mission of sigar -- end the mission of sigar?f 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

sigar's twitter content was accessed 2.2 million times in august. i believe that demonstrates 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 of the over 2400 americans who lost their lives supporting the mission of anna stan step is to tell them why the effort to build a strong and sustainable afghan state failed so dramatically. in closing, it is up to all of us at sigar, in congress and the press to ask the questions that must be asked and cover the answers no matter how unpleasant they may be. i thank you and i look forward to your questions no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they may be, thank you. >> thank you and i know we have a lot of questions. you mentioned the defense department has made some information about the afghan military classified. this war has lasted 20 years, has it resulted in a generation of military leaders who can no longer tell the truth? >> i think there is a lot of military commanders who know how to t

sigar's twitter content was accessed 2.2 million times in august. i believe that demonstrates 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 of the over 2400 americans who lost their lives supporting the mission of anna stan step is to tell them why the effort to build a strong and sustainable afghan state failed so dramatically. in closing, it is up to all of us at sigar, in congress and the press to ask the questions that must be asked and cover the answers no matter how unpleasant they may be. i thank you and i look forward to your questions no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they may be, thank you. >> thank you and i know we have a lot of questions. you mentioned the defense department has made some information about the afghan military classified. this war has lasted 20 years, has it resulted in a generation of military leaders who can no longer tell the truth? >> i think there is a lot of military commanders who know how to t

since congress established sigar in 2008, we have publicly issued over 600 audits and 11 reports, -- and other reports, including 11 lessons learned reports in an attempt do just that. our work demonstrates that no single policy decision nor administration led to the failure of our reconstruction effort. rather, it was a series of decisions made over two decades that led us to this point. the scenes of the collapse in -- seeds of the collapse in afghanistan were sown well before the last 60 days. but the questions now are what could we have done differently, and what must we prepare to do differently in the future. for the sake of brevity, let me highlight just three key areas from our reports for your consideration. first, the u.s. government's inability to get the right people into the right jobs at the right time was one of the reconstruction mission's most significant failure. while the state department has statutory authority, for example, to lead security sector assistance efforts overseas, it does not have the personnel, expertise, or resources to do so. this left the defense

yet, sigar was forced to relegate all this information into classified annexes. >> nawaz: jane, what know about what was classified and why? >> one clue, amna, could be the end of 2019 "the washington post" report that was called the afghanistan papers where they had to take sigar to court under the freedom of information act to get that very information that had been classified. much of it buzz based around interviews with senior figures in the war who had actually given much more pessimistic views, much more pessimistic outlooks as to how the war was going compared with the statements that were being made by the department of defense and the pentagon. so the point was that, basically, mind the scenes,cy, sigar was gathering information that showed december sent as to how this war was going. that's an earned karat, but we also heard from sigar within this speech that essentially they're calling on -- that they've heard from the state department even after the fall of kabul for them to pull down information from online that's available to the public. so this is an ongoing row about w

but sigar has been putting out reports for ten years now about the cost.corruption, any issues surrounding accountability. so this most recent one laid out -- report has been laying out things like the fact that aircraft had to be destroyed at kabul airport before could be abandoned to make sure the taliban could not take over. all aircraft and armored vehicles had to be sabotaged on the way out, those that could not be flown out of the country. about 25% of the afghan air force planes themselves were flown out by pilots who were midair ring the takeover of the country, and in a country that is facing famine, you do feel the starkness of where money has been going. amna: there is another detail from that special inspector general, he had strong words in his speech directed at the permit of defense in the department of state, they said -- he said the honesty of the classify his reports after kabul well. >> but information almost certainly would have benefited congress and the public in assessing whether progress was being made in afghanistan and more import

questions that sigar has been tasked by congress to investigate, including the sudden collapse of the afghan government and security forces. at the request of your colleague, we will also be conducting an audit of the special immigrant visa program. i look forward to working with this subcommittee and members as we undertake these efforts, and i look forward to answering all the questions you have today. >> well, thank you for your testimony, mr. sopko, and i'll now recognize members for five minutes each. and pursuant to house rules, all time yielded is for the purposes of questioning our witnesses. because of the virtual format of the hearing, i'll recognize members from committee seniority, alternating between the majority and minority. i can only call on you if you're present with your video on. if you miss your turn, let our staff know and we'll circle back to you. if you seek recognition, you must unmute your microphone and address the chair verbally. i will start by recognizing myself for the first question. one common thread across sigar's work is how the department of defense