WASHINGTON — A substantial amount of U.S. aid intended for Afghanistan has ended up in the hands of the Taliban, according to John Sopko, the former head of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
Speaking to Fox News, Sopko said that because the United States no longer has personnel on the ground in Afghanistan, aid money is flowing into the country through the United Nations and other international organizations—without direct oversight.
“We know it is going to continue because, unfortunately, we have nobody on the ground,” Sopko said.
Sopko described systemic problems in U.S. foreign aid oversight, particularly within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“The problem in Afghanistan is across the board,” he said. “When I first came to Washington in 1982 and looked at USAID, it was a broken agency back then and continues to be a broken agency.”
He noted that while some USAID employees assisted SIGAR in monitoring U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, critical issues failed to reach policymakers in Washington.
“They built schools but never checked if there were teachers,” he said. “They built hospitals but never looked to see if there was water, medicine, or even patients.” He described U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan as a “delusion” detached from realities on the ground.
Sopko’s comments come as President Donald J. Trump moves to drastically scale back U.S. foreign aid. His administration has proposed retaining only about 300 USAID employees out of a global workforce of 10,000 and has suspended U.S. foreign assistance, including aid to Afghanistan, for at least three months.
The cuts have raised concerns about the future of humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, where millions remain dependent on foreign assistance.
