i feel like overpopulation is the root cause o my of our societal problems. i don't know that there are easy solutions to the problem, but i do feel like that is a the most important issue facing the state on a global scale. >> we took a look at america's 15 year effort to stabilize afghanistan. back at the table this morning the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. always nice to have you and learn more about your reports. remind the viewers ofour work in the mission and what did you mean? >> it's been about six years and

our office oversees the $126 billion that we've spent a. we are an instructor generals office, so we have criminal jurisdiction we can investigate and bring people to prosecution for theft and misconduct as well as we do audits and we issue the lessons learned report to try to bring out best practices. >> your latest report is the efforts to stabilize afghanistan over the past 15 years have failed. why? >> we underestimated the difficulty and our capabilities. we also focus on districts that were extremely difficult to stabilize. i should explain what is

stabilization of an off the entire $126 billion that is about $5 billion that was very important and spendn that period after you've cleared caliban and the terrorists from the disict you bring in the u.s. government officials and the usaid, the state from the military to try to stabilize the area, to try to make it safe for the afghan government to come back in and get support from the afghan people for the host government and to make certain the taliban don't come back. what we did as they focused on e most dangerous districts. we gave unrealistic timeles to do the stabilization and that is one or two of the reasons why it failed. >> the key binding the u.s. underestimated the ability to change the government institutions in afghanistan in an attempt to secure the district proved to be a problem.

when did this stabilization effort began, under what administration what were the different approaches, and did any of that work? >> guest: some of that worked in certain areas. the main focus of the report was the time between 2009 and 2014. it's when most of the money was spent, and that was during the obama administration. we knew we were getting out or at least there was a hope of getting out, so there was a surge in troops and th their whistles of a surge in development need to come and that is when we were playing this doctrine once we cleared out the caliban, -- taliban, we wanted to bring them in as a substitute, as they host government should be providing some services. the problem is we spend too much

monespent too muchmoney too fase districts, and some of the afghans that were brought into the government officials, the police officials were just as bad as the caliban. so the afghan people really preferred the caliban sometimes to the officials that we brought in from the central government and that was a serious problem. >> host: before the caliban offering and what could they do that the united states couldn't? >> guest: that's an interesting point. we tried to reinvent a lot of these districts, turn them into little americas or little norway's. the caliban offers come as much as we don't like them, they offer a service to these afghan farmers and families and that was a modicum of security from other terrorist groups.

they offered dispute resolution. we may not lik like they're juss committed to the afghan people, they actually got justice from the taliban. so you didn't have to reinvent the wheel or do major programs in the district to win the hearts and minds of the afghan people, and that's the unfortunate thing. we spend so much money on programs that the afghan people didn't need. they just wanted a little bit of security and justice and they were not getting it from the warlords and the corrupt officials that werought in with the stabilization program. >> host: instead, the united statesri to offer what, i mean what were the services that they were offering at why couldn't they do them successfully? >> guest: the taliban offered some protection. they offered some security from

some ability to protect the citizens from criminality. what did we do? we brought him corrupt police officials who were the real reason before tt the afghan people into the taliban. they wanted a little b of justice. we hired corrupt judges and prosecutors. we spend money sending them to schools and all that and all they want is a modicum of justice and we didn't offer that. why did we make this mistake? a couple reasons, one, we didn't understand the environment. we didn't understand the afghan countryside and what they needed. second, we were under a tremendous time constraint. our military new comedy at et months to stabilize. so, they focused on that, the

rest of the government agencies knew they had a team us to do it and the port of the money and with little oversight. >> was it impossible to do it? >> guest: the timeline in and of itself, then you have to determine what to do in the 18 months, so it was a combination of the timeline with unrealistic goals and then we are doing it in their own districts. we are doing it in the most difficult areas of afghanistan. rather than focus on those districts where there is a modicum of governance where you could focus on that it's sort of like a tipping point. those districts could have tipped over to the government support. the afghan people could then rely upon the government and you drop in some ink and it gradually goes out. what's needed is we kept going into districts. we had to keep sending the

troops because the security was still there. >> host: how is it after all these years we don't understand yet the culture and what is happening in afghanistan what you say right now we still don't understand? >> guest: we have a better understanding, but we did not understand. somebody asked can you describe what you've learned and advicen give you to, hubris and audacity. we somehow believ believe he knt was best for the afghan people and we can do all. the mendacity is that we oversold it. i think too many government officials oversold what we could do, the congress and the american people. and we joke in my office about

kites and balloons. any time you see a report that shows kids with kites and balloons, don't trust it. they are selling you something. we should have been honest with the american people and to ourselves that this is a very difficult country. it's been very difficult to rule it for years, to understand it and to work accordingly. and i think that we still have a little bit of hubris. that's where we issued these reports because you don't see kites and balloons when you look at the reports. the hard facts are it is a difficult job and we will be ising one next week on the counternarcotics which is another difficult issue where we oversold what we could do in the time that we had in afghanistan. >> host: where can the viewers find that report? >> guest: all of them can be found online at www.cigar.mil

and another on the america foundation rick at washington, d.c. dealing with lessons learned on counternarcotics which is a number of issues where we spent $8 billion with very little to show. >> host: an issue many have showed. we want to invite you to call in with your questions and comments on what has been happening in afghanistan. the latest report from his team is a stability factor and he says they're finding is that it has failed over the past years, $5 billion. so, republicans 8001 for democrats to 027-48-8000 and independent 802. and a special line this morning for afghanistan veterans we want

to hear, 748-8003. how many times have you been to afghantan and? guest: i can't count. about every three months, so 20 some times. i had an incident coming off off a helicopter so i wasn't able to travel a couple of month's. >> host: in the latest findings give us a story, an example of the stabilization effort and what happened. >> guest: i know everybody criticizes us a bit we did the right thing and kunar province and by doing everything we havee have the right military leader on the ground who worked closely

with the afghan government and leaders in that community. they all worked together, they didn't overpromise. they did small projects. for the time that they were there there was a strong presence who ran the police come he was honest, he wasn't a terrorist himself. for the time t we were there, three, four, five year period it worked. they did some roadbuilding, bridges, they provided with the local citizens needed and for that tiny period the local

citizens felt the central government is good, it cares about us and we then support them. unfortunately, the drawdown comes and come our force are removed and the latest that we have heard is that whole area is under taliban control again. so that is the other lesson we learned from this is that it takes a long time but in this case you still need that strong military presence to keep the bad guys from coming back. >> host: what is our military presence right now? >> guest: about 14,000 troops. it increased a bit under the new strategy and we have coalition from our nato allies that increases it from a couple more thousand. >> host: before we get to calls, can you tell us what the

major findings are? >> guest: we spend about $80 billion on fighting the coternarcotics, and most finding is that it failed. no significant success fighting drugs afghanistan. afghanistan is now the largest producer of opium in the world, and it doesn't impact the united states directly because we get unfortunately most of our opium nearby from mexico but it does affect europe and asia and affects canada. the government tells us that 60 to 70% of our opium comes from it. why are we interested in fighting narcotics? because it fuels the insurgency. it fuels the production of.

afghanistan is one of the corrupt countries and narcotics therefore hurts us in building or helping to build an afghan government o that the afghan people support because they see the narco traffickers, they see the money they give them what they sewhat theysee their locals in the three officials living in mansions were sending their kids out of the country avoiding serving in the military comes of it is a significant problem. it's also significant because if we do this again in some other country of country will probably have a drug problem also. a rule of law problem, governance problem, destabilization problem. so the lessons learned report that we are producingrt useful not only for afghanistan but if we ever do this agn. because our threat is less from

nuclear power from the state from a destabilizing state where there is trigger for some running around a. of. >> guest: you said the word justice many times and it made me think after 9/11 i saw on television a news ror and films of women being dragged out to a soccer field who couldn't see what was going on. they were young women, they dragged them out and shot them.

people in the stands who seemed to be ordinary citizens were enjoying the spectacle. i think they were more in charge then, i don't know. but you say they want justice, but when i see the way females are dragged around and come find him burqas and can't leave their home, and especiay when they drag women out to the soccer field and shoot them, and i don't even think they know why they were being murdered. >> guest: i don't want the callers or listeners to think that i support the taliban rule of law. i don't. what i'm describing is the reality of the situation in afghanistan. and when you talk to the afghan

citizens, when you talk to the farmers, when you do surveys and the troops get out and even sometimes when i traveled there and i talked t a well educated afghans working for their own government, they say that their families still live out in the provinces and will go to the taliban dispute resolution, maybe not jusce, but dispute the resolution before they go to the afghan government and the most depressing time i had in those trips was plain over one trick i had two very bright very young educated afghans who told me the story that they had disputes of their family did, and that they would prefer the

taliban because they would make a decision based on facts. and it won't be corrupt. the afghan government you have to buy your justice, and whoever pays the biggest better price gets justice. that, to me, was depressing. so we have to as much as we -- we have to deal with the facts on the ground. we cannot impose our facts. churchill said you have to face the facts because they face you and the facts on the ground is as bad as the taliban is, those afghan citizens who preferred it to the kabul government

preferred it to the warlords, to the people that we saddled up to were identified with. siding with the people who rape their childre children comes tor land can store their poverty, just destroyed their country, we have a problem. and stabilization, that is what this report was abou is about ig to win the heart and the mind's back from the government, and i'm not talking about the government of kabul. in one of thand one of the locas up there with predatory. they were worse than the taliban speaker commented on. >> host: how large is the presence in afghanistan?

>> guest: i don't have the numbers there. the amount of territory under the government controlled was falling over the last few years. go ahead, question or comment. >>guest: >> caller: with all of the money that we are spending for the control over afghanistan, what is our exit strategy? do we in fact have an exit strategy? i think the money would be better spent here in the united ates for the pertinent issues

than dumping money over and over in afghanistan as 50,000 people plus killed, and i've never, ever understood even when we were over the and i don't understand why we provide afghanistan. and it's important for people to realize what congress getting more and more expensive we are just dumping our money. the citizenry was dumping all of our money into these different voids and i'm looking for an exit strategy. just get out. >> guest: is a very good question that the caller has asked and i don't mean to sound like i am dodging it. we don't just do policy. whether we should be in afghanistan or not, how long we

should stay is a policy decision that the president and the congress. our job is once there is a stated policy, and there are programs to support their policy, our job is to look at those programs come and see if,e supporting the policy and are handled properly. good question. how long should we be there. should we even care at all those are all good questions and again, i apologize to the caller, but it's not my job to answer that. my job is once you decided, and i can tell you why. i mean, all the president said we are there to kick the bad guys out and to ensure there is a strong enough government in afghanistan so that the

terrorists will not come back and use it as a launching pad to attack the united states or our allies. that is the stated puose that we are in afghanistan. how long we should be there and what is the exit strategy, those were good questionare good quesd ask to the congress. >> host: tony, independent line. >> caller: yes, good morning. i saw you last time you were on c-span and quite frankly i do not envy your job. the taliban lived there, that is their countr country, the great grandfathers are there, they've been fighting each other as people in the middle east that is the way that there will always be. the military-industrial politics of this country makes billions of dollars by beating the war. they feed our young men and women, they are disabled and

killed, and when they come back to their rvs profs for $20 a month. the politicians and this country become wealthy by being reworked with the contractors jobs they will never join the military prison as an obvious example is that i thought it was pretty ludicrous. this is the way that america will always be. we will continue to slow down here in our justice system that we need to reform, but let's stop talking about it. we need the taliban over here will simply issue with you just called some kind of justice, but this is the way that there will

always be. >> guest: i'm sorr i am sorry tu feel that way. some people may think i am too optimistic. i'm optimistic because of you and callers like you. i think an educated public, and the united stater elsewhere in the world is the best defense against problems in our own country and builds the basis for changes, whatever the changes may be. so, that is why i came here to c-span. i have been a strong supporter since i first came to washington in 1982. it is an opportunity to educate the american people as to what is going on. it isn't partisan, it's factual with people such as myself and

others. it's up to you as a citizen of the united states to come up with something of the effect. so on the one hand, i'm sorry that you feel that way but i'm glad that you watch and i'm glad you called. >> host: does your team have an ending date? >> guest: there's a lot of people who would like to see that. legally, we don't have an end date per se. our end is based on the amount of money being spent. the amountfoney being spent on reconstruction goes to $250 million a year. we thenta to shut down. where we are right now is there's about $9 billion that has already been authorized, appropriated and not get spent. so, there's quite a way to go to 250 million. but i will say this, i think at some point our little agencies

-- i like temporary agencies. i think that approach to the problem is great and i think that congress is very smart to do that. but as long as they are spending the money into this 250 million, we will be here doing our job to try to protect. >> host: authorized for what? >> guest: $9 billion for the reconstruction has already been authorized. on the mound .-full-st $250 bilon tha we don't do big business. then it is at 9 billion. it can be used for training in civil service, training the

military providing equipment. it also goes to supporting and building the roads etc. so basically we the u.s. taxpayer and coalition but i shouldn't talk about how much money they spend but you're basically supporting the afghan government. >> host: shawn in virginia, you are next. >> caller: i just want to ask the gentleman, we spend $5 billion as far as i am concerned right now i think the problem is not only afghanistan, the problem is this gentleman. i don't know how and what he has a job, this man. he's laughing. he thinks it is like nothing happened. we just spend money on

afghanistan for nothing. it's a divided country. we know that in the beginning but the problem is there's a lot of contractors who are abusing the system and the previous caller who called before me, people of afghanistan they don't get this mon. the only people who get this money is contractors hired by the pentagon, by the government of afghanistan and the leaders that we have to support [inaudible] we don't follow the money. this gentleman is telling us things that happened in the village and he thinks we found something for those people. >> host: this is obviously something that you look at.

>> guest: it is. i do not view it in a joking manner. i take it very seriously. that is why i do what i do. with morbut more importantly, ie eras specific information, please contact us. i think that we have a hotline for you to call. it's one thing to say everybody is corrupt in afghanistan but it's my job to prove specific people store specific money or moved it or did specific things. i am required by the courts of law to do that. we've put in jail over 100 people. these are u.s. citizen, these arare afghan citizens, these are u.s. military and contractors. that is based upon the rule of law. give me facts and any of the

many people listening in or watching on tv that have .pecific allegations, contact we will follow up and we do that based on people in afghanistan giving us information and people here in the united states. but to just say boldly everybody in afghanistan is corrupt is okay. it makes you feel good tha but t doesn't help u do our job. now, we have saved the taxpayers over $2 billion. that is billion with a b.. $2 billion that we make cases on and recover for the u.s. taxpayer. so, i take some umbrage with somebody thinking that this is a humorous little exercise. 2,400,000,000 americans have died in afghanistan. we are the best insurance policy for the 2400 the almost trillion dollars that we have spent

afghanistan because we will track them down if you steal money from us and we will put you in jail. and i can show you 100 individuals that are serving time in federal prison for what they did in afghanistan. , we are serious and if you are serious, call this number. >> host: we will show the number again. the special inspector general of afghanistan reconstruction hotline you can see there and they e-mailed. there is a li line in afghanistn international line as well. with bribery, false claims, gratuities etc.. what is your budget? >> guest: and $56 million to hae a staff of about 200. 33: thirty-four of them are in afghanistan permanently and the rest we will take root. we have the largest u.s. law enforcement and auditing presence in afghanistan. >> host: which type of person,

which type of afghanistan could try to get rich off of the money the united states is putting into the country? the corruption occurs and gives a contract to somebody and they then subcontracted to somebody else. so the contractor either pays a bribe to the u.s. official or an afghan official to build a highway etc. so that's one way that you get it. big issues have to do with fuel. we were involved with a contract investigation where we identified that there were price

fixings. they paid $700 million the cost closer to a billion. that was increasing the price so then they shared proceeds. we turned out over to the afghan presidenhey canceled the contract and fired all the people involved and set up a new procurement system. the other way people make money as they are no-shows. we pay the salaries for the police come for the military, the teachers. they don't exist. a commanding officer made them up and says i have a thousand soldiers were teachers and they don't exist. they just collect a salary. so we have been harping on this with the u.s. military and the department of defense. we issued an audit deali with the bank because we gave money to them to pay salaries and we said you are not doing the right

job. you don't have the general controls. so there's many ways. the ways of theft and bribery and corruption are only limited by the minds of the individuals. >> host: in massachusetts, you are from afghanistan is that right? >> caller: yes. i am american. i'm sorry for yes. i fought in afghanistan. i just wanted to say i am hearing there's all kinds of corruption and paying teachers that don't exist in somebody takes the money and recovers $2 billion put on hundred in jail, not good enough. the reason people live in this country and love this country and it's the greatest nation in the world is because he do

better. we try harder and look for the truth. please, just do better. this is america. we are the greatest nation in the world. we can do better and show the entire world that we can do better. >> host: who are you saying needs to do better? >> guest: everybody in the government including the gentleman you have on the show today. somebody called earlier and said he's laughing at it. he's not laughing at it. i'm looking at his face right now, but you've got to be more concerned and try. be a man come and use your heart. this is america. please do better. that's all i have to say. >> guest: i appreciate that and we try to do better.

again we can only do so much unless we have the support of people such as yourself. people who may have seen something when they served in afghanistan. people who maybe were offered or so people getting bribes. we as americans have to abide by. we are always looking for better ways to do our jobs. we have set up an office procedures and have done some new things doing financial audits to try to save money. we have a whole team looking at money laundering and we brought in some of the best experts to follow the money but it's extremely difficult.

these crimes are difficult to uncover. you are doing it in a war zone. i used to be a federal prosecutor with the organized crime and racketeering section. and it's not as if you can bring fbi agents or agents how to do surveillance because it is so dangerous they are very rarely do they even get outside of the green zone or protected area of the embassy. so these are difficult times and places to do audits and investigations but we are trying hard and i will exhort my people to do even better. >> host: good morning. i appreciate what you do for the country. two quick questions. first of all, if we were a monarchy and you were the king and you were able to change the

situation yourself, what would you do and second, the most important question, i am a amateur military historian and i have seen of the past wars have been about resources and i've come to see in my studies there is a very significant amount of lithium afghanistan thats throh the mountains being the new gold we needed for better reasons etc.. were you there to get them out and fresh air i'm sure some of this is classified but anything that you could say on the subject would be important. thank you and i will take my call off the air. >> guest: the caller is correct there is lithium in afghanistan. afghanistan. it may be large quantities i don't believe that is the reason that we are there. but it's not the stated reason we are there, nor has there been much development of lithium for

the 17 years that we've been there. if i were king for the day, what would i do? there ithere's a number of thini would do. something like this again, let's pause and talk to the experts that know something about the country we are going into. let's also consider what we can actually accomplish and i think we should also ask the question one of the other callers did, what is our exit strategy. there's many things i could go on and on ab it. we actualod and you can find them online seven questions anybody running a program in afghanistan should ask before they do it and i don't think we have time to go through the seven questions but one of the first is you ask is

do they want the program mto thes of the program and wile used the program acts as a basic question. we were not even asking those when we started it for the reconstruction in afghanistan. >> guest: everybody is concerned about the money but it isn't the money that is the problem. >> caller: just like we pulled out of iraq we are going to have more terrorists coming in there. they are going to be in there and they are going to takever again and then we will have to go in and push them back out. >> guest: that's one of the justifications for why we are

there. >> guest: democrat, melanie go ahead. >> caller: iem calling because of the amount o money that we are spending in afghanistan. we've got so much there has to be done here in the united states. there are things that would cost too much to secure the schools. we have white policemen killing unarmed black man and we have an opioid crisis. we have a crumbling infrastructure. we have great disparity in wages between blacks and whites and too many problems here in the united states that needs to be solved. there is an old saying, don't tell me i need to clean up my yard when yours is the. now the other thing is charity begins at home. host: we will leave it there. i want to have you jump in from

mansfield massachusetts, independent. >> caller: yes. i heard you mention education. you will look back on history and realize that it's been the same from the 700 years ago when we first came to thisorld it's been frightening. they've always been defeated. afghanistan, just get out. that's it. it's a dead end. for us tory to stay there it just keeps feeding this regime that the country is building up and the problem is it is trumting of saudi arabia and that is where the money is

going. >> guest: these are good questions from the educated audience. these are questions i can't answer, policies. why we are in afghanistan. i can say to you the reason for it, but that is a decision made by somebody else, not to bite me. my job is to try to oversee and protect the money that we spend and try to convince the government to do it wisely by making recommendations. so, good points, but i can't really respond. >> host >> caller: good morning. i would like to say japan, germany, we are stil still splig japan stand up with an army. there is a reason we are over there. the television is trying to take over with nuclear power. there is a reason that we are in

afghanistan. thank god for president trump telling people [inaudible] we are going to be there for a long time so everybody just get used to it. th is very troublesome. watch the movie lone survivor. you will see these tribal people are doing in society. they are at war with each other. one has more strength than the next one to take out the next one and this is why we are there. we have a foothold there. the mone money committed money k that we spent $6 trillion on these wars. but if we don't do that, believe me, mark my words, the world will be in wse shape. so, maybe there is a reason that we colonize places back in the day. we have to be there. the second you get back, they

take back that hard-fought ground but we gained. >> host: is that what you have seen as you conduct oversight as soon as we leave in different pockets of taliban move in? >> guest: it is and everybody recognizes that we provide the glue that holds the afghan government together. if we do leave, they say the funding stops and the government will collapse. so the concerns that are expressed by viewers and the questions are real. what can i jusbut can i just han context as much as $126 billion on reconstruction is a lot, we spend a lot more on the war fighting. up to almost 700 million on th

that. but the reconstruction side and the development and foreign aid is extremely small in the overall american budget. i don't kno the exact percentage, but ites than 1% of our overall budget that goes to foreign assistance and development and reconstruction. since you have to put that in context. my job is to try to make certain that it isn't so when and that done well and efficiently. going to fix -- ifney thatout i we end all reconstruction tomorrow and all development aid tomorrow, all of the money going to the people starving in fighting around the world, humanitarian assistance, it's not going to pitc patch every pe and it's not going to be enough

money to end the opioid epidemic or prote o kids from school. it is anything to do so in comparison to the amount of money that we spend overall in the united states. >> host: jason, san diego democrat. >> caller: yes, good morning. i realized russia tried to do the same thing that the economy wasn't strong enough. now iraq i know we provide single-payer health system for iraq. are we giving the same afghanistan, providing health care and education, are we paying for that also? >> guest: we are actually supporting their health care the system and education system in afghanistan. we are paying the salaries of teachers and doctors and nurses and midwives and so is the coalition. so in response, yes we are.

>> host: dawn, independent line. >> caller: good morning. ..

i have spoken to our commanding generals in the field and they wish they had gotten and will get more troops and more commitments from nato. know, from again talking to our military officials, they viewed the number of u.s. troops and nato allies and other allies -- because some of them are not even nato allies who have provided some troops. it is a complicated situation getting the other governments to commit. host: going to thomas in yonkers.

caer: i was wondering if after russia got out of afghanistan and seemed to settle down, there were no problems. why all of a sudden now we have to stay back i actually want is there were problems there fighting was an deed which we supported and country allowed that his areas problems when that comes in because when that came up respond to total mayhem and anarchy so why we

ended up coming in and remember this goes back to 911, when caliban too over they permitted al qaeda and the terrorist to eventually attackck the to settle between them and. let's not forget why we got in. not just from humanitarian reasons that national security reasons. that is where al qaeda was trained and getting ready to launch their attack. >> last call west virginia republican. i just want to know how much our allies are contributing to

the stabilization of i don't know have the exact number but we have contributions or allies in japan germany united kingdom and all the various countries that we are providing both of the assistant militarily and for reconstruction in mac thank you. >> it has been a pleasure

>> it was thought of as we hear college-age protesters here were middle age clergy and maybe i should reconsider myself. that was the turning point for

the antiwar movement. i hope you don't see how it would help to end the draft. the selective service feeling that they were under attack. clearly you can draw a line with the draft ending in 73 you can draw a line.