The US government’s Afghanistan watchdog told lawmakers Wednesday that he cannot say with certainty that US aid to the country is “not currently funding the Taliban.”
“While I agree, and we all agree Afghanistan faces a dire humanitarian and economic situation, it is critical that our assistance not be diverted by the Taliban,” John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), told the House Oversight Committee. “Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban.
“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,” he said.
“I would just say, I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV, they all seem to be fat, dumb, and happy,” Sopko later added. “I see a lot of starving Afghan children on TV, so I’m wondering where all this funding is going.”
Sopko’s testimony before Congress – alongside other government inspectors general – coincided with the release of the latest SIGAR report, which said that efforts to process Afghan visa applications or refugee applications are chronically understaffed and face a backlog of approximately 175,000 applicants.
“According to one estimate, at the current pace, it will take 31 years to relocate and resettle all SIV applicants,” SIGAR wrote in the report, called the 2023 High-Risk List.
Initially tasked with overseeing US spending in Afghanistan when the US had a large presence in the country, SIGAR is now focused on monitoring more than $8 billion dedicated to Afghanistan since the US withdrawal.
Instead of dealing directly with the Taliban, with which the US has no formal ties, the Biden administration has tried to direct the money into…
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