Afghanistan Watchdog Goes OFF in Hearing: ‘Hold People Accountable, Congresswoman! Hold People Accountable!’

Afghanistan watchdog John Sopko went off during a congressional hearing Wednesday about the lack of accountability for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal.

Sopko has served as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction since 2012, and his office had been sounding the alarm about Afghanistan for several years. After Afghanistan fell fo the Taliban, he said the speed of it was surprising, but “the fact that the ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] could not fight on their own should not have been a surprise to anyone.”

In an August report titled “What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction,” Sopko concluded rather bluntly, “If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that can sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture is bleak.”

During Wednesday’s House International Development, International Organizations and Global Corporate Social Impact subcommittee hearing on Afghanistan, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D- CA) asked Sopko how the United States should “pivot before it’s too late.”

“What would actually be required to intervene in the inter-agency process, identify and communicate the failures, identify what needs to change, and make that come to fruition?” she asked. “It’s clear to me that more money and more strategies and more oversight reports do not necessarily lead to this change.”

Sopko responded by emphasizing the need for congressional oversight. “That means not just calling in the Secretary of State, but that means digging deeply and looking at particular programs.”

“And if you don’t get answers, don’t fund the program.”

He expressed serious frustration that no one has been held accountable for years of failure in Afghanistan:

It is the role of Congress to protect the taxpayers’ purse. And it’s through oversight and withholding funds and sending messages to certain errant bureaucrats. Bring ’em up! Hold people accountable, congresswoman! Hold people accountable! All of the reports we’ve done, no one in the government has been held accountable. I always joke that the only person who’s 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.

You can watch above, via C-SPAN 3.