hope that, when that person, whoever it is, has the ability 
then to brief the Secretary and brief Congress on a regular 
basis on what the problem is and to work out the solution, I 
hope it is not window dressing. You know, there are many 
Ambassadors floating around this country who I think are more 
window dressing than reality.
    So you want to make certain, whoever that person is, 
Congress interviews them, Congress finds out what is his brief, 
what is his authorities, can he find out, and then what he is 
going to do with the information. So pull the thread.
    I think it is a great idea, a special Ambassador, just as 
long as the special Ambassador does something and has the 
ability to do something.
    Ms. Houlahan. And with the last waning seconds of my time, 
I am wondering, you mentioned, you know, do not give something 
without getting something in return if, for whatever reason, we 
move forward with support or direct money to the Taliban-led 
government.
    What would be an example or two or three of what you would 
think of in terms of getting something in return?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, if they wanted access, let's say, to the 
$8 billion we froze in the Federal Reserve, you would want to 
get an assurance that is verifiable by either U.S. Government 
or an international body that they are respecting the rights of 
women. That means somebody on the ground with the ability, just 
like weapons inspectors we have used in the past.
    I remember, when we gave money to the former Soviet Union, 
right, before the collapse and after the collapse on nuclear 
proliferation and other issues, we required them, the Russians 
and the former Soviet Union, to allow GAO inspectors in. Now, 
Russia is not the same as Afghanistan, the Taliban aren't the 
same as the Kremlin, but that's the type of thing. OK, you want 
our money? Then inspectors come along with it.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Sopko. You remember, when we did the Marshall Plan, 
when we did the Marshall Plan after World War II, we had 
somebody from the U.S. Government sitting in every office in 
France, Germany, Belgium, et cetera, to ensure that the money 
got spent.
    Now, that is the old days. You can do it with technology 
now a lot better than having somebody sit there. But you have 
to have somebody out there to kick the tires who can actually 
independently determine if the Taliban are living up to their 
agreements.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I really appreciate your time.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ms. Houlahan.
    Darrell Issa.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you.
    I am going to followup on the last round of questioning and 
ask it in sort of a negative way but, I think, assertively.
    Isn't it true that when we left Afghanistan we basically 
left 37 million people to the historic rule of the Taliban 
under sharia law and a sixth-century mentality?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, we left the Afghan people to the current 
Afghan Government. So I cannot say if it is all sharia law, and 
I cannot say fourth century. But the obvious is that we are not 
there and there is no Ghani government, so we left them to a 
government run by the Taliban.
    Mr. Issa. But, historically, that government, you know, 
when they ran things the last time, did not respect what we 
would consider women's rights. Or, more specifically, they 
believed in women's rights that were so different than ours 
that we would call them inhumane. Women are taken out of school 
at a very early age. They are not going to get the kind of 
education that we are used to.
    There are a lot of those things that are just a given at 
this point, unless you assume that they have somehow changed 
their ways, which there seems to be no indication.
    Mr. Sopko. I have not seen any indication that they have 
changed their ways, other than to have better public relations.
    And, again, Congressman Issa, I know you and I go back 
years when you were on the House Oversight and Government 
Reform Committee. Back then, as well as now, I have not met an 
Afghan woman who trusts the Taliban.
    Mr. Issa. Now, your reports leading up to the collapse of 
the Afghan military predicted that it would fold, that, in 
fact, it was not stable. Isn't that true?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, we predicted it would fold. We did not 
predict it would fold as fast as it did.
    Mr. Issa. But, if you predicted it would fold, then the 
decision to leave Afghanistan was, by definition, a decision to 
leave it to the Taliban and their interpretation of justice, 
law, and where the world should go, correct?
    Mr. Sopko. I cannot say that that was the purpose of the 
decision or whatever----
    Mr. Issa. Well, were your--your reports were run through 
the system, so they were seen by people at the highest levels 
of the State Department, correct?
    Mr. Sopko. All of our reports are public, and they have 
been public for as long as I have been there, so almost 10 
years.
    Mr. Issa. So is there any other conclusion one could reach 
when you say that it will inevitably collapse but that we were 
going to leave the people, the 37 million people, of 
Afghanistan to the rule and control of the Taliban?
    Mr. Sopko. I wouldn't draw that conclusion. Our conclusions 
were more that the government or the military would probably 
collapse over a period of time. We did not know who was going 
to replace it. The Taliban was out there. There could have been 
another government that came in, non-Taliban, that replaced the 
Ghani regime, which was basically----
    Mr. Issa. So----
    Mr. Sopko [continuing]. Viewed as incompetent. So I did 
not--we did not say Taliban is the next one in line.
    Mr. Issa. Well, but besides that----
    Mr. Sopko. We just----
    Mr. Issa. Right. But besides the Taliban and ISIS-K, is 
there another significant group that you could name that had a 
reasonable possibility, from a military and government 
standpoint, of taking control of Afghanistan?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, right now, I wouldn't want to name them, 
but I think there were a number of warlords and other 
politicians and political groups that could have. And I think 
there was some evidence that they were planning to take over--
maybe not democratically, but they were.
    So there were a number of groups out there, I think, who 
were strongmen, reasonable leaders, that were looking to take 
over.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Issa.
    Mr. Meijer.
    Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to 
participate in this subcommittee hearing and to the rest of the 
subcommittee for allowing it with the unanimous consent.
    And thank you, Mr. Sopko, for being here today.
    You know, I spent late 2013 to mid-2015 in Afghanistan, 
flew in and out of Kabul's airport, and saw those Italian 
G.222s----
    Mr. Sopko. Yep.
    Mr. Meijer [continuing]. Sitting there, gathering dust, and 
then, 1 day, they were all in a pile of scrap metal, $549 
million worth of investment gone down.
    And I appreciated your testimony and all of your reporting, 
which, you know, as my colleague Ms. Jacobs said, you know, 
some of us were reading those.
    I guess, you know, you mentioned, you know, the need for 
Congress to reprise its oversight capabilities in this area. 
And, I guess, what do you attribute to the failure of Congress 
to really ask those tough questions or, even if those tough 
questions were being asked, for any action to have been taken 
on behalf them over the past, you know, two decades but 
probably more acutely the last decade?
    Mr. Sopko. Congress, you are pulling me way beyond my 
brief. I do reconstruction. I do not--in Afghanistan. I do not 
look at, you know, congressional foibles or prerogatives.
    Mr. Meijer. Understood, sir.
    Mr. Sopko. Yes, so--but, I mean, you know, when I retire, 
maybe I will write a book about that.
    But, I mean, it is--it is difficult to change--and I think 
you appreciate this. Once you start a war, it is hard to change 
it. I mean, it is a slippery slope, and, you know, it keeps 
going down, down and down and down. And there are more and more 
people who are involved in it. And everybody thinks, just one 
more cycle, just another year, another 6 months, we are going 
to turn the corner.
    That is the difficulty. It is the difficulty of changing a 
ship at stake. As it is moving down that river, how do you get 
it to turn? I mean, it is almost like, we saw what happened 
when that big ship in the Suez just turned a little and it got 
stuck. That is the difficulty.
    But Congress has to do effective oversight. The IGs do, but 
by the time we get there, the body is dead and cold and it is 
maybe removed, and all we have is a chalk outline of an audit 
or a program that is dead. You are there in the beginning. And 
the congressional committees have to do that.
    And it was President Wilson who said, the role of oversight 
for Congress is as important, if not more important, than the 
role of legislating.
    So I am biased toward the oversight.
    Mr. Meijer. Well, I appreciate that.
    And I will direct this next question to be a little bit 
more within your scope. Obviously, you have gone through a 
litany----
    Mr. Sopko. OK.
    Mr. Meijer [continuing]. Of the failures that have been 
witnessed, of fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement.
    You mentioned earlier the fuel surcharge and those, kind 
of, corruption components. We have seen other reports on, you 
know, the extent to which, you know, extortion rackets or 
security forces or security services, private security 
services, were essentially set up as ways of getting money out 
of the U.S., creating security threats and then profiting from 
it.
    Did you ever, in your reporting, come to an estimate of how 
much of the Taliban's funding may have been through U.S. funds 
that were being either, you know, extorted or skimmed or bribed 
or otherwise?
    Mr. Sopko. I do not think we did. There were estimates, but 
I am afraid to give them now because I think they could have 
been classified.
    But we assumed that Taliban got about a third of their 
money through either the corruption or narcotics, and then a 
third through taxing, and a third through donations.
    But that is the best I can say at this point. I can try to 
get back to you, Congressman, if you want, and the committee on 
that, but I am afraid to go much further.
    Mr. Meijer. I appreciate that.
    And I want to end on a positive note. So your reports, kind 
of, showed many of the failures. At any time in your 
investigations and in your work, did you find success stories 
that you can share?
    Mr. Sopko. Oh, oh, absolutely. I mean, I think there were 
successes with healthcare. There were successes with education. 
There were successes with the mortality rate among Afghans in 
general, not as much as was exaggerated by the former 
Administrator of the USAID sometime ago, but there were 
successes in all of those areas.
    The National Solidarity Programme was a great success. I 
think some of the State Department programs supporting a free 
and independent media--there were small programs--they were a 
success. Some of the money--and, again, these were small 
programs--supporting civil society organizations were a 
success.
    So there were successes. But, overall, there were a lot of 
failures.
    Mr. Meijer. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Sopko. And I think we 
should learn from the successes and make sure we learn even 
more from the failures.
    And thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Castro. All right. Thank you, Mr. Meijer, for joining 
us today.
    And we are going to go to a quick second round of 
questions, and I am going to start off. And, members, if you 
have questions--I do not want to call on folks if they do not 
have a question. So I know Ms. Jacobs has one, the vice chair 
has one. If you have a question, then send me something in the 
chat, if you can, or let our staff know, the subcommittee 
staff, and they will let me know.
    So, Mr. Sopko, a few followup questions for you.
    And part of the charge of the mission of this committee is 
also on global corporate social impact. And I want to ask you 
your role or your assessment of U.S. companies and corporations 
and their work in Afghanistan--defense contractors, of course, 
but other kinds of contractors that were used. Any positive and 
negative impacts that they had?
    I know that you talked about the corruption in Afghanistan 
and the Afghan money and pilfering money and so forth. What 
role did U.S. contractors play in any of that? If you could 
speak to that as well.
    Mr. Sopko. Well, most--I mean, I cannot come up with a 
number, but I would say most contractors, whether defense 
contractors, aid contractors, or whatever, did a good job or 
did as best the job they could with the contracts that were 
written.
    The problem with many of the contracts is that we really--
and this was a government fault--we did not hold the 
contractors accountable. And we also did not specifically look 
to see if those contracts actually accomplished anything.
    And, again, I urge the members to read our monitoring and 
evaluation, where, you know, it was the risk of doing the wrong 
thing perfectly. So we would give contracts to American 
contractors or foreign ones, and they did everything to the 
letter of the contract, but it accomplished nothing. That is 
not the contractor's fault; that is the fault of whoever wrote 
the contract----
    Mr. Castro. Well, let me--I guess, let me drill down for a 
second.
    Mr. Sopko. Yes.
    Mr. Castro. Now, so you are saying that, I guess, military 
leaders or the Administration, successive Administrations, 
whether it may have been DOD or the State Department or USAID, 
that they alone came up with that mission. Were they influenced 
by these contractors at some point that were lobbying them to 
do certain things in Afghanistan? Or are you absolving those 
contractors of any role in convincing them to go in a wayward 
direction?
    Mr. Sopko. Yes, I am not absolving some of the contractors. 
We indicted some and put them in jail. We just got a plea from 
somebody today on a contractor or a subcontractor.
    I am just saying, that, to me, it was the bigger problem, 
is contractors doing everything to meet the contract but it did 
not accomplish anything at the end. So that, to me, is a bigger 
waste.
    Now, there were contractors that did substandard work. 
Those were mainly a lot of subs that came in, and what happened 
is, contracts were being sold from sub to sub to sub. The other 
thing is, there were a lot of sole-source contracts that did 
not follow the acquisition rules. That was a major problem, and 
that is where we saw a lot of problems.
    There were the contractors--like, somebody mentioned the 
G.222. That was $400 million to $500 million for airplanes that 
did not fly, or did not fly too well, and were basically turned 
into scrap. That was a situation where I believe the 
contractors did not live up to the contract and produced 
insufficient goods.
    I do not have, you know, an estimate one way or the other. 
I think you could read our reports on some of the major 
problems with contractors, but I do not like to paint all the 
contractors with one brush. That is----
    Mr. Castro. Sure.
    Mr. Sopko [continuing]. The point I am trying to make.
    Mr. Castro. Sure.
    Mr. Sopko. Many of them did. Actually, many of the 
contractors--I won't say ``many''--a number of contractors came 
to us and told us on the QT, you know, ``This is ridiculous, 
what they are asking to us do.''
    Mr. Castro. Sure.
    Mr. Sopko. We had contractors that came to us saying, ``The 
timeline is totally ridiculous.''
    I mean, we had the woman who provided those sexy white 
goats, Italian goats, that were flown in to, you know, fool 
around with less sexy Afghan goats to produce mohair or 
whatever--that woman just went through the roof. You know, 
``This is ridiculous. There is no way you could do this in 6 
months. It would take you at least 6 to 10 years.'' But the----
    Mr. Castro. But, I mean, who gets--like, on that, right, 
who gets talked into that idea? Or does some administrator come 
up with that on their own, a bureaucrat comes up with that on 
their own? Because you are dealing with companies that have 
extensive lobbying--as you know; you worked in Congress----
    Mr. Sopko. Yes.
    Mr. Castro [continuing]. Have extensive lobbying operations 
to convince people to do different things. So I am wondering, 
you know, do these administrators or bureaucrats just decide on 
their own to do this crazy stuff, or are they getting talked 
into some of that?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, in that case with our goats, she did not 
have a lobbyist, that is for sure. She just, you know, signed 
up for it, did it, and just quit in disgust. So I put that 
aside.
    We did not see any evidence of a lobbyist directing this. 
We looked for that--directing some stupid contract. We looked 
for it, but we did not find that. So I cannot attest to that. 
It could have occurred. We did not find it. So I cannot answer 
it.
    Mr. Castro. Fair enough. No, well, thank you.
    All right. I am going to yield back the time. And I know 
that Representative Jacobs has questions, and then I think 
Representative Meijer after that will have a question.
    Vice Chair?
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you. And thanks for letting us do 
two rounds.
    I wanted to keep digging on this question of USAID 
contracting. I think that, you know, you talked about how it is 
the contract and the contracting itself that is a problem.
    You know, could you talk a little bit about some of the 
impediments to changing contracts and, in particular, if there 
was a difference between how large NGO's and smaller NGO's were 
dealt with?
    In particular, we know smaller NGO's had a hard time 
working with USAID, but was there any evidence that those 
smaller NGO's were actually less impactful? Was this more of an 
administrative capacity? How can we improve USAID's ability to 
work with those smaller NGO's if they are, in fact, just as or 
more effective?
    Mr. Sopko. I would have to get back to you with more 
details on that.
    Overall, I think the successes we saw, the more important--
I won't say ``more important,'' but the more successful 
contracts were usually smaller, and usually smaller NGO's doing 
them. And I do not know if I can draw any conclusion from that.
    We did hear a lot of complaints by small NGO's that it was 
difficult for them to contract with USAID, but I do not have 
the particulars on that right now. I apologize. I can get back 
to you.
    Small, actually, was better. You know, my gut reaction--we 
do not have an audit on that--but spending a lot of money did 
not--and, as you can see from my reports, that was a problem we 
saw. We thought if we could throw more money at the situation, 
it would improve.
    Now, there are also some small subcontractors or 
contractors who did a horrible job. But there are some major 
contractors--I mean, some of these issues--and I can talk about 
the rule-of-law program, an important program. But, you know, I 
saw so much--and I do not know if these were big contractors or 
small contractors--where it looked like it was, you know, a 
tourism job, or program, for lawyers in the ABA.
    So I would end up having to talk to lawyers coming in on 
this rule-of-law program who couldn't spell ``Afghanistan,'' 
who had no concept of the culture and the law they were doing 
it. But they were being paid by--I do not know if it was a 
major contractor or a subcontractor, to fly over to Afghanistan 
for a couple weeks or a month to talk of old war stories about 
how they were a prosecutor or a defense attorney or they did 
corporate work for AT&T, which has no relevancy to Afghanistan. 
Now, I cannot tell you who brought them over, but we kept 
running into them.
    Likewise, we saw major contractors at the--the Promote 
program was a real boneheaded program, to be very blunt, where 
they were hiring people because they had to show success 
immediately. That was some major contractors. They were hiring 
kids off the street whose only qualification was that they were 
a carbon life form and breathing. They did not know anything 
about women's issues.
    And I had Mrs. Ghani even tell me that. You created this 
program in which, to enter it, you had to be a high-school 
graduate. And she said, ``By definition, that eliminated 90 
percent of the women in Afghanistan.'' And you, as the AID 
Administrator, were saying this was going to be the greatest 
successful program for women in the history of the United 
States? I mean, Mrs. Ghani quit in disgust from even talking to 
those people.
    So I cannot tell you--that was a large contractor. I do not 
know who it was. But they were so desperate, they just were 
hiring college kids whose only qualification----
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, actually, could I jump in and ask----
    Mr. Sopko. Yes.
    Ms. Jacobs [continuing]. A followup on this question?
    Mr. Sopko. Yes.
    Ms. Jacobs. You know, I think part of it, as we have sort 
of talked about before, is that we had folks who did not really 
understand the context of Afghanistan----
    Mr. Sopko. Right.
    Ms. Jacobs [continuing]. And what they were working on, in 
part because of the rapid turnover of----
    Mr. Sopko. Yes.
    Ms. Jacobs [continuing]. Civilian and military staff. As 
you know, Afghanistan, people stay 1 year versus 2 and 3. That 
is----
    Mr. Sopko. Yes.
    Ms. Jacobs [continuing]. Typical of an FSO rotation.
    How legitimate is the concern of the risk of clientitis? 
And how do we go about balancing that with our need for our 
folks to actually be understanding and experts in the countries 
they are serving so we do not keep making these mistakes?
    Mr. Sopko. Well, you have to write it into the contract, 
make certain these people have some knowledge. And somebody who 
is reviewing the contract should insist--and this goes back to 
monitoring and evaluation--that it sounds logical for a country 
like Afghanistan or like a country like Haiti.
    I think you asked the question before, or maybe some other 
member, about, is this going on in Africa and other places? It 
very well could. And that is what my staff tells me who 
produced that lessons learned report, because we are not 
writing good contracts. The government is a horrible 
organization for writing contracts.
    And this is what I have said before. It is not that the 
people in Afghanistan who worked for the U.S. Government were 
evil or bad or stupid. We gave them a box of broken tools. And 
I have used that term before, and that is what we did. Our 
contracting authority is broken. Our H.R. program is broken. 
Our appropriations cycle is broken. How we reward people in the 
government is broken. You need to fix that.
    I mean, I had contracting officers who repeatedly told me, 
``The only thing I am judged on is how much money I put on 
contract, not whether any of the contracts work. And by the 
time my tour is done, I do not even care if they work or not. 
You are gone. You do not stick around long enough to be held 
accountable.'' That needs to be fixed.
    And you need to look at what is going on in Africa and 
around the world with AID contracting and State contracting and 
DOD contracting right now. It could be just as bad, but I do 
not know. That is not my job, to look at USAID outside of 
Afghanistan.
    Ms. Jacobs. Right.
    Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a lot of work to do on 
this committee, and I will yield back.
    Mr. Castro. Well, thank you, Vice Chair.
    And, Mr. Sopko and committee members, that concludes our 
questions.
    Mr. Sopko, first of all, thank you for all of your years of 
hard work and earnest examination and analysis of both our 
successes and our failures in Afghanistan. And we absolutely 
heed your advice and your warning about being aggressive in our 
oversight.
    And so, thank you for everything. And, you know, you still 
have your job there, so they haven't fired you. You joked you 
would be the only one that got fired. You still have your job, 
which is good. We are glad for that. And, again, just want to 
say thank you for being with us.
    Mr. Sopko. Thank you. And if we can help you at all, Mr. 
Chairman, do not hesitate to call us. We are here to help.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you. Absolutely.
    And that concludes our hearing, and we will adjourn. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Sopko. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 2:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX

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            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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