now, special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. details on the lack of oversight which led to the collapse of the afghan government in august. this is just over an hour.

>> he was the only one talking about how critical information about the afghan military was becoming increasingly classified to the point where no usable information to talk about progress in afghanistan was publically available. he has accurately predicts everything that has gone wrong with the reconstruction effort that has dwarfed the marshal plan and shortly before kabul fell he described the failures of the u.s. mission in afghanistan in two words. on behalf of the military reporters and editors association, it's an honor for me to introduce john sopko. >> thank you very much. thank you. [ applause ] >> let me just try to get settled before i break something.

can i take this off? otherwise, it's going to be hard to hear me. thank you very much for that kind introduction, jeff. also, thank you for the association inviting me today. this is kind of a unique experience. kind of novel. because last time i spoke in person live to a live audience was back on march 10, 2020, up at syracuse university. gave a speech. next day, governor cuomo closed down the university and the state. it must have been a pretty damn good speech. here i am. i'm back. 10,000 zoom meetings later. it's great to be back live and not have to hit that video button. but it is kind of weird to speak to people and be wearing pants. don't wear a skirt, but i imagine a lot of the women have that same consideration.

as many of you know, there was a 53rd issue -- i have a copy of it. our 53rd quarterly report to congress. this quarterly report is kind of unique, too. because it's the first one issued in our 12-year existence when there are no u.s. troops or anybody in the u.s. embassy -- actually, there is no u.s. embay -- embassy there, in afghanistan. those of who you followed, know that many of the reasons for that unexpected quick collapse of afghan government are problems that we have reported on for years. corruption, ghost soldiers, dependence of the afghan military on u.s. air power, contractors and other enablers as well as the overall incompetency of the afghan government. some in the press and on the

hill have suggested that this may be the only u.s. government agency whose stock has risen in the wake of the withdrawal. due to our penchant for telling inconvenient truths over the last ten years. but i would suggest that you and the press corps must also be credited for telling unwanted but ground truths on what was going on in afghanistan through the evacuation in kabul and to date. without the amplification of our reports by the press, we would not have been as successful or as effective as it has been. we all know that u.s. agencies have not made honest reporting easy for either us or for you about america's longest war. we have a recent example that we

talk about in this quarterly report i'd like to discuss briefly with you today. as we report in today's quarterly report, shortly after the fall of kabul, the state department wrote to me and other oversight agencies requesting that we temporarily suspend access to all of our audit, inspection and financial reports that were on our website because the department was afraid that information included therein would put afghan allies at risk. now let me be clear. i strongly believe that afghans who are at genuine risk for work with the united states government, news outlets and other groups should and must be protected. the protection of afghans at risk of harm is not an issue to

quibble over. something our agency has respected over the ten years that i have been there. but despite repeated requests, the state department was never able to describe any specific threats to individuals that were supposedly contained in our reports. nor did state ever explain how removing our reports now from public dissemination would possibly protect anyone since many of those reports were years old and already extensively disseminated worldwide. nevertheless, with great reservation, i exceeded to state's initial request and pulled down all of our reports because it was at the height of the evacuation and because i thought that request would only be temporary. recently, i received a second letter from the state

department. they stated they have reviewed the relatively few materials still remaining on our website and included a spreadsheet containing roughly 2,400 new items that they requested we draw down, erase, replace, et cetera. given how hard the department reportedly was working to evacuate americans from afghanistan and resettle afghan refugees, i was a bit surprised, as well as my colleagues, that the state department found the time to go through every one of our reports and produce that list. but nevertheless, upon reviewing their request, it quickly became clear to us that the state department had little if any criteria for determining whether the information actually endangered anyone. and i think you will agree with me that some of their requests were a bit bizarre to say the least.

for example, the state department requested that we redact ghani's name from every one of our reports. i'm sure president ghani may wish ghani may wish to be excised in the annals of history, but i don't believe he faces any additional threat or is any threat to any other afghan by mentioning his name in our reports. state department also requested we consider redacting a reference to quote/unquote red stone arsenal, huntsville, alabama. now, this is a bit bizarre. especially for those who have visited that arsenal, that somehow its name itself is a threat to afghans. possibly, maybe by uttering its name, it is a threat to alabama. state also asked us to consider redacting the name of a u.s.a.

id american. an american citizen. even though the hearing is available. i think by cspan. but a few of the examples. we cite many more in the quarterly report. but regardless of this weird request. cig-r did conduct a risk based assessment and look at every one of those 400 requests for redactions and we actually found four that made some sense and we will and did redact them.

the danger of limiting public access to information in the name of security than you. simply because the war in afghanistan has concluded does not mean the american people or its elected representatives do not have a right to know the truth about what happened in afghanistan over the last 20 years. to that end congress tasked sigar with a number of assignments since the collapse of the afghan government. they include answering the following questions. why did the afghan government collapse in spite of $146 billion and 20 years of reconstruction assistance? why did the afghan security forces collapse so suddenly? and how did the u.s. train,

advise and assist efforts possibly contributed to that collapse? they wanted us to find out about continued risks to u.s.-funded reconstruction assistance, including any contracts that may with still active or pending. they want us to explain the extent to which the taliban have access to previously provided u.s. government funding and equipment, particularly weapons left behind. congress wants us to also explain and document the status of and potential risk to afghan people and civil society organizations, including afghan women and girls, journalists, education -- educators, healthcare providers and other non government institutions since the taliban took over. congress also wants us to determine whether afghan government officials fled the country with u.s. taxpayer dollars. and congress wants us to conduct

a comprehensive joint audit with the state, u.s. aide and dod igs to look at the administration of the special immigrant visa program. in my opinion all the warning signs that could have predicted that outcome will only be revealed if the information that the departments of state and defense have already restricted from public release will be made available. a range of information back to 2015 on the performance of the afghan security forces purportedly at the request of the afghan government. this included information such as casualty data, unit strength, training and operational

deficiencies, tactical and operational readiness of afghan military leadership, comprehensive assessments of afghan security force leadership. and operational readiness rates down to the core level. in essence, the information withheld at the request of the afghan government is nearly all the information you would have needed to determine whether the afghan security forces were a real fighting force or a house of cards. waiting to collapse. in light of recent events, it is not surprising why the afghan government, and maybe some people in the department of defense, wanted to keep that information under lock and key. but that information would have almost certainly benefitted congress and the public in assessing whether progress was being made in afghanistan, and

more importantly whether we should have ended our efforts there earlier. yet sigar was forced to relegate all this information into classified annexes, making it much more difficult for members of congress to assess the information and completely eliminating public and press access to discussion of that very important information. in recognition of this, that this information in particular will be essential to sigar to effectively respond to all of those congressional directives, the bipartisan leadership of the house oversight and reform committee and the national security subcommittee have formally requested that all information in sigar's classified appendices be declassified by the originating agents.

and just so you know, sigar, when we were created we have no classification or declassification authority. so the only people that can do it would be the originating agents. now, i strongly support that request. and i hope you do too. but at a bear minimum dod should immediately make available to sigar and the public information restricted at the request of the ghani government. for the simple reason there is no ghani government. and there is no ghani security system or security forces anymore. they have completely collapsed. so my question is, who are we protecting by keeping that information secret? likewise, the administration should declassify and make available to sigar and congress

all internal dod and state department cables, reports and other material reflecting the security situation on the ground over the last few years. especially those reports that differed from the public statements of agencies in washington. it is especially important for sigar and congress to have access to any reporting related to the reaction of the afghan government and the afghan people to the withdrawal agreement signed between the prior administration and taliban in february 2020. again, what possible reason could remain for keeping all of this historical information out of public view? now, rather than attempt to impede sigar's work, i believe the current administration should have every incentive to help us deliver the answers

congress has demanded. i fervently hope for that. but as sigar has experienced all too often in the past, good intentions for transparency by government leaders are frequently thwarted by bureaucratic inertia and bureaucratic fear of the public knowing too much. this is where congress, the press and sigar, using all of our legal authorities, must continue to pursue leads and demand answers. to answer these questions we must find out what our government knew, who knew it in the government and what did they do if anything with that information before the collapse. sigar's investigators are already interviewing many afghans who were evacuated to the united states. to see what information they may

be available -- able to provide about corruption and other nefarious activities by the afghan leadership. sigar's auditors and subject matter experts have already interviewed u.s. and afghan government and military officials to start to put together the full picture of everything that happened that ultimately led to the taliban takeover. but luckily in doing this work, sigar is not starting from -- from scratch. we already know a lot. sigar's 11th lessons learned report, which i have a copy, i hope you all have it too, is a retrospective on all of our previous lessons learned reports. and it was issued to coincide with the 20th anniversary of our intervention in afghanistan.

ironically, it was released by sheer coincide right before kabul fell. the seven key lessons we identified and which i'm happy to expound upon in the question period are instructive not only for afghanistan. but it is important. it is for anywhere else we may try to undertake a similar project again. and they form the basis of our work doing -- the work -- on going work answering the questions from congress. now, while sigar has identified these key lessons, there is without question much more to be learned as we dig into what happened in washington can kabul during the months, weeks, days and hours before ghani fled and the taliban walked into its palace. i sincerely hope we will have cooperation from every corner of the u.s. government as we undertake this work.

i dare anyone to say that these matters are no longer important. you know, sigar's twitter content was accessed 2.2 million times in august. demonstrating, i believe, that the american taxpayer not only deserves answers, they want answers and they demand them, as do their representatives in congress. we also owe it to the families over the over 2400 americans who lost their lives supporting that effort in afghanistan to them tell them why the state failed so dramatically. so in closing, it isup to all of us at sigar, at congress and in the press to ask the questions that must be asked and uncover the answers no matter how unpleasant they may be.

so i thank you. and i look forward to your questions, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they may be. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. i know we have a lot of questions. i'll just ask one to kick it off. and hand it to the audience. you mentioned that the defense department has made so much information about the afghan military classified. this war has lasted 20 years. has it resulted in a generation of military commanders who no longer can tell the truth? >> i think there is a lot of military commanders who know how to tell the truth. and i think there are a lot of younger officers in the military who were telling the truth. and a lot of'em actually risked careers by sending reports back up the chain.

those are the type of reports we really want to find. likewise, there were state department and usaid officials who were writing back urgent memos to their leadership saying things are going wrong. now, some people call those dissent memos, dissent cables. i call them honest assessments. and those are the honest assessments we want to get. we need to find out what went wrong with the information flow. because i have talked to too many commanders, captains, colonels, sergeants, privates, ambassadors, junior state department officials who knew this was going south. so where did those reports go? and why aren't they -- maybe they were. i don't know. why weren't those reports then sent over to the leadership so we didn't have to hear all this

over the last 20 years. >> a question and not a comment. megan? >> i wanted to ask with all of this information being out in the open and like you said, many junior and mid-level officers and ncos hopefully saying that this was not going well. do you think that maybe the issue is that the white house, the pentagon, of course, and even in congress, that there was -- because there was no end game, because there was no date that, you know, there was no goal, as it were, that they just thought well we don't have to -- because we're never leaving. no one told us we need to leave by a certain point so we can keep kicking this down the road and if there is no progress doesn't really matter because we're not going anywhere anyway. >> i don't know that is a good question. i don't know the answer to that. and that is what we want to try to find out. was the information flow going up and people at the highest levels were briefed? and they just said eh, we'll

kick it down the line? i don't know. i think part of the problem is we didn't fight a 20 year war. nor did we have a 20 year construction. we did twenty one-year ones, because of rotations and stuff like that. that is something we're trying to find. good question and i don't know the answer yes. i don't want to prejudge. that's hopefully what my staff will learn. >> hi, associative press. i have two questions. one is, if i remember correctly, the metrics around afghanistan started to be classified, you know, things like, you know, strike reports, contested areas on the ground and all tied to the 2020 deal. and the talk from the pentagon was well, once we finalize that 2020 deal or wh the state department then those metrics can then become available. so that question is, did the metrics ever become available

again? >> no, that's what we're talking about. >> and second part, i remember you once saying at a congressional hearing that one of the issues that sigar has is that the agency doesn't have subpoena power. you are talking about -- and just to be clear, the treasury department, the treasury ig, they have subpoena power. they can subpoena documents and things like that. your mission is to now find out what happened, what went wrong, we need all the documents to be able to figure that out. do you have subpoena power yet? >> well -- >> can you subpoena documents? >> we can't subpoena documents from the u.s. government. i can get subpoenas issued for contractors. but not the u.s. government. so we don't. but the important thing is we had access, we, being sigar, to a lot of the information because we had the clearances. put we couldn't -- the problem is -- and if you work on the hill you understand this better, is that when you give congress

classified information -- first of all, they have to go out of their way to get it. they have to go to some secret place to look at it. the cone of silence comes down. many times particularly -- we don't know if this was intentional, and i don't want to assume bad intent. but most of the documents that were withheld were classified nato secret. most of the staff on the hill do not have nato secret clearance. so you would have a member, he can go in and see it. or she can go in. go in with no staff. which puts the member at a extreme disadvantage. who is me supposed to talk to. who is he going to bounce ideas by? so this whole thing, and this is why i find so offensive is the state department, the dod, and all the government agencies are now classifying or stamping

documents with these bizarre classifications that don't exist. sensitive but unclassified. official use only. those aren't classifications. those are states of mind. okay? but when they go up to the hill, a staffer think ooh good this is classified, i can't share it. i got to hide it. my boss thinks its classified. that is outrageous. and that is one of the problems. is that even if members tried to get it. and i remember briefing some members, and we had to leave all their staff outside. because the staff didn't have nato clearance which isn't any super duper clearance, it is just a difference clearance process. so that is the problem. there was no public discourse about this because the public didn't have an access. and i'm old school. i am really, you know, you know, people say i'm ancient. i believe in public discourse.

i believe that's how we solve problems. the american taxpayer has a right to know. and that's one of the things i am still outraged about. most of this material, the taliban knew it. the afghan government knew it. our u.s. government knew it. and only people who didn't know what was going on in afghanistan were the people paying for it. both in lives and in money. and that's the american taxpayer. that's what i find offensive. with the process. so count me as old school. anti-diluvian, whatever but that's something i think we've got address a as country. >> i spent a lot of time in afghanistan and iraq over the years and also talked to people in vietnam, and they talked

about how vietnam was pretty similar in the reporting process. there was a thing they said about reporting from the bottom to the top. they called it the reverse bs filtration loop. the higher the reporting, the more full of crap the story became. so i wonder, have we learned anything from these three wars, which are very similar in an awful lot of ways, and we keep getting into them too. so it suggests we don't. but what have we learned from this? because it seems like the government works every time in the same way. what they are doing to you are classifying information or marking it sensitive. it is a bit much but it is how we seem to do things in this country, isn't it? >> well, i believe you are right, in that is basically the underlying point of that lessons learned report. our last lessons learned report that came out. you know, basically we don't --

not only on the classification but just on doing it. i mean, you know, everybody will tell you we're never going to do this again. well we've done it three times in the last 50 years. vietnam, we didn't learn from that. and after it was done, we totally forgot everything, and we eliminated a lot of the capabilities we had built for usaid, dod, state, just eliminate them because we're never going do it again. we did it in afghanistan. we did it in iraq. and there are four or five countries in -- and i'm not saying we shouldn't do it. but we're starting that slippery slope again. and that is the one thing we -- one of the lessons learned about this type of effort is, it starts small and it grows. and it starts like a roller coaster going down. and the next thing you know we'll be pumping more troops and more money in there. so no, we don't learn lessons too well in the united states. we should. because otherwise we're gonna

spend another trillion dollars and have a horrible result. on the classification? all i can tell you again, i've been here maybe as long as you have. since 1982. i've been dealing with classified information since 178 and i've learned one thing and i'm take it to my grade. and that is governments don't classify good news. that is one thing i've learned. and i don't think its changed since vietnam. probably since world war ii. and if a government classifies good news, it will then leak it. but i don't know how you break that chain. i think it was senator mccain who talked about classification is basically used to protect incompetency and other nefarious actions. and he would know better than

any of us. but i think there is some truth to that. that is the best way to hide your screw ups. put a classification on it. i don't recognize everyone. got masks. darrell i recognize you, yeah. >> quite a slate of reports that's been requested by congress, i look forward to reading them. i was just wondering if there are any deadlines or any estimated completion dates for any of those, specifically the reports dealing with the speed of the collapse of the government in kabul. >> yeah, we -- i believe in the house version of the ndaa, there are deadlines that report i think march or april. now, those may be pushed back

because the ndaa hasn't passed yet. but we'll start reporting as soon as we get the information. it also depends really how much we get access to a lot of the stuff. i set up the teams and this is all we're working on. well we have a couple more audits we're just finishing but this is all we're working on full blast. but i'm hoping we'll start releasing stuff as soon as we can put it together and analyst it. now remember there is a lot of allegations out there. and i want to just clarify one thing. there are allegations that some senior official, including president ghani, you know, walked off with $500 million or whatever. these are all allegations. now, we've been asked to look at'em. they are allegations. so we have to determine, and you know how difficult it is in afghanistan determining what's truth and fiction. we got to determine that. because congress has asked us to do it. so give us time.

and also give us support. you know, we got to get access to that data. we got to get access to those people. to talk to. and to see what we can do and answer all the questions. >> sir, thanks for doing this. i'm james -- >> pleasure. >> i want to ask about the evacuation. for full disclosure, i spent my summer beach vacation doing something unexpected which is helping to create one of the many ad hoc veterans groups that mounted essentially a clandestine information to smuggle as many afghan members and forces and family members out. as possible. we got hundreds out. for all the hundreds these ad hoc groups got out, mostly of

retirees who unexpectedly really came back to duty when most were trying to put the war behind them. but we now have sort of a crisis. for every afghan -- got out with his family there were probably five or ten times many who didn't. you talk about assessing the risking to afghan civilian ns, journalist, teachers -- et cetera. is that going extend -- we're getting videos every day of people being shot death, captured afghan operators commandos, so forth. and this veteran population is still doing the bulk of the work to not only try to evacuate by shepherding them but also to try to raise money to, you know, get through what is going to be a brutal winter. these are people who are not getting a paycheck anymore from the government, islamic republic

of afghanistan. they can't work or leave their homes. this is going to be a tough winter. what is the scope of what you are going to be looking at with all that sir? i'm just really curious how far you are going to go in that effort? and thank you again. >> yeah, this is an excellent question. and we will go as far and as broad and as wide as we can. because we want to answer that question. and i think congress wants to know. many people think well when are you going to look at what happened to women and girls, which is very important because they are in a special category of having to deal with this taliban and losing a lot of the -- little advances, but some advances that were made over the last 20 years. but we're going to be looking at everybody and rule of law and

what we thought we were doing in reconstruction. journalists. film teams. i've gotten the calls too from many afghans and many americans concerned. and, you know, i didn't even know how broad and how wide the nascent afghan film industry was. all of those people are running for their lives. all of the judges. female or male who believed in the american way and believed in democracy, they are all hiding. all the prosecutors, all the good cops. and all the special forces. and that's afghan special forces. this is one thing you have to remember. you know, there were a lot of ghosts in the afghan police and the military. there are a lot of soldiers that never existed because their salary and everything else was being stolen. but there were a lot of honest,

brave afghans, especially in the special forces. but in other units that fought, that fought hard and died. and now they are all at risk. now, we have heard numbers going to 60 to 100,000 that may be there. but we don't know how many are there. but they are stuck. just think about it. you are an afghan soldier. special forces, judge, female journalist, how do you get out of -- u.s. government isn't helping you anymore. nobody is. how do you get out? we only help you if you go to a third country. how do you get out? you need a passport. who's issuing the passports? the taliban. the same people you reported on or you fought. you need a visa. who are you going to go for help? you got to go to a taliban official. he may have been the official

you reported on. or what about the poor businessmen who reported to what was called fintraka, it was a bank, regulatory agency, a whatever, you reported on people who are sending money to the taliban. well, who's got access to all o of those files? the taliban. and it is a black hole. we're not hearing anything. squat.

crickets. and i'm certain many of you are hearing it too. and i -- we will be looking at it. i don't know how long it is going to take, and it is very difficult because it is hard to reach out to some of these people because they are moving all the time and they don't want to use phones. and god bless all of'em that they get out safely. but there is a large pop -- and is academic disaster. next year almost 93% of the afghan population will be below the poverty level. that's what the u.n. is predictingly reported in this quarterly report. over 93, 97% i think. fantasy number. can you believe that? it is going to be the biggest economic, humanitarian disaster. so those people want to get out. how do you handle that? i don't know. but we'll be looking at it. and i hope you all are too. don't forget the afghans that were left behind. >> i just wanted to get a word

of thanks to everybody in this room who worked to get afghans to safety. thank you for everything you did at such a perilous hour. if everyone who has a question could you please raise your hand. i'll try to get to as many as possible. carla. >> -- to us. you mentioned we fought 20 wars, one-year wars. lot of people have been saying that for years. you know, just 15 one-year wars. when you are trying to assign responsibility for this, government officials are already diffusing the responsibility and that is kind of one way to do it, saying their 20 one-year wars. but just specifically for that problem, who is responsible for conducting 20 one-year wars?

so who do you assign blame for for doing it that way? >> there's not -- that's a very good question. and there is not one person, one administration, one entity of the government that is responsible. and if you read our report, it is just the way we approach these big efforts like this. we're not really organized for it. the u.s. government. so i would go back to our lessons learned report and happy to come out here again and have my whole team who worked on that report give you soup to nut on it at any time. because we're already doing it with the administration right now. i've made this reference before that when we sent people to afghanistan, they weren't nefarious, stupid, lazy, you know, people. above and beyond, most of'em were brave, smart and eager to do the right thing. but what we gave'em was a box of

broken tools. you have heard me say that. ich and the broken tools just -- it is something that we are dealing with the government right now. with the v.a., with hhs, with dhs, with all of these agencies. our procurement system is broken. our reward system to employees in the federal government is broken. our overemphasis on contractors versus building the capabilities inside usaid or state is broken. our whole authorizing and appropriating cycle. our approach to a whole of government issue. and that's what you are faced with right here. and i would say, and i'll use a term from my -- not my home state, but where i run and hide

all the time, up to maine. wickedly. every wickedly difficult issue we face as americans is due to the fact that it is a whole of government problem and we are not designed for, equipped for for dealing a whole of government problem. and i'll throw it out to you. think of any problem you are faced with. education, the economy, the problem of healthcare. retirement. those deal with multiple federal agencies. nobody is in charge. so one of the problems why it was 20 one-year wars was nobody is in charge. and our staff is going out there from multiple agencies, who's in charge? congress. you got multiple committees and subcommittees looking at the same issue. so what i'm saying is, read that report and focus on the

whole-of-government issue. the classic examples is the whole opiate. there is a whole of government issue. it is not just police. it is healthcare. it is not just dhs. it is hhs. it is the va. it is every state and local. we don't have a way to handle those yet. so i -- i -- that's based upon us looking at afghanistan. but i think you take that whole of government problem and apply it to the rest of the united states. so everybody has to sit back and think about how to be better prepared to handle these big, wickedly difficult whole of government issues and afghanistan is just one of'em.

>> hi, kyle remfer with l.a. times. i had a question and came in a little late so -- but i was wondering have you faced any pressure to end the mission of sigar? or are you expecting any pressure? and also i wanted to ask a second question, which was, if you could duplicate sigar's mission and focus it on any other, you know, dod effort, anywhere in the world right now, where would you place that focus? >> well let me answer the first question. i -- look it, there are lot of people in this town who don't like us and they would like to see us go out of existence. and some have been dreaming about that for, at least since i took over 10 years ago. and that's okay. igs shouldn't make friends. we should be as mean as junk yard dogs, as president reagan

said. and nobody likes -- there is nobody in town -- well, maybe, see if you guys disagree. i don't think there is anybody in town who picks up the phone and says, gee, the ig is coming to see us. nobody, except members of congress who like us. but nobody is like that. used to be old joke about oh great, 60 minutes is coming to see it. oh, what did i do? that's what our job is. so yeah there are people who would like to see us leave. we are going to go out of existence. and we should. we're a temporary agency. i believe in temporary government agency, having spent my whole life working for non temporary agencies, i think there should be. when the mission is done, we should disappear. and congress gave us the authority on hiring authority and firing authority to go out of existence. and i don't know when that is going to be. congress has to tell me.

all reconstruction is put on pause right now. it may start up again. i don't know. if it does start up, however you call it, you've got to have ab an agency that looks at it. and i think we're probably one of the best because we have whole of government. we are the only ig who can look at any government agency operating in afghanistan or reconstruction. so we at some point will go out of existence. we've got a lot of work right now. actually the requests coming down and finishing this up. but, you know, talk to me in a year. it may be time for us to go out of existence. i don't know. congress will tell me when. what was your second question? i apologize. >> -- duplicate sigar's apparatus in focusing on any other part of the world where the dod, u.s. said, state department are operating, what would that with? >> yeah that is a good question. i don't know.are operating, wha

with? >> yeah that is a good question. i don't know. a special ig, i think they are actually a good thing. i personally think it was a good pretty much to afghanistan. and good approach to iraq. but i don't know. i really don't know. you could create special igs for some of these wickedly difficult issues, like the opiate. bring in a special ig to look at that issue. i think -- i haven't really thought about it. it is a good question. maybe when i retire i'll write my novel on that. but it is a good question. every ig, like every week they create a new one. is housed in a specific agency and can only look at that agency.

so by definition, it can't see the whole of government. now, in response to that. congress has asked like 14 or 15 various agencies to look at, i think it was the covid issue. but when you have 14 oar 15 different igs looking, it is very difficult. you know, everybody has different approach, different staffing, different everything. and i'm not certain that is the way to go. if somebody asked me, i'd have created a special ig for covid. but they didn't. so that is where we are. . >> hi, mike press with the washington examiner. thanks for doing this. during your recent testimony on the hill you employed members of congress to hold people accountable for the war. given how you have already described today how there was such a decentralization, what does that look like? and who is there to hold accountable? >> well, i think when you find a

program that didn't work, you should bring up the person who pushed it and ask'em to explain why. when we get all of these records -- and if it turns out, and i don't know if it will, but if it turns out that ambassador so and so was getting information saying the taliban are going to be at the gates tomorrow, and he doesn't convey that information, then i think we should ask ambassador so and so, well, why didn't you? or he did convey the information and somebody up the chain never briefed the president. or, if people testified before congress on monday saying the sky is blue and we know it was black, they should be asked to explain why. now, you all heard a lot of spin over the last 20 years.

you know? how many times did we hear one more year. we're turning the corner. we're turning the corner. okay. have you ever thought after you get all the facts, 2016 general so and so testifies we're turning the corner. one more year. success. if he was getting reports up to the day he testified saying the sky is falling, it's over, those people who should be held accountable. somebody should ask why did you testify to congress that x was going to happen and you knew darn well it didn't. that's accountable. everybody should be held accountable for what they say and what they do. and i'm not looking to put people in jail or embarrass'em. but we got to understand why did the system allow this. that's what i'm interested in,

why did they allow the spin to keep spinning? even though so many mid level, high level, people who worked in afghanistan said it's a failure. that's all i'm trying to figure out. i'm trying to figure out why did the system break down? you know, i don't know. maybe the presidents have never been told the truth about afghanistan. i don't know. i've never been in the room. feel like a play on hollywood, you know, who was in the room? this is -- this is important for us. don't you see as americans, this is important. if foreign policy is being determined not based upon facts, but upon hope, you know, hope is not a strategy. i don't care what people say. it is not a strategy. it doesn't work.

you need facts, hard facts. provable facts. now many times you can't prove facts. you don't have the information. but our job is to see if there was credible information out there and how was it used. and don't worry, i have all the time in the world to answer questions. i know you have other important things to do, but i'm around. >> i'm jeff, of military times. thank you for taking the time with us and all your work. in terms of the collapse of afghan government t fall of kabul. you know, seems to have really been, you know, some reports of afghan security forces when they saw, you know, the u.s. leaving and stuff, the tenuous alliance, allegiance they had to the institution faded away pretty quickly. do you think a chaotic, like, final withdrawal of troops was inevitable? or do you think, you know, these

evacuations started earlier, other steps were taken, we wouldn't see you know what we saw at hkia this summer? thanks. >> that's an excellent question. and i don't have the answer to that. that's what we're trying to do. and i don't mean to avoid answering it. but we're trying to figure that out. and that's why it is important. what did we, being the u.s. government knew or know? who knew it? and what if anything we did with it. if we -- hypothetical, this is all hypothetical. if hypothetically, you know, officials were reporting that the afghan government is going to collapse in, you know, october 1st, and that information was relayed back to washington in january -- now this is all hypothetical. nothing is that specific as we probably understand. what did they do with that information and how to prepare

for it? that's obviously important. but i don't know the answer yet. that is what we're trying to do. >> -- based on all your years of work or anything? what's the caveat that is -- >> you know, i -- i hate to, you know, star gaze in afghanistan and particularly about bureaucracies. and i think it was napoleon who said, you know, don't -- don't assume nefarious motives for what may be explained by incompetency. so i don't know. i really don't know. and it may turn out, if i was a predictor, and i will take a risk here. it may turn out that like everything in the government you, you don't have 100% certainty about this information you are getting. it is always, you know -- it

comes down to making a decision on sometimes inaccurate or inadequate information. and that's probably, i'm guessing -- because that's -- that's life. you know, you make decisions every day on inadequate information, you know, wherever you buy a house or buy a car or don't buy a car, go out to eat. come here to this meeting. with or without a mask. you are making a decision based on the inadequate information but you make it. you know, risk based analysis. >> hands of people still with questions? okay. jim if you could finish us off? >> yeah, i think we all agree one of the most egregious things to come out afghan war was -- especially for people on ground, the level of interaction they had to have with known child predators. which was in clear violation of

the laws, the leetchchy laws called for ending support, ending funding to people who were known child rapists. but yet the defense departments the state department both overruled the laws and continued the funding regardless if it was in violation. what is the lesson we should learn from that? >> the leahy -- we did. i know we probably did a whole report on the leahy act. we were asked about by 300 members in the congress and senate to look at how it was working in afghanistan. there and specifically there is always exemptions. >> usual at least tell congress when you are using that national security exemption. and what we found out in our

look see is that based upon an 0.by i think the general council of dod he said you didn't have to notify congress when you invoke that objection. because in this statute of every appropriations bill they always use the term notwithstanding any other provision of law baba baba. so he focused on that and said well that means we can ignore the leahy act and don't have to tell congress that we're applying the national security exemption. the big problem about the human rights violations is this. not only were individual boys and/or girls being raped and basically being sex slaves to senior and mid level afghan politicians and police and

military, but i view it as what did the average afghan think about us as a result. okay? so human rights violations are actually national security concerns. just like corruption. and that's what we takeaway should be from afghanistan. why did the afghan government lose the support of its people, if it ever had any. why did the afghan military lose the support of the afghan people, if it even had any? and why did the united states and our coalition of allies lose the support of the afghan people, if we ever had any? and i think we did. it is because we became associated with the worst excesses of afghan culture.

violating human rights, endemic corruption, supporting evil, really evil people and war lords. and then you add to that the indiscriminate use of bombing, night raids, you name it. and i think it was an ambassador or general officer. may have been ikeberry or somebody said every time we kill an afghan we create ten more taliban supporters. so when you do the right thing, you do the right thing. and when you cozy up and you kind of ignore the law and what's right, you bear the consequences. and i think one of the reasons it turned out -- this is a hunch just based upon talking to afghans and talking to many

reporters who've been out there talking to afghans, and many people in the human rights area who say, you lost the support of the afghan people years ago because of your indiscriminate bombing, your indiscriminate night raids, because your indiscriminate support for the most evil people in the afghan culture who the taliban kicked out once before. so you ask the question, how did the taliban win? well they had the support of the afghan people. you know, they didn't have any magic weapons. they didn't have drones. they didn't have, you know, f-16s. but they had the support of the afghan people. and that's the question we have to answer. why. >> thank you very much. would you like to make any

closing remarks? >> thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. 6 just so you know, for those who saw me speaking without a mask, i have all the shots in the world. i think this is still an important issue. let me just close with this. i think if we do the right thing in answering these questions, this may be the most important series of reports in our ten -- my ten years in this job. because these reports will answer, really, the question of what happened. and i think we are the only agency in town that the american people and congress trusts to answer those questions. so thank you very much. but we need your help. so we need your help in doing what you have been doing so well over the last 10, 20, 30 years. so thank you very much.

>> and our next panel slated to begin at 11:15. we may start a couple minutes late. please use this time to refresh yourself, take a stretch. jim byron began working at the nixon foundation as a 14 year old marketing intern. now at age 28 he's the foundation's president and ceo. sunday he talks about the life and career of president nixon and the work of the foundation. >> we're obviously looking ahead to the 50th anniversary of president nixon's trip to china, trip to russia, the ending of the vietnam war and bringing home or signing of the paris peace accords, bringing home the pows, 50th anniversary of yom kippur and of watergate. we build events and kompb conferences around these type os

of programs around these 50th anniversaries and make them into types of programs and push though out all across social media. and we are connecting. it is working. we do hear from young people who say gosh, i didn't know about that. or, you know, i'd only heard that there was this thing called watergate, you know. i didn't know that president nixon was the first president to negotiate an arms control agreement with the soviet union. there are real learns that are being had and again that's in support of our mission. >> jim byron, sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan's q&a. you can listen the q&a and all of our pod casts on our new cspan now app. cspan is your unfilamentered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment.

that's why charter invested billion, building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering technology in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications supports cspan as a public service. along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> jen easterly director of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency and representative john katko, the ranking member of the house homeland security committee talked about protecting critical infrastructure. they spoke aton event hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. i'll ask a few questions and then we'll turn and open it up to the audience for questions. so i'm looking forward to today's event. i've actually been looking forward to it all week. to a great way to close out cyber security month here at csis. representative john katko is the republican leader of the