what really matters now is a different -- reporter: thank you. ♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of governmentc-span is your unfiltered view of government c-span is your unfiltered view of government -- >> >> talks is committed to providing internet through the program. stay connected and engaged. talks, chatting with -- >> talks aboard c-span is a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction,

share details of the corruption and lack of oversight which led to the collapse of the afghan government in august. this is just over one hour. >> i think we are ready to get started. our first speaker needs no introduction, since he was appointed the special inspector general of afghanistan reconstruction. since 2012 he has been voicing truth to power. he was the only one talking about how critical information about the afghan military was becoming increasingly classified to the point were no usable information to talk about progress in afghan station -- in afghanistan was publicly available.

he has accurately predicted everything that has gone wrong with the reconstruction effort that forced the marshall plan. before kabul fell, he summed up the failure. it is an honor for me to introduce john sopko. [applause] ig sopko: let me try to get settled before i break something. can i take this off? thank you for that kind introduction. also, thank you for the association inviting me today. this is a unique experience, kind of novel, because the last time i spoke in person, live, to

a live audience was back in march 10, 20 20. at syracuse university. i gave a speech, the next day governor cuomo close the university and the state. must've been a pretty good speech. here i am, i am back, 10,000 zoo meetings later. -- zoom meetings later. it is weird to speak to people and be wearing pants. i don't wear a skirt, but i imagine a lot of women have back consideration. as many of you know, we just issued its 53rd quarterly report to congress. this quarterly report is unique, too. it is the first one issued in our 12 year existence when there are no u.s. troops or anybody in

the u.s. embassy. there is no u.s. embassy there. in afghanistan. those of you who have followed our work know that many of the reasons for that unexpected quick collapse of the afghan government, or problems that we reported on for years. corruption, ghost soldiers, the dependence of the afghan military on u.s. airpower, contractors and other enablers as well as the overall incompetency of the afghan government. some in the press and on the hill have suggested 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 10 years. but i would suggest that you and the press corps must also be credited for telling unwanted

truths about what was going on in afghanistan for the afghan -- evacuation in kabul. without the amplification of our work force by the press, we would not have been as successful or effective as it has been. what we all know u.s. agencies have not made honest reporting easy for us or for you. about america's longest war. we have a recent example we talk about in this quarterly report i would like to discuss briefly with you today. as we reported -- reported today's quarterly report, shortly after the fall 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." because the department was afraid the information included therein would put afghan allies at risk. let me be clear, i strongly believe the afghans who are a genuine risk of reprisal due to their work for the united states government, ngos, news outlets and other groups should and must be protected. the protection of afghans at legitimate risk of harm is not an issue to quibble over. something our agency has respected over the 10 years i have been there. despite repeated requests, the state department was never able to describe any specific threat 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 expensively disseminated worldwide. nevertheless, with great reservation, i a seated two states initial request and pull down our reports, it is at the height of the evacuation and i thought that request would be temporary. recently, i received a second letter from the state department. they stated they had reviewed the relatively few materials remaining on our website, and included a spreadsheet containing roughly 2400 new items that they requested we erase, replace, etc..

given how art department reportedly was working to evacuate afghans from afghanistan and resettle refugees, i was surprised that the state department found the time to go through every one of our reports and produce that list. 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. i think you will agree with me that some of their request were bizarre, to say the least. for example, the state department requested we redact ashraf ghani's name from every report. i am sure president ghani may wish to be prep -- excised from the annals of history, i do not believe he faces additional threat, nor is there threat to a

other afghan by mentioning his name in our reports. state department also requested we consider redacting hour reference to "redstone arsenal." huntsville, alabama. this is bizarre, that somehow it's name it self is a threat to afghans. 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 citizen who testified publicly before congress in 2017, even though his testimony remains on the website of the house foreign affairs committee and the hearing video is available by c-span. these are but a few of the examples, we cite many more in the quarterly report.

regardless of this weird request, we did conduct a risk-based assessment and looked at every one of those 2400 requests for reductions. we actually found for that made some sense and we will ended redact those. we also did another internal review and looked at all of our other audits and reports we had taken down and made the decision that they should go back up on our public website unadulterated. no audience in washington better understands the danger of limiting public access to information in the name of security then you -- they and you. 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 has tasked us with a number of since the collapse of the african government. they include answering the following questions. why did the afghan government collapse in spite of $146 billion and 26 years of reconstruction assistance? why did afghan security forces collapse are suddenly and how did the u.s. advise and train assist efforts assist in the collapse. they asked us about continued reconstruction assistance including contracts that are active or pending. they want us to explain the extent to which the taliban have access to previously provided government funding and

equipment, particularly of weapons left behind. congress wants us also to explain and document the status of and potential risk to afghan people and civil society organizations, including afghan women and girls, journalists, educators, health care providers, and other nongovernment institutions since the taliban took over. congress 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 and dod ig's to look at the administration of the special immigrant visa program. in my opinion, the full picture of what happened in august and all of the warning signs that

could have predicted that outcome will only be revealed if the information that the department of state and defense have already restricted from public release will be made available. for example, dod restricted from public release a range of information going back to 2015 underperformance 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 leadership, comprehensive assessment of afghan security forces 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 of the information you would

have needed to determine whether the afghan security forces were a real writing force or house of cards waiting to collapse. in light of recent events, it is not surprising why the afghan government and may be some people in the department of defense wanted to keep that information under lock and key, but that information almost certainly would've benefited 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 of this information into classified annexes, making it much more difficult for members of congress to access the information and completely

eliminating public and press access to a 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 a great -- directives, the bipartisan leadership of the house reform committee and the national security subcommittee have formally requested that all information in sigar's classified appendices be declassified by the originating agencies. just so you know, sigar when we were created we have no classification or declassification authority, so the only people they can do it would be the originating agencies. i strongly support that request and i hope you do too, but at a bare 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 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 tables, reports, and other materials reflecting the security situation on the ground over the last few years, especially those reports that differed from the public statements of the 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 , the withdrawal agreement signed between the prior administration and the taliban. again, what possible reason could remain for keeping all of this historical information out of public view? rather than attempt to impede sigar's work i believe the current administration should have every incentive to up 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 were 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 new, who -- knew, who knew it in the government and what did they do before the collapse. sigar investigators are already reviewing afghans evacuated to the united states to see what information they may be able to provide about corruption and other nefarious activity by afghan leadership. sigar's auditors and subject matter experts have already reviewed -- interviewed u.s. and afghan government officials to start to put together the full picture of everything that happened that ultimately led to

the taliban takeover, but likely , in doing this work sigar is not starting from scratch. we already know a lot. sigar's 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 coincidence right before kabul fell. the 17 lessons we identified and which i am happy to expound upon in the question period are instructive not only were afghanistan, but it is for anywhere else we might try to

undertake a similar project again, and they formed the basis of our ongoing work in answering the questions from congress. while sigar has identified these key lessons, there is without question much more to be learned as we dig into what happened in washington and kabul during the months, weeks, days, and hours for the taliban walked into its palace. i 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. sigar's twitter content was accessed 2.2 one million times in august, 2.2 million times in august, demonstrating that the

american tax paper -- taxpayer not only deserve answers but they demand answers. we await to the families of americans who lost their lives supporting that mission in afghanistan, to tell them why the effort to build a strong and sustainable afghan state failed so dramatically. so in closing, it is up to all of us at sigar, in congress, and in the press to ask the questions that must be asked and uncover the answers no matter how unpleasant they may be. i think you, and i look forward to your questions no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they may be. thank you. >> i know we have a lot of questions. i will hand it to the audience. you mentioned the defense

department has made some information about the afghan military classified. as it resulted in a generation of military commanders who no longer can tell the truth? mr. sopko i think there are a lot of military commanders who know how to tell the truth, and there are a lot of younger officers in the military who were telling the truth, and a lot of them actually risked careers by sending reports back up the chain. those are the types of reports we want to find. likewise, there were state department and usa officials running back urgent memos to their leadership saying things are going wrong. some people call those descent memos -- dissent memos.

i called them on assessments. we need to figure out what went wrong with the information flow because i've talked to too many commanders, lieutenants, privates, officials who knew this was going south, and they said they were reporting, so where did those reports go, and why weren't they -- or maybe they were, why weren't those reports sent over to leadership? >> i have to ask a question and not a comment. >> i wanted to ask with all of this information being out in the open and many junior, mid-level officers and ncos openly think this is not going well, do you think that maybe the issue was the white house

and even in congress there was noen -- no end game because there was no date as it were? [indiscernible] we can keep getting this down the road and if there is no progress it does not matter if it is not going anywhere anyway. mr. sopko: that is a good question, and i do not know the answer to that that is what we want to try to find out. was the information flow going up and people at the higher levels were briefed and they said we will kick it down the line? i do not know. i think part of the problem is we do not fight a 20 year war nor did we have a 20 year reconstruction. that is one of the things we are trying to find. that is good question. i do not know the answer yet and i do not want to prejudge. that is what i hope my staff will learn.

>> i have two questions. the measures around afghanistan were reported to be classified, strike reporting. it was all tied to the 2020 deal , at the top from the pentagon was once we finalize that deal, it will become available. does it become available again? mr. sopko: no, that is what we are talking about. >> i remember you talking about one of the problems sigar as is [indiscernible] the treasury as subpoena power. your mission is to find out what

happened, what went wrong, we need the documents to find that out. do you have subpoena power yet? mr. sopko: we cannot subpoena documents from the u.s. government. i can get subpoenas issued for contractors but not the u.s. government, so we do not. but the important thing, we had access to a lot of the information because we had clearances, but 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 get it. many times particularly, we do not know if this was intentional , and i do not want to assume that 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 or she could go in and see it with no staff, which puts the member at that extreme disadvantage. who is he going to talk to? : he is going to bounce ideas by? this whole thing, and this is what i find so offensive, at the state department, dod and all government agencies are now classifying or stamping documents with these bizarre classifications that do not exist, sensitive but unclassified. those are not classifications. those are states of mind, but when they go up to the hill a staffer thanks and this is

classified, i cannot cure it. that is outrageous, and that is one of the problems. i remember briefing members and we had to leave all of their staff outside because staff did not have nato clearance, which is not any super duper clearance, it is just a different clearance process. that is the problem. there was no public discourse about this because the public did not have it. i am old school. i am really -- people say i am ancient. i believe in public discourse. i believe that is how we solve problems. the american taxpayer as a right to know and that is one of the things i am still outraged about. most of this material, the taliban know it, the afghan government knew it, our u.s. government knew it. the only people who did not know what was going on in afghanistan

with the people paying for both in lives and money, the american taxpayer. that is what i find offensive with the process. count me as old school, antediluvian or whatever. >> [indiscernible] i spent a lot of time in afghanistan and iraq over the years and i also talk to people in vietnam and they talked about our vietnam similar in the reporting process. the higher the reporting the more full of crap the story became, so i wonder, have we learned anything from these 3

wars, which are similar in a lot of ways and we keep getting into them too. what we learn from this? because it seems like the government works every time in the same way when it comes to classified information or walking -- marking it sensitive. mr. sopko: i believe you are right, and that is basically the underlying point of our lessons learned report, our last report that came out. basically, not only on classification but just undoing it. -- on doing it. everyone will tell you we will never do this again. we have done it three times in the last 50 years. did not learn from that and after it was done we forgot everything and we eliminated a lot of the capabilities we built for usaid, dignity because we

will never do it again. we didn't in afghanistan and iraq, and there are four or five countries in africa and we are starting that slippery slope again. that is one lesson learned, it started small and then it grows, like a roller coaster rolling down and the next thing you know we will be pumping more troops and money in there. we do not learn lessons too well in the united states. we should, because otherwise we are going to spend another $1 trillion and have a horrible result. under classification, all i can tell you is i have been here maybe as long as you have, since 1982. i have been dealing with classified information since 1978, and i have learned one thing, and i will take it to my

grave, and that is governments do not classify good news. that is the one thing i have learned, and i do not think it has changed since vietnam and probably world war ii, and if a government classifies good news it will be late. i do not know how you break the chain. i think it was senator mccain 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. but classified on it -- put classified on it. i do not recognize everybody, they have got masks.

>> travis, quite a slate of reports requested by congress, i look forward to meeting them. i was wondering if there are any deadlines or estimated completion dates for any of those, specifically reports dealing with the speed of the collapse of the government in kabul. mr. sopko: i believe in the house version of the ndaa there are deadlines to report, march or april. those may be pushed back, but we will start reporting as soon as we get the information. it often depends, really depends on how much we get access to a lot of the stuff. i set up the teams and this is all we are working on. this is all we are working on full blast, but i am hoping we

will start releasing stuff as soon as we can put together and analyze it. remember, there are a lot of allegations out there and i want to clarify one thing. there are allegations that some senior officials including president ghani walked off with $500 million. we have to determine, and you know how difficult it is in afghanistan to determine truth and fiction, we have got to determine that, because congress has asked us to do it. give us time, and also give a support, you know? we have got to get access to that data. we have got to get access to those people to talk to and to see what we can do to answer all of the questions. >> thanks for doing this.

i am james with abc news. i went to drill down on one of the things congress has asked you about the investigation. i spent my summer doing something expected, creating one of the ad hoc veterans groups that mounted [indiscernible]to smuggle out as many afghans as possible. hundreds of these ad hoc groups got out mostly retirees, who unexpectedly came back to duty when most were trying to put the war behind them. we know of a crisis, which is for every afghan [indiscernible] that got out there were five or 10 times as many who did not.

you talk about afghan journalists, teachers, if that can extend to other afghans and those people -- we are getting veterans every day who was shot to death, and this veteran population is still doing the bulk of the work to not only try to evacuate, but also to try to raise money to get there on through what is going to be a brutal winter. these are people not getting a paycheck anymore from the government, the islamic republic of afghanistan. they cannot work. they cannot leave their homes. what is the scope of what you were going to be looking at with all of that, sir, and i'm curious how far you are going to go in that effort and thank you again. mr. sopko: that is an excellent question.

we will go as far end is broad and as wide as we can because we went to went to that question and i think congress wants to know. many people think we will look into what happens to women and girls, which is very important, because they are in a special category of having to deal with the taliban and losing a lot the little advances, some advances made over the last 20 years, but we are going to be looking at everybody who believed in democracy, rule of law, and what we thought we were doing in the, so journalists, film teams. i have gotten the call from many afghans and americans concerned, and i did not even know how broad and 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 in democracy. all of the prosecutors, cops, afghan special forces. there were a lot of ghosts in the afghan police and military. there were a lot of storages -- soldiers that never existed, but there were a lot of honest, brave afghans especially in their special forces, but in other units that fought, that fought hard and died and now they are all at risk. we have her numbers going to 60

think about it. you are a judge, female journalist, the u.s. busy is not helping anymore, nobody is. how do you get out? you need a passport? it was issuing the passports? the taliban, the same people you reported on or you thought -- fought. you need a visa. who are you going to go to ask for help? you have to go to a teller beneficial. it may have been an official he reported on. what about the poor businessman who reported to basically our bank regulatory agency or whatever. you reported on people who were sending money to the taliban.

the west got access to all of those files? the taliban. those people are left behind. it is a broad category of people who believed in what america was selling who are now stuck. that is a policy decision of what we do or do not do, but as a human being, and we got over 300 something people we are trying to get out, and it is a black hole. we are not doing anything, squat, crickets, and i'm sure many of you are hearing it too, and we will be looking at it. i do not know how long it is going to take, and it is very difficult because it is hard to reach out to these people because they are moving all of the time and they do not want to use phones, and god bless all of them that they get out safely

and add to the fact it is an economic disaster. next year at 93% of the afghan population will be below the poverty level. that is what the u.n. is protecting. fantastic 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 do not know but we will be looking at it, and i hope you all are too. do not forget the afghans left behind. >> i just want to give a word of thanks to everyone in this room who worked to get afghans to safety. thank you for everything that you did. if anyone has a question raise rent. i will check -- raise your hand. i will try to get to as many as possible.

>> [indiscernible] we fought 20 year worse. -- loris -- wars. when you are trying to assign responsibility for this they are already diffusing responsibility, but specifically for the problem, who is responsible for conducting 21 year worse? do you put the blame on congress, dignity, department of state because that seems to be the critical thing people point to as to why the overall -- failed. mr. sopko: that is a good question, and there is not one person, one administration, one entity in the government responsible, and if you read our report is the way we approach big efforts like this. we are not organized for, the

u.s. government, so i would go back to art lessons learned report. my whole team can give you the nuts on it anytime. i have made this reference before that when we sent people to afghanistan, there were not nefarious, stupid, lazy people. above and beyond, most of them were brave, smart, and eager to do the right thing, but what we gave them was a box of broken tools, and the broken tools just -- it is something we are dealing with the government right now with the v.a., hhs, dhs, 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 authorizing and appropriating cycle, our approach to the whole of government issue, and that is what you are faced with right here, and i would say, and i use a term not from my home state but a place where i hide all the time, maine, every difficult issue we face as americans is due to a whole of government problem and we are not designed for, equipped for dealing with all of government problems. think of any problem you are faced with. education, the economy, the

problem of health care, retirement, those deal with multiple federal agencies. nobody is in charge, so one of the problems of a 21 year war is nobody is in charge, and our staff is going up there from multiple agencies. congress, you have got multiple committees and subcommittees looking at the same issue, so what i am saying is read that report and focus on the whole of government issue. what if the classic examples is the opiate, it is not just police, it is health care. it is not just dhs, it is hhs, the v.a., every state and local, we do not have a way to handle those get -- yet. you take that whole of government problem and apply it

to the rest of the united states , so everybody as to sit back and think about how to better be prepared to handle these big, wickedly difficult whole of government issues, and afghanistan is just one of them. >> [indiscernible] >> i had a question -- i came in a little bit late, but i was wondering have you seen any sort of pressure to end. mission of sigar -- end the mission of sigar?

if you could duplicate sigar's mission and focus it on any dod effort anywhere in the world now where would you point out focus? >> -- mr. sopko: there are a lot of people in this town who do not like us and they would like us to going to the existence, and some have been dreaming about that at least since i took over 10 years ago, and that is ok. i geez -- ig's should not make friends, we should be as mean as junkyard dogs as president reagan said. nobody in town -- well, maybe i will see if you guys agree, i do not think there is anybody in town who picks up the phone and says, gee, the ig's are coming to see us, maybe some members of

congress. it is like the old joke, great, 60 minutes is coming to see us. what did i do? there are people who would like us to see us leave. we are going to go out of existence, and we should. i believe in temporary government agencies. when the mission is done, we should disappear, and congress gave us the hiring authority and firing at the ready to go out of existence, and i do not 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 do not know. however you call it, you have got to have an agency that looks like it, and i think we are probably one of the best because we have whole of government. we are the only ig that can look at any government agency operating in afghanistan.

at some point we will go out of existence. we have a lot of work right now. talk to me in a year, it may be time for us to go out of existence, i do not know. what was your second question? >> [indiscernible] and focus it on any part of the world where state departments are operating, what would that be? mr. sopko: that is a good question. i do not know, a special ig, and maybe we should do our final lessons learned report on what we have learned about special ig's. i personally think it was a good approach to afghanistan and a good approach to iraq. i do not know. you could create special ig's

for some of these wickedly difficult issues, like the opiate. ringing a special ig who will look at all of those issues, and i think that may be useful, but i have not thought about it. it is a good question. maybe when i retire i will write my novel on that, but i think it is a good idea, because again, every ig except us, and there are 70, it is 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 cannot see the whole of government. in response to that, congress has asked 14 or 15 various agencies to look at -- i believe it was at the covid issue, but when you have 14 or 15 different ig's looking it is difficult.

everyone has a different approach, different staffing, and i am not sure that is the way to go. if someone had asked me i would have created a special ig for covid but they did not, so that is where we are. >> mike with the washington examiner. during recent testimony on the hill you implored members of congress to hold people accountable for the war. even now you have described there is such a decentralization , what does that look like and who is there to hold accountable? mr. sopko: i think when you find a program that did not work you should bring up the person who pushed it and asked them to explain why. when we get all of these records, and as it turns out -- i do not know if it will, but if it turns out ambassador so and so was getting information that the taliban are going to be at the gates tomorrow and he does

not convey that information, i think we should ask ambassador so and so why didn't you? or he did convey the information and somebody up the chain never brief the president -- briefed the president, or people testified before congress on monday saying the sky is blue, and we know it was black, they should be asked to explain why. you all heard a lot of spending over the last 20 years. how many times have we heard one more year, we are turning the corner. ok, have you ever thought, after you get all the facts, 2016, general so and so justifies we are turning the corner, one more year, success. if he was giving reports up to

the date he testified that the sky is falling, it is over, those of the people who should be held accountable. someone should ask them, why did you testified to congress that x was going to happen and you knew darn well it did not. everybody should be held accountable for what they say and what they do, and i am not looking to put people in jail or harass them, but we have got to understand why did the system allow this? that is what i am interested in. why did they allow the spin to keep spinning? even though so many mid-level, high level who work in afghanistan said it is a failure . that is all i am trying to figure out. i am trying to figure out why did the system break down? i do not know.

maybe the presidents have never been told the truth about afghanistan. i do not know, i have never been in the room. feel like a play on hollywood, who was in the room? 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, hope is not a strategy. i do not care what people say. it is not a strategy. it does not work. you need facts, artifacts, provable facts. many times you cannot prove facts, you do not have the information, but our job is to see if there was a double information out there and how was it used? do not worry, i have all the

time in the world to answer questions. i know you have other important things today. >> i am jeff, thank you for taking the time with us and all of your work. in terms of the collapse of the afghan government and the fall of kabul there seems to have been some reports of afghan security forces when they saw the west leaving, the tenuous alliance, allegiance they had to the institution faded away quickly. do you think a chaotic, final withdrawal of troops was inevitable or do you think if these affect you inches -- evacuations started earlier we were not see what we saw over the summer? mr. sopko: that is an excellent question, and i do not have the answer for that. we are trying to figure that out . that is why is important. what did we in u.s. government

know, who knew it, and what if anything we did with it? this is all hypothetical. if i pathetically -- hypothetically officials were reporting the afghan government is going to collapse october 1, and that information was relayed back to washington in january, this is all hypothetical, nothing that specific, what did they do with that information and how did they prepare for it? that is obviously important, but i do not know the answer yet. >> [indiscernible] mr. sopko: i hate to stargze -- star days in afghanistan --

stargaze in afghanistan, particularly about bureaucracies. i think it was napoleon's do not use fearlessness to explain and competency. it may turn out -- incompetency. it may turn out that like everything in the government you do not have 100% certainty about the information you are getting. it is always -- it comes down to making a decision on sometimes inaccurate or inadequate information, and that is probably i am guessing, because that is life. you make decisions every day up on inadequate information whether you buy a house or a car go out to eat, come to this

meeting with or without a mask, you are making a decision based upon inadequate information but you make a risk-based analysis. >> [indiscernible] jim, if you could finish us off. >> i think we can all agree one of the most egregious things to come out of afghanistan was interacted with known child predators. the law called for ending support, ending funding for people who were known child rapist, and get the defense department, state department overruled those laws and continue funding regardless if it was a violation. what is the lesson we should learn from that? mr. sopko: i know you probably

know we did a whole report on the act. we were asked by 300 members in the congress and senate to look at his work, and how it was working in afghanistan. there and specifically there are always exemptions, ok? there is always a national security exemption to everything congress passes, which is probably good, but you should at least tell congress when you are using that national security exemption, and what we found out is that based upon an opinion but i think the general counsel of dod, is said you did not have to notify congress when you invoke that objection, because in the statute of every appropriations bill they always use of the term notwithstanding every other provision of law, ok?

so he focused on that and said that means we can ignore the act and do not have to tell congress we are applying to 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? ok, so human rights violations are actual national security concerns, just like corruption,

and that is what the take should be from afghanistan. why did the afghan government lose the support of its people if it ever had any? why do the afghan military lose the support of the afghan people if it ever had any? and why did the united states and coalition allies lose the support of the afghan people if we ever had any, and i think we did. it is become -- because we came -- we became associated with the works -- worst excesses of afghan culture, violating human rights, corruption, supporting people, really evil people and warlords, and then you add to that the indiscriminate use of bombing, nitrates, you name it -- night raids, you name it, and

i think it was an officer or ambassador who said every time we accidentally kill and afghan we just create 10 more taliban supporters. when you do the right thing, you do the right thing. and when you cozy up and kind of ignore the law and what is right , you bear the consequences, and i think one of the reasons it turned out -- this is a hunch, i am talking to afghans and many reporters 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, indiscriminate night raids, greatest, and support for the

most evil people in afghan culture who the taliban kicked out once before. so you asked the question, how did the taliban win? they have the support of the afghan people. they do not have magic weapons, drones, f-16s, but they had the support of the afghan people, and that is the question that we have to answer, why? >> thank you very much. would you like to make any closing remarks? mr. sopko: thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. just so you know for those who saw me speak without a mask, i have all of the shots in the world. i think this is still an important issue. let me 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 my 10 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. we need your help in doing what you have been doing so well over the last 10, 20, 30 years, so thank you so much. [applause] >> and our next panel is slated to begin at 11:15. please use this time to refresh yourself, take a stretch. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] ♪ announcer: c-span's "washington journal," every day taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you.

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