American taxpayers could be funding the TALIBAN: SIGAR makes startling admission

Special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said the Taliban is likely stealing US aid intended for the Afghan people as he knocked the Defense and State departments, and USAID for an ‘unprecedented’ lack of cooperation.

‘I cannot assure this committee and the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban, nor can I assure you Taliban are diverting the funding from the intended recipients,’ Sopko told the House Oversight Committee.

Sopko noted that the U.S. has appropriated some $2 billion in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and another $3.5 billion is slated to come in through an international fund.

‘Due to this [DoD, State, USAID] refusal to cooperate a significant portion of SIGAR’s work has been hindered and delayed.’

‘I don’t trust the Taliban as far as you can throw them,’ Sopko went on. ‘The information we’re getting — again, not from the State Department who isn’t talking to us or USAID … is that the Taliban are already diverting funds.’

SIGAR was originally tasked with overseeing US spending in Afghanistan when the US had a large presence in the country but is now focused on monitoring the more than $8 billion in US funding slated for Afghanistan aid since the 2021 withdrawal.

‘I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV, they seem to be fat dumb and happy. I see starving Afghan children on TV.’

‘If the purpose is to help the Afghan people we have to have effective oversight,’ Sopko said, blaming an ‘over-reliance’ on international agencies he said have been ‘horrible’ about providing his agency with information.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Democrat from Maryland, said it was ‘scary’ to think about U.S. dollars getting into the hands of the Taliban.

‘These are billions and billions of dollars out of the US Treasury, that if they’re not going to do what they should be going to spend at home. But they should be getting into Afghanistan to protect what we see going on with girls with women.’

Meanwhile Oversight Chair James Comer knocked Biden for the Taliban takeover.

‘Today, the Taliban flag flies over Kabul,’ the Kentucky Republican said. ‘This is Joe Biden’s legacy.’

‘To be clear I was in favor of leaving Afghanistan, but it never should have been done like this.’

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, blamed Trump’s 2020 Doha agreement and his decision to release Taliban prisoners as part of the deal.

‘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.’

Nicole Angerella, the inspector general for the Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted there have been ‘significant impediments’ in getting food to Afghan citizens, noting the United Nations has halted operations there while the Taliban prevent women from working at the agency.

Meanwhile, State Department inspector general Diana Shaw said that while 124,000 had been evacuated since the U.S. withdrawal, ‘questions rightfully remain.’ She said there still another 152,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applications in processing.

Robert Storch, Defense Department inspector general, called the withdrawal a ‘strategic failure.’

‘Despite investment of $2 trillion and 2,400 US service members sacrificing their lives the Afghan forces failed almost immediately.’

Sopko said that the 2020 Doha agreement former President Trump and the Taliban made on a timeline for U.S. withdrawal and President Biden’s carrying out of the withdrawal ‘merely exacerbated long-existing problems.’

He laid blame on the Afghan military’s ‘total dependence on U.S.’ support, in part due to the U.S. giving them sophisticated American military equipment rather than what they actually could use and maintain.

‘You’re dealing with a largely illiterate country- we forced them to take very sophisticated U.S. hardware they could not supply or fix.’

‘They were capable of repairing old Soviet military equipment,’ said Sopko. ‘We decided for whatever reason to give them U.S. equipment.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked whether the Trump decision to leave the Afghan government out of negotiations with the Taliban in 2020 contributed to the rapid-fire fall of Kabul.

‘That decision cut the morale of the average Afghan soldier and the average Afghan civilian,’ he said, adding the Biden administration to follow through on the deal ‘further’ cut morale.

Meanwhile a new damning SIGAR report said that the U.S. has ‘left most of its allies behind, and it will take a year, on average, until each family reaches safety.’

SIGAR identified a slew of issues, including ‘chronic understaffing, reliance on antiquated IT systems, and inadequate interagency coordination.’

As of late September 2022, the U.S. has only issued visas to approximately 20% of SIV applicants, per SIGAR. The report estimates it could take more than three decades to relocate and resettle all SIV applicants.

The White House issued its own prebuttal to the hearing Wednesday morning, with White House spokesman Ian Sams – who also takes on GOP hearings on Hunter Biden – trashing the effort by ‘extreme MAGA members of their caucus.’

He set up the hearing as one ‘where they will attack President Biden’s decision to end the nation’s longest war and bring American troops home from Afghanistan.’

He blasted the GOP claims of obstruction, saying the White House has provided thousands of pages of documents.

His memo said Republicans were relying on ‘politically-motivated attacks’ and were ‘hoping to distract from their own failure to even agree upon, much less act on, solutions that are desperately needed today to protect the progress the Biden Administration has made to safely evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan at the end of the war.’

President Biden has repeatedly pointed the finger at a fixed withdrawal date negotiated by the Trump administration. The White House memo instead points to individual House conservatives, accusing them of showing ‘disregard for the fate of Afghan allies.’

The new White House memo highlights statements by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene calling Afghan refugees ‘known terrorists,’ and Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry saying their entry could allow little girls to be ‘raped and killed in the streets.’