Transparency & Accountability in Americas Afghan
WarPresented by Project for the Study of the 21st CenturyWashington
DC21st July 2015Panel DiscussionJohn F. Sopko: Special Inspector
General for Afghan ReconstructionAndy Wright: Founding Editor, Just
SecurityChair:Ian Wallace: Senior Fellow, International Security
Program at New America
Wallace: Okay, everyone, lets get cracking. First of all, let me
introduce myself. My name is Ian Wallace. By day, I am a Senior
Fellow in the International Security Program at New America. But
today, Id like to welcome you here on behalf of the Project for the
Study of the 21st Century. Were having a discussion today on Afghan
Reconstruction, facts versus fancy. And this discussion, there are
few better people to be joined by than John Sopko, the Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and Andy Wright.
John, who was appointed as the Special Inspector General in 2012,
immediately prior to that he was a lawyer in private practice, but
hes had 30 years of experience of oversight investigation in
various different guises, from being an organized crime prosecutor
to being a Hill staffer on both Houses, and applies that to the
federal government. And, Andy himself has also done his time in DC
as a Staff Director on the Oversight Government Reform Committee of
the House, and as an Associate Council in President Obamas White
House, and as an Assistant Council in Vice President Gores office
during the Clinton administration. First question, just to get us
started. And I will, just to explain, Im going to ask a few
questions myself. Firstly, John, bringing Andy in for his expertise
on oversight. And then once weve had a little bit of a
conversation, Ill open it up to questions from people in the room
and indeed those who would like to tweet in their questions, and
well also have a chance to answer those questions. My first
question is really just to ask John, what does SIGAR do? Whats your
purpose, and how do you go about doing it?
Sopko: Thats a good question. Many that dont know, particularly
many people from foreign countries to really have an experience
with the Inspector General, particularly a Special Inspector
General, doesnt mean Im that qualified. They call me Special, but
its almost like the British Serious Crimes Office. Theres no
regular crimes, its all serious organized crimes, Serious Crimes
Office. Im an Inspector General, and as an Inspector General in the
United States, we have both criminal investigative powers, we can
make searches, arrests, issue warrants, et cetera. Plus, we have an
audit function. Whats unique about us, there are a couple of things
that are unique. First of all, were temporary. We go out of
existence when the amount of reconstruction assistance falls below
$250 million authorized appropriated that gets spent. Right now,
theres $15 billion in that bucket, so we should be around for a
while. The other thing that makes us special is that were not
housed in any government agency. Most Inspectors General are
located in a specific agency. Theres a DOD IG, a State Department
IG, AID IG. When Congress created this in 2008, it was because of
the immense and unique amount of money spent on reconstruction in
Afghanistan. More money has been spent on reconstruction in
Afghanistan than was spent on the Marshall Plan. Basically, the
largest reconstruction project that our government has ever
undertaken. Congress realized that the normal oversight mechanisms
would have been overwhelmed, so they wanted to create a Special
Inspector General looking at it. So, we are not housed in any
agency, we have the unique authority to look at any U.S. government
agency that spends money in Afghanistan on reconstruction. So,
whether its the Department of Defense, State, Aid, Agriculture,
Commerce, EPA, Energy, we can look at what goes to international
organizations, which is the U.N. and World Bank. So it makes us a
little unique.What also makes us unique is that we are the only
agency in the U.S. government empowered to look at, actually
required to look at, the whole-of-government approach. Because when
we look at reconstruction money from whichever source, we are also
looking at the whole of government approach to issues like
reconstruction. The reason I think this is important is as we
proceed with other operations, O co-operations, overseas
contingency operations, its going to be a whole-of-government
approach. All the U.S. government agencies will get involved.
Likewise, were now to look at cooperation with other governments.
So, we again, are the only little agencyand its only 200 of uswho
are required in and empowered to look at our cooperation with our
allies in Afghanistan. The reason I mention that is because of the
lessons we need to learn from the 13 years, or 14 years, weve been
in Afghanistan, are going to deal with how we worked with our
allies, and how we worked with the whole-of-government approach. So
thats us in a nutshell.
Wallace: That is a lot to keep you busy.
Sopko: Yes, it is.
Wallace: Youve just come back from Afghanistan, is that
right?
Sopko: Yes.
Wallace: The obvious question is, how is it going? And I mean
that, but in terms of the campaign itself, but also in terms of the
oversight. I imagine as things draw down, it gets tougher for you.
How confident are you in continuing to hold peoples toes to the
fire?
Sopko: Its hard to answer that question, and I almost feel like
Dickens, the Tale of Two Cities: its the best of times, and its the
worst of times. The worst of times, lets start with that, is that
the fighting season, were halfway into the fighting season. And its
been bloody, and the Afghan National Security Forces have been
bloodied. And the insurgency has taken the fight not only to Kabul
and other major cities, but its taken the fight all around the
country. The bad thing is that we still have a problem of
narcotics, still have a problem of corruption. We also have a
problem of waning interest by the allies, including the United
States, in continuing to support Afghanistan. And, the one thing I
can say for sure, and I can guarantee you this, is if we cut off
aid to Afghanistan, Afghanistan will fall. Simply because, you look
at the money, Afghanistan raises $2 billion a year. It costs $8 to
10 billion to keep that government afloat. That means paying for
the teachers, paying for the roads, paying for the clinics, and
paying for the military. So, thats the bad side, thats what worries
me. The security situation has deteriorated. Just three years ago,
I could travel around the country. Now, I cant even drive a mile
and a half from the embassy to the airport. I have to be flown back
and forth. And its not just me, not just me they want to kill. Its
basically anybody under the Chief of Mission.The best of times, and
the good part of it, is we have the new National Unity Government.
And, for the first time in 30 years, I am cautiously optimistic. As
a matter of fact, I think I was quoted recently saying, I am the
most optimistic Ive been in three years. Because we have a
government who really cares to do something about it. And they want
to fight corruption, they want to change the procurement system,
and make certain it isnt corrupt anymore. They want to do a lot of
things. The problem is, theyre a Unity Government, a very tenuous
hold on the situation there. They still dont have a Minister of
Defense, they still dont have an Attorney General, which is really
difficult when youre in the middle of the fighting season and you
dont have a Minister of Defense, and you want to fight corruption,
you dont have an Attorney General and all the other interesting
things you need. Im very pleased that Ive had the opportunity to
meet the President and CEO multiple times. My last trip I met both
of them, I actually sat in a four-hour long meeting, CEO and the
President, co-Chair, where they review nature contracts, which is
fantastic that theyre doing that, although it slows the process
down, obviously. Like President Obama and Joe Biden would have to
sit down and review every U.S. government contract, you could
imagine, it does slow the process down and that causes some
concern. But, theyre spending four hours every week going over
major contracts because they are concerned about the procurement
process. And that, on the one hand makes me real optimistic. And
Ill cite one more exampleI dont want to filibuster the answerbut,
one thing Id like to cite is an example of the change. In January,
my staff, my investigators in Kabul, or in Afghanistanbecause the
number of cities, we have 40-some people in the countryuncovered a
conspiracy to basically fix the price on a billion-dollar fuel
contract that the Afghanistan government was going to lend. We
actually had information about where the contractors met in Dubai,
and the hotel room where they connived to fix price, to elevate the
price of the contract by over 200 million USD. We uncovered that
information, and in the past, we would have nowhere to take it.
Now, we would take it to the prior regime, and they werent
interested in doing anything about it. In this case, we took that
information which we had developed, took it to General Campbell and
his team in Resolute Support, which is the high staff equivalent.
They were outraged, they wanted to do something, they took it to
the Palace with my investigators. Ghani and Abdullah wanted to do
something about it. They stopped the contract, they fired the
generals, and they opened an investigation. Now, that is
significant. We have never been able to get that type of response
before. But, here we have an administration that wants to fix this,
and actually did, they had the investigation, and my people briefed
them. And on top of that, they started sharing information of other
suspicious contracts that they had, and we had, and wed been
working with the Unity Government, with the Palace on a number of
issues. To me, thats extremely positive, and we hope it continues.
So, thats why Im sort of, the worst of times, the best of times,
but overall, I am cautiously optimistic.
Wallace: Im going to dig a little bit more into how SIGAR does
its business, and Im going to bring that up in a moment. Just
before that, in your latest quarterly report, you wrote a letter
where you make that example. You also included in there your
concerns, one of which being the quality and accountability of the
Afghan National Security Forces. Thats going to be key to the
success of the Afghan government. How confident are you that the
$62 billion that theyre investing into this is going to give
Afghanistan the force that it needs?
Sopko: Well, Im an Inspector General by nature, we trust but
verify. The Afghan army and the police are holding their own. Its
very bloody. But, we dont know how many Afghan police and military
there are. We dont have theby we, I mean the U.S. governmentthats
what our reports talking about, we were concerned about ghost
police, ghost soldiers, because there is no database, we have no
knowledge. And to be quite honest with you, I was warned about this
by President Ghani before he became president. He was concerned
about it, that we dont really know whats going on. We also know
they have a problem with logistics, and a problem with the tailend,
the backend of war-fighting. They can fight, the question is where
to get the bullets, the boots, the other weapons, and all of that
can get there. I can only tell you, time will tell. Well see what
happens. Were halfway through the fighting season, its not over.
Its not going to be over until October or November, although some
people say the fighting will no longer end like it used to because
last, when I was there I think in January, speaking with the Afghan
General who ran a hostel down in Kandahar where they have soldiers,
and he actually told me at that time that he had more causalities
in the winter than he did in the summer. So, there used to be a
direct, you could tell the difference when the fighting season
ended, everybody went back over the mountain passes. Apparently
now, and again Im not an expert on war-fighting, but Ive been told
by a number of people who are, that theyre staying, theyre not
going back, so the fighting continues, and thats extremely
worrisome to the Afghans, as well as the U.S., and the
coalition.
Wallace: We will come back to that. We have with us Andy here, a
student of oversight. SIGARs been running since 2008, there was in
fact an IG, a Special IG, in Iraq and a tradition of the Inspector
General before that. How important is the work that SIGAR does, and
how well supported do you think is it within the wider U.S.
community?
Wright: Well, you know, having been there when we were working
in Congress at the time, we were trying to pass SIGAR authorities.
I think its hugely important, especially when war-fighting has
become, you know the watchwords of the government approach using
all the implements of national power, and the idea that you can
have sort of a jurisdictionally, geographically-based visibility
into all the different pieces that are important together, or not
well together, as the case may be, is essential to future success.
So I think the lessons we learned from that, and I worked for an
oversight committee that also had inter-agency jurisdiction, and so
I, you know, sort of watched this problem with the stove-piping
habit in the executive branch, and the stove-piping habit in the
congressional committee structure, et cetera. And I think SIGAR
really helps give us a better window into whats happening. I think,
you know, youre always going to have sort of jurisdictional
tug-of-war between agency IGEs and Special Inspector Generals that
maybe have some concurrent authorities over certain types of
things. But I think, overall, the work that SIGAR did, really
established this model in some ways well, and I think it can
improve upon SIGAR, and especially since John took over, its been
under incredibly solid leadership. So I think its established
itself as a valuable tool going forward, if that makes sense.
Wallace: How does your relationships work with other IGs, or
departments that are involved?
Sopko: Well, we have coordinating mechanisms, which have worked
and continued to work up until now, where we de-conflict on audits,
so we dont audit the same things, sort of divide the world up. And
we dont, we also de-conflict on investigations. We coordinate that
with all the other investigative bodies, including the FBI, when we
have an interest in there. So, it works quite well. What is a bit
confusing now, is because, as many of you may have read, there was
a statute passed where they had lead IGs but only lead IGs for
State, AID and DOD on contingency operations. And to the surprise
of everybody, DOD decided to set up this lead IG in Afghanistan,
which I think Senator McCaskill, who wrote the bill, said that
wasnt the intent. And thats caused a bit of confusion because the
lead IG from State, AID, DOD, you know, it doesnt really affect us
too much, but its caused a little bit of confusion. And again, this
isnt, its just the reality of the situation .With the other
contingencies, back in Iraq and in Syria, Ebola even is a
contingency, you have other IG needs and demands. So, whats turning
out is, were it basically in Afghanistan, to a great extent. And
this isnt meant as a criticism, its just that the other IGs have
other duties, which is understandable, I think thats why they
created SIGAR because, you know, well do Afghanistan, and we have
people there to do the things that will continue. And a key element
of that is the ability to have people in-country who have that
expertise, particularly if they can move around and get
information. We get a lot of leads by being in-country. And,
ironically, I think were better known by the Afghans, they know
what SIGAR is
Sopko: We get a lot of stuff from the Afghans who, obviously,
have an interest in protecting their money, which is partially
provided by us. So, its good to have that presence there. Im not
absolutely certain it works when you have people coming in on TDY.
Who come in for five days and maybe come in for thirty or forty
days. You really need people who are there. Were one of the few
agencies where our people serve at least two years in country. Some
are three years.
Wallace: How many people do you have in country?
Sopko: We have about forty in country and about two hundred in
total. We have a lot of people coming back TDY. It really is key.
The Afghans know that and appreciate it. When they see a colonel
come in and sixty days later another colonel comes in, or they see
an AID officer and ninety days later somebody else comes in, they
know theyre getting the run-around. They really want somebody who
is going to be there for a while. By the time a guy knows where the
DFAC is, thats where you eat, and the latrine, an in the embassy
where the duck-and-cover is, as soon as he learns those three
things, hes gone.
Wright: Isnt that also a challenge for the subjects of your
oversight? The lack of continuity on projects and the formal
deployments of soldiers?
Sopko: Absolutely. Youre right on. People who want to steal know
that. Weve actually talked to people who are over in Afghanistan
and the crooked contractor or sub-contractor knows that the
contracting officer or contracting officers rep in in for sixty or
ninety days so hell wait until that guy leaves and a new guy comes
who has no idea what he signs off. They can play the game. Thats
why you need continuity. You need somebody over there who knows,
well we already built a bridge over that town. Why am I building a
second one? Which never existed. Or building a clinic. We already
built one. I was here. But, if youre only there every sixty days,
or ninety days, or six months or whatever, you dont really
appreciate Afghanistan, I think, to work there. I think that
applies to any contingency.
Wallace: That is a nice segue into just taking a step back and
looking at the campaign with the benefits of this institutional
experience that the organization brings with it. What would you say
have been the reconstruction successes and the flip of that is
where do you think mistakes were made?
Sopko: I cant say a particular program was a success or not a
success. Obviously, there has been a lot of success. There are more
kids going to school. Healthcare is improved. Fewer women are dying
in childbirth. The big question is: Could we have done more with
less? Thats the issue we face. I think if you want to look at
programs in general, they are more likely to succeed if they meet
our strategic goals, the Afghans know about the program and want
the program, there is buy-in from the community, you build the
program that in coordinated, not only inside the U.S. government,
but also with our allies. Make certain you arent building a bridge
that the Italians are building or the Japanese are building, or if
youre not going to build a bridge, dont let the Italians just come
in, you know. Make certain the program is designed to take into
consideration sustainability. Why build something if the Afghans
cant sustain it? We have instances of that all the time. I just met
with the Minister of Health. We were talking about one clinic that
the fuel consumption in the new clinic is equal to his entire
provincial healthcare budget. He basically said, What am I going to
do with it? Another example talking about coordination is the
Health Minister was talking about the NGOs operating in Afghanistan
and said, I dont even know what some are doing in the provinces. So
there is a little lack of coordination. Hes an honest guy. Hes
trying to do his best. How is he going to maintain and sustain
things if he doesnt even know where they are and what they are?
Because those NGOs are leaving and theyre going to turn over the
facility to the Afghan Minister and he has no budget to sustain and
maintain that. The other thing you have to consider is corruption.
You have to build program that realize were not in Norway. Were in
Afghanistan: a country that has been racked with thirty years where
we opened up the spigots and poured millions of dollars and totally
distorted the economy. So design programs that take that into
consideration. I remember Ghani telling me, Everybody thinks this
is cultural corruption. When I was in New York, I remember a Brinks
armored truck collided, went over, the doors opened and money fell
out, fell from the sky. A whole bunch of New Yorkers went and
picked it up. Does that mean New Yorkers are corrupt? When money
falls from the sky, you grab it. As a matter of fact, I think I saw
in the New York Times that there was another incident where a truck
fell over and now you have forty eight hours to return the money or
theyre going to indict you. Success is more likely to happen if we
dont pour too much money in that we totally destroy and distort the
system.
Wright: Id like to follow up on that. We wrote the Warlord, Inc.
report that was about protection payments for the fuel trucks and
other trucks going through Afghanistan to the military outposts. It
was a four billion dollar contract. One of the things we found was
this distortion effect. If youre the commander of a Marine outpost,
and the food is showing up on time fairly consistently, they didnt
want to hear that $3,000 got paid along the way to get that truck
to the forward operating position. When you think about a place
that has had forty years of war-torn economic stagnation and
subsistence sales and things, thats a huge amount of money that
washing along the system. One of the things we learned was that, in
counterinsurgency, the supply lines are the front lines. In a
system that was working fairly well with delivering services, you
still had a massive distortion of the economic incentives just
along the road that you were sending the trucks. This goes toward
the scale point that John is making.
Wallace: This goes to the core of the long-term implications of
your work. Its one thing to observe the challenges. Its another to
investigate the corruption as its happening. The real challenge is
to try to institutionalize these lessons so that the next time this
happens, and it surely will in one form or another, we're not
wasting resources and money and even lives that come from that. How
do those lesson get institutionalized? Thats a lesson for both of
you. How confident are you that the theory is happening in
practice?
Sopko: Thats the $60,000 question. In Afghanistan, the
140,000,000 question. The military does lessons learned all the
time. Theyre used to that. Theyve been doing that since the first
inspector general probably come over from Germany, von Steuben and
convinced George Washington that he needed an inspectors general.
The military has a history of culture after every event, and its
the same in England and any other military body, you always do an
after-action report which explains what happens and sometimes makes
recommendations about how not to get the platoon killed. Do this
next time. Dont go straight up the middle. Go around. The military
does those. Civilian agencies dont, normally. If they do, its a
rarity. I think we talked to USAID to see if they were doing
lessons learned and they didnt really know what they were and if
they did, they werent sharing them. State Department, however, has
a new program, and I must say its fantastic. They are doing a real
honest-to-God lessons learned program, not just in Afghanistan, but
on the entire world. Its tied into, and this is the key, youre
educational program, youre training, and its got to become
doctrine. The military is used to doing that and they have a whole
process. Its not a pretty process, but they take the lessons
observed and then they coordinate and try to get buy-in and put it
into doctrine. Training and Doctrine Command out in Fort Monroe is
very good about that. NATO does that. Working with NATO, theyre
trying to build integrity and work it in. Its a very long involved
process. State Departments just starting that and actually the
woman who is running that is used to be in Afghanistan for about
four years and did a number of tours there, Karen Decker. Ive used
to get the chance to talk to her and I encourage everybody to
support that type of approach. Theyre trying to take the lessons
observed, put it in to training, and then it becomes lessons
learned. What General Allen told me, we had breakfast about a year
ago, John, he says, thats great. The military will do it. We may
even do something purple, among all the military branches. No one
is doing it doing it between State, AID, and DoD. No one is looking
at State, AID, or DoD in the international community. He said,
Youre the only agency with the statute to do that. Thats one reason
why were doing this, because General Allen encouraged it. If were
doing a good job, and I dont know if were going to do a good job.
Ive hired a good team, some smart people. Some of you may know
them: some come from AID, come from State, some from DoD. Were
putting them together and are going to come out with a series of
discreet reports: Lessons Learned from Afghanistan. Its going to
deal with corruption. Were going to deal with procurement. Were
going to deal with narcotics. Were going to deal with planning and
strategy. Coordination and cooperation. What are the lessons we
have learned from that thirteen year experience. I hope it works. I
think thats the biggest legacy, the best legacy, of my little
agency. If we can come up with these reports and people will
actually adopt them and accept them. I dont know if its going to
happen. We can only try.
Wallace: Are we doomed to repeat the failures of the past
thirteen years or do you think some of the lessons could have
become embedded in a way that makes a difference.
Wright: I think we certainly learned from our mistakes. With
some of them, the problem are kind of intractable. Sustainability
problems are hard to overcome. For example, take the Afghan
National Security Forces. That seems like a really good policy
option for a country that is trying to reduce its military
footprint, but when you think about police, think about what they
do. They arrest people. You have to have all the other rule-of-law
sustainability things: detention facilities, detention and
correctional officers. You have to have some sort of deposition
system for them, a court system. Some of the sustainability
problems are going to be intractable whenever we get into a
nation-building exercise. There are other ones we can do. I think
we can do all sorts of accountability things: trying to do early
census activity, GPS tracking stuff for project sites, and
biometric stuff. As that gets more cost effective, getting a census
of the population early so we have some sort of identification and
get a handle on the numbers. Subcontractor visibility for the U.S.
government, I think, is a critical thing. You cant have this old
model where you hire a prime contractor and they deal with the
subcontractors so we dont have to mess with them. In an environment
like this, I think its very important for us to learn how to have
better visibility of who is involved with these entities and
subcontracted entities. Who are the personnel? Is it foreign
governments who are infiltrating that or people that may not share
our strategic interests or tactical interests? There is definitely
some stuff that we could learn and take away and take to the bank
coming out of this.
Sopko: Can I just add one thing to lesson learned and lesson
observed? Many of the problems were identifying are not new. I
think you indicated that. Actually, theyre real old. I used to work
for former Senator Sam Nunn for fifteen years and I remember
talking to him and asked, Senator, what do I have here? It seems
like I have a tiger by the tail. He said, Lets bring the kitchen
cabinet back together again and so John Hamre from CSIS, Arnold
Punaro, all those guys together. We chatted and he brought in a
couple of people from the Pentagon and a couple of former
colleagues on the Hill, including a couple of comptroller generals.
Arnold reminded me. He said, Everything youve identified has
already been on high-risk lists for years. This is a list of
dangerous, risky government activities that the GAO started in
1991. DoD procurement has been on that list and there are a bunch
of other things. What were identifying in Afghanistan are problems
the GAO, the Hill, other IGs have identified for twenty or thirty
years. The problems of rotation of troops has been a problem in the
U.S. government since the Korean War. Some would say even going to
WWII. The problems of not having a dedicated procurement corps, I
recall, going back to the days of Ronald Raegan. I thought we fixed
that. Nunn, Goldwater-Nichols, all those senators said that we
needed to have a dedicated national procurement corps in the
military. We actually created one. Where you could go in and
advance through your career in procurement. You became an expert in
procurement. Over the years, they disappeared. Thats what you got.
The contracting officers reps were created at that time, but now,
some buck private or some sergeant whose main job is to kill people
and then is told, Oh by the way, youre the contracting officers
expert on electricity or plumbing, or hydroelectric. He doesnt know
what hes doing, but he has to sign these forms. A contractor will
come up and say, Here, just sign right here. And dont worry, the
last guy was a crook. Dont listen to him. Thats the problem. Those
problems have been identified for years. People think Im negative.
Im always the supreme optimist. I hope we can do it. But, realize
what were up against. I will say this to all of you. Im making a
pitch here. Where are the only agency who doesnt have to get our
recommendation cleared by the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of
State or AID, or OMB. There are many many many good ideas, good
suggestions that have come out of all those government agencies who
have been quashed by the internal politics of each agency. I got a
really good briefing by AID people who came up a way to fix the
whole HR problem, but it never got out of the building. Ive talked
to people at State who have come up with a great idea to do this.
Never got cleared by the inter-agency process. I offer to you, any
of you, who are interested, or have friends who are contractors or
subcontractors, or worked in the military, who have good ideas:
were open for business. Send them our way. Im making my little
pitch here. We are the only little agency, the little agency that
could with 200 people, who can take those ideas, trust but verify,
Im a Reaganite to some extent, and see if we can get by them. Were
looking for good ideas. Just like were looking for a few good
analysts to help us in this thing. Thats the unique thing about
SIGAR. No one else has this. Actually the Europeans are very
interested in what we can produce, because they've got the same
problem of stone piping. It's just the way the system works and
this is what makes it difficult.
Wright: One just quick follow up. The role of IGs is this
independence of IGs and how much independence is there. You know,
there's both this sort of concern about the criticism of your
policies and that can create, you can react to that two ways as a
commander or a leader. You can either sort of accept it, and try to
improve your program and work constructively, or you can say we
don't want to hear that story because it's getting in the way of
what we want to do. The other thing though, is there is a little
bit of a strange relationship, having worked in the White House
counsel's office, with the IGs and in between agencies because
there is a concern at OLC. Obviously, people at the department of
Justice That on one hand there is a recognition of independence for
IGs, but there is a concern that there is a sort of Congress is
trying to use IGs as a back door to get information that the
executive branch might consider a certain privilege over, a way to
open investigative files and agree with the IG. But, maybe other
underlying information that you know they find as a deliberate
executive branch in congress wanted and they think that if they
squeeze IG hard enough that information will come out. So
independence I think is incredibly important and you don't want to
see good ideas getting squashed and it's good that cigar has that,
but I just want to point out sometime the reason are a little bit
resistant to giving information to IGs is because they are
concerned about the position IGs are when they have the hot potato
in their hand and that's a very tough way to be wedged in between
two political branches and IG and maintain that sort of workmen
like professional
Wallace: 21st century example is where it is making it easily
spread. The fact that you are fighting against and have access to
try.
Sopko: Well yeah, but what we're talking about in procurement. I
doubt, I remember somebody telling me, criticizing me for some of
the reports and he said well I don't think some terrorist is
sitting in some cave reading the latest GAO or cigar report to try
to determine how to attack the procurement system. You know, so I'm
not worried about that. If its classified we don't release it for
sure. If it's sensitive information that could harm anybody we
don't release it. If it's information that otherwise violates law,
like personal privacy information we don't release it. But, if its
not one of those three we believe in, I believe in transparency to
the American people have a right to know how their money is being
spent and Congress has a right to know. So you print those reports,
you publish them and if they are worth publishing, they are worth
publicizing. And my massive public relations team, of two people,
will get the message. I had an open mic presentation at the embassy
last time I was there. It was very nice about 60-70 people in the
audience and I remember somebody saying well why do you have to
publish things and I said well why not. What's wrong with telling
the truth? You have to speak the truth. That's what IGs do. I said
remember many times when we send the letter we're basically
identifying a problem that we're not going to have time to look at,
but its a shot across the bow and you're more likely to have a
secretary, an undersecretary, or a member of congress read the
front page in the Washington Post or in the New York Times and say,
Hey, what's going on here? I think a classic example is promote. It
goes that you follow Afghanistan to promote program. Its a very
worthy cause to helping women in Afghanistan who need all the help
we can give them. Our initial briefings from AID is we had no idea
they had to work hard. I went through a number of briefings and my
staff did. Look, I may not be the brightest guy in the world, but
as you know I went to an Ivy League school, I was a lawyer, you
know, I didnt come out from under a rock. You know, speak to me in
English and I usually understand what you're talking about. I
walked away from reading and I had no idea what the heck was
happening. Great idea, again we're concerned about the ability to
implement. This is a very big program. $250 million US, potential
200 million from our allies. I went to talk to our allies and I
said you guys know you don't need 200 million. I went to the
ambassadors and they said, What? No one ever approached us. So, we
had some concerns and we talked to some people in aid who had
concerns and we talked to some people in state who had some
concerns and we talked to a lot of Afghans who had concerns. We
brought those concerns together trust and verified and sent the
letter to the aid administrator and said look we have some
concerns. Now I've been told since we sent that letter, which is
public, the program is improving. Now we may not be able to revisit
that for a while. I got only a few people and not much time and a
lot of things to look at, but we think we assisted aid by raising
senior political officials in the administration concerns that,
probably were buried because they were off message in the house and
state and that's part of my job is to take valid concerns and
elevate it. How many people have bosses who never want to hear a
bad thing? Or how many people have bosses who if you bring
something bad back to him you're going to get fired? Now Im the guy
who brings the bad news to your boss and usually its congress or
the New York Times that gets someone to fix it. Thats the role of
the IG.
Wallace: One quick and then Im going to open it up.
Wright: One thing I want to comment on is I was reading,
prepping some articles about things and there was some quotes that
criticized him for being blunt. I thought his tone was right on.
You know, I love that the government accountability office does.
But, I sat through countless meetings with them. You could predict
what the headlines is going to be, you know, progress made on all
these issues and you know there is a very sort of antiseptic wedge
that is used by GA reports and members of congress in that
situation was elevated, being the political elite. Now its
necessary to get people's attention in the executive branch. But, I
feel like when you're in IG it's important to not spill over into
the policy decision space of the elected folks but, to be able to
breathe life into these stories. To be able to call something big
big. Not just have sort of mind-numbing numbers but say, you know,
this is material, this is big. Use some language that is relatable
to people. So, I think that's a really good, a good tone to come
out with.
Wallace: we might come back to whether cigars is the future of
oversight. There's a lot of expertise in this room and I want to
give people a chance to ask some questions. Theres also some people
online if you want to tweet in we can put those up as well. I'll
take 2 questions and then we'll get to them. Here and then
here.
Question 1: Don Brooks, formerly with the national stability
operations association representing a lot of the contractors that
you write about. From the contractors perspective the big, we look
at the waste fraud and abuse by far are the biggest issues we're
going to waste them and they see it all the time, you mentioned all
this stuff. Duplication services, building facilities, I know they
are not able to maintain according to US standards. Stuff that
there's no way for them to be able to maintain or argue about. The
problem from a contractors perspective is you never criticize your
client. The last thing you ever do is make a bad report saying this
is pointless, or worthless, or whatever because you'll never get
another contract and it's only game some way that make sure that
your company loses the game. Is there any way to get around
that?
Sopko: Actually, just talk to us. I mean we've done that. I did
meet with a contracting organization, I remember meeting with and
saying go call your members at your trade association, what are the
issues. We gave in and it wasn't you know criminal. But, they were
dead against it. Many of our best audits have come from contractors
who have talked to my people, met my people, or I meet them here
and they say, Oh man, this is ridiculous! You should see what we
had to do. You should see what we had to do in this book. I mean it
was a contractor who came to me and said you're building roads to
U.S. specs or European specs, but those assume you have weight
restrictions that are enforced. You know in Afghanistan you will
never see a truck that's underway. So what do you think happens and
then there was another contractor who chimed in and said well what
do you think the New jersey turnpike would look like after six
months if there were no weight restrictions and you start blowing
up roads and you also had no maintenance way. What do you think is
going to happen? I asked him a question. Why don't roads fall
apart? And the guy said the contractors are doing what they are
told. But, they don't take into consideration where their
doing.
Wallace: I mean is there an institutional answer to that
question though? If the answer is simply talk to the IG, that
strikes me as building a failure in the long term.
Sopko: No it isn't. I think that's actually a way to try not to.
I talked to the Afghans, we'll carry the big stick for you. You
speak softly. It's the old Teddy Roosevelt thing. And that's why
Ghani and Abdula, they're using that. Our audits, our reports to
beat up their own ministers. They dont have to. They'll just say
the cigar found this, what are you going to do? You know he's going
to go to the hill. You have to do something. You know, I'm happy to
be used for that and I have contractors. That is part of our job as
inspector generals, but we have to listen to you. We have to go out
and talk to you. I don't want to toot my own horn, but my staff
goes out listens to contractors. I joke about contractors. Everyone
blames the problem on the contractors. 90% of the time the
contractors are just carrying out a dumb contract. It's not their
job to say this makes no sense. Okay, we are kind of putting the
onus on them. You know I gave a speech once and I said contracting
out is always criticized, but is you look at that famous picture, I
don't know who its by, of George Washington crossing the Delaware,
the guys rowing Washington were probably contractors. So it goes
back to the earliest part of our republic. So I agree with you, 100
percent and if your constituents have issues they want to talk
through, we can get anonymity, unless they've murdered somebody. We
may not turn a blind eye to that. But, that's how we get a hold on
a lot of the information. Question 2: I'm a visiting scholar from
John Hopkins Political Science, as someone who co-ordinated donors
and have been in Afghanistan for several years, would you say you
have someone that can tape things and listen is a good step forward
because I remember at the beginning of the previous government also
there were some steps which was similar, but they were never
institutionalized into the systems. So, the systems were just
falling short. What's your view about that? How do institutionalize
in the presence of people who do not have time to that? The second
thing is that there is a new government strategy about pushing
people to work in the budgets. So the USAID and the UN aren't the
only donors, so that is the oversight arrangement that given the
capacity of governments saying that there is a great range even in
Afghanistan now we can make a capacity for it. So that's something,
I don't know if its in your recorder how you would like to touch
base in that.The third thing is one of the challenges that
Afghanistan has had is the co-ordination within itself. You talked
about a holistic approach. The government has its own approach for
the procurement law which its government has its own laws. There's
lack of synergy and challenges that adds to the challenge of the
government, the government has a limited capacity. How does that
update your work of over sighting in Afghanistan?
Sopko: I got 4 questions here, so let me talk about
institutionalizing reforms. Obviously, the new Unity Government or
National Unity Government needs to institutionalize these reforms.
It's going to take help, we will help. We're working closely with
CSTCA, which is the combined security transition command -
Afghanistan. General Semonite and his team are trying to
institutionalize some of these reports. I think its a difficult
task, I am not certain they are going to be able to do it in time.
You know, we are trying to do things in eighteen months. That's
before the troops go down, we haven't done it in fifteen years and
its tragic in a way, we now have a government that's very
interested and very eager to do these things and we have a time
constraint. So, I have no guarantee. We just hope that we can
institutionalize reforms.
On budget assistance, yes President Ghani is very insistent on
budget assistance. The whole debate when we were talking about UNDP
and their run in with WAFPA, we're the ones who figured out that
WAFPA wasn't doing a good oversight job, but as bad as the UN was,
it was better than the ministry of interior, so we made it clear in
the testimony that we thought it was very risky to kick WAFPA out.
Reform WAFPA and give time for capacity building inside the
ministry of interior. The ministry of interior has a lot of
problems and we have very great concerns whether they can handle
that money without capacity building. We're glad to see that I
think an agreement is coming, and I think that's going to be in
every eighteen months. You went out, but I think they just signed
an agreement, if I'm not mistaken, recently. It's going to be an
eighteen month project, process to remove the UN and have ministry
of interior take over and I think there is a number of conditions
that the Afghan Ministry has to meet and we're glad to see that.
We're strong believers in conditionality and actually I should tell
you our next quarterly report I gave my two colleagues here copies
of last quarterly report. At the end of this month we have the new
one coming out and there's usually a theme to it. The theme is
conditionality. I think you had talked about capacity building. I
talked about that, we need to develop the capacity of the
Afghans.
Donor co-ordination is a big issue. It's not the U.S. that lacks
co-ordination, but the donors don't always co-ordinate very well
and that really overwhelms the Afghans, when every donor has a
different kind of conditionality, a different kind of requirement
and all of that. You know the poor Afghans are drowning in
requirements. So you should try and harmonize all the votes, but
I'm not certain it's going to happen anytime in the near
future.
Wallace: That's a bigger question. So is there something that
could come back?
Sopko: I haven't looked at outside. My jurisdiction is
Afghanistan. Maybe my colleague can speak about that. But, I've
heard people tell me it's a problem in other contingency
operations.
Wallace: have any of the lessons you have sorted in Afghanistan
have led to changes in their approach to co-ordination?
Sopko: I don't know, I can't speak to that. I think that some of
the things that we have harped on and read about and written about
in our report have resulted in affirmative changes for the better.
I think this whole issue of conditionality, originally I think
everyone kind of concluded we can't do it, but CSTCA really turned
around and its a better track. If you read our current report, we
interview General Semonite in the end and he talks about how very
few conditions, DOD had for years and years and years, well till I
came on board and started beating that drum all of a sudden they
got tons of conditions now and the new Unity Government, specially
President Ghani says I believe in conditionality and he will accept
reasonable conditions. He sounds like, you know knock on wood, that
he's going to make certain areas his ministry's area. We have seen
some improvement on donor co-ordination and that I'm not certain I
can speak about.
Wallace: More questions, I encourage people to ask quick
questions so that we can go around. So we will go around in a
circle, start at the far end please.
Audience Question: Thank you, Mr. Inspector General, my name is
Im an Afghan. So the Afghan quote that we have a shaky report in
this will be really important for the accountability and of course
the facility Afghan government, however on the other hand, do you
not think focusing on this negative narrative will really put at
risk the overall mission and will also cause problems for the
Afghans? Like now you see significant number of Afghans are leaving
because of, definitely because of growing insecurity, but also
because of this report that is clearly concerned. You mentioned
some of the positive stories, I mean its not really the time to
focus on some of these practices and share them with the Afghans,
instead of really making media headlines and kind of publicizing
this negative finding.
Sopko: Do you really think people are leaving Afghanistan
because of one of my audit reports?
Audience: Its hard really to answer, I mean its definitely
people are getting concerned
Sopko: Every Afghan Ive talked to knows about the corruption.
Every Afghan Ive talked to knows about the bridges that fall down,
the schools that are abandoned, the money thats been wasted. The
Afghans know about these problems. They know real well. The only
people that dont know about these problems are Congress. I work for
the US people, they have a right to know. I really dont believe,
this goes back to the thing, I dont think Osama bin Laden was
hiding in a cave reading GAO reports and SIGAR reports. The Afghans
need to know more about how their government works and I apologize
if Im being blunt on this, but, if you look at my statute, there is
nothing in this statute that says I report on whats good and happy.
My brief, and you as a British citizen will know, every lawyer gets
a brief, talks about I have to inform the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of Defense and the Congress about problems and
deficiencies. This is my authorizing statute, I also have the 78
Act. I dare any one of you to read it and see where Im supposed to
report successes. I dont report successes. The USAID has 60-some
people in their PR shop, they should be recording successes, State
Department has the same number, the Pentagon could probably balance
their budget by firing all their PR people. They should be talking
about the positives, its not my job. Clearly, there have been
successes there. But you are saying that the SIGAR should be
recording successes? You know why I control, I would say control,
why I have so many people read out reports and publish them? And I
think many of you are reporters here. Were one of the few agencies
who dont gloss over things, who dont spin things, we tell it like
we see it. And I think theres a role for somebody there, and my
little agency has that role its not to do happy talk. Happy talk is
not going to win the war in Afghanistan. Balloons and kites are not
going to win the war in Afghanistan. Happy talk, if anything, is
going to lose Afghanistan. Reality is what the Afghan people want
and demand. And I think the new Unity Government is providing that
reality and Im glad about that. Im sorry but I have to disagree
with you. Its not my job to do positive press in Afghanistan. Now,
where we find successes we actually issued some audits this week
and we found successes - where we find them we will report them,
when we do an audit we dont deep six the audit or inspection, well
report it, but thats not my job. And in our country, I gotta follow
the law. Im a strong supporter of the mission, but Ive gotta follow
what my brief was from the President of the United States.
Wallace: (to audience) Im going to cut you off, by all means
come and talk to John after we finish but I want to give everyone a
chance to ask a question, and in order to do that Im going to group
the questions, so Im going to take three questions, so short quick
questions.
Question 1: Im from Afghanistan, thank you for your support, if
you look at 2008 to now we see the changes because of the report,
but my question is about you talked about the political world that
you see in the government on the Unity Government side, and just a
few days or weeks back, there was a report about the ghost schools.
We havent seen any action against that now from the government
side, so the question will be in the trust that we have or the
Unity Government, if they have the political will to implement or
actually prosecute those who are involved in those corruptions? And
also another question, will you give the number of your staff in
Afghanistan?
Question 2: Im James Bruton thank you very much for your talk.
In post conflict settings, civilization settings for a lot of
diplomatic corps even the word corruption is very sensitive and
they want to back off of it for the sake of stability. At a
previous talk I sawfrom a senior State Department official, he was
suggesting that the DOJ is actually an effective tool to attack
corruption because it is technical. It sounds like what youre
saying going through SIGAR to get the facts and then report that to
say well were a technical organization we have a mandate I a way to
broach that. Do you have any recommendations that that might be a
way to broach a corruption and instability situation, or is there
advice you would have, based on your experience, that we should be
more tactical in training for these solutions?
Question 3: Good evening everyone, Im from Voice of America so
youve been working in Afghanistan ever since 2008, but a lot of
people in Afghanistan only came to know about SIGAR after you
released your latest audit report that said around 700 million
dollars had been embezzled on ghost schools in the ministry of
education. A lot of people are saying operating simultaneously with
the various projects, maybe we have had less money being embezzled,
maybe 200 million. And the second question is, what can happen now?
Ok we found around 700 million dollars being embezzled, now what?
There is American money being sent to Afghanistan for Afghans. Now
will the US in cooperation with the Afghan government take any
measures to recover that money? Because the people that are accused
of corruption, they are still at large. And one more thing, right
now in the media, the blame is put on the Afghans all the time. Do
you think there are traces of foreigners and international people
being involved in corruption as well?
Sopko: Let me try to answer all of these. First of all, yes, of
course there is foreign involvement in corruption. Its obvious, if
you read our reports, anybodys reports youll see it. The question
about the Afghan schools, I really highly recommend you read, not
the press releases, but you read what we did. Your Minister of
Education allegedly, and this was reported by the Afghan press,
appeared before your parliament and said there were ghost schools
and ghost students and ghost teachers. Now all we did in SIGAR was
send a letter to USAID and asked what do you know about this? We
did not say there were 700 million dollars stolen, nor did you
Minster for Education say that, or 200 million. He just reported
that the data he got from his predecessor was false about the
schools and students and all that. The 700 million comes in because
in the letter we remind USAID that you have spent 700 million, and
the amount of money is based upon the amount of schools and
students. So therefore we are concerned, can you tell us whats
going on? So your question about why did we say 700 million? We
didnt, we just decided that how much was appropriated; we had no
idea what was stolen or not stolen. As to what have the Afghans
done about it? Well, we sent the letter only three weeks ago, my
understanding is theyve opened up a parliamentary investigation.
Ive spoken to your Minster for Education, who says theyve opened up
an investigation. They are actually trying to find out how many
schools there are, how many schools theyre supposed to have and
where the schools are located. So as far as I know they have
started that inquiry, I dont think they are anywhere near
identifying defendants, or people who are involve in stealing and
all that or what theyd do if they find them. But this is really
more an instance where the Minster and the Minster of Justice and
the Attorney General have to work on this. This is an Afghan issue,
we provided the money and direct assistance, once the money leaves
the United States Treasury and hits the Minister of Finance, I lose
criminal jurisdiction over the money, the US Justice Department
loses criminal jurisdiction over the money, and thats the real
problem. Thats why its so important with the new Unity Government
sound like theyre actually trying to do something about it. And
thats the critical thing, I dont have jurisdiction over that money.
This is Afghans stealing money from Afghans, although were the
original provider of the money.
The question on the Justice Department I didnt really understand
that, DOJ will obviously investigate anything we turn over, we
actually have prosecutors, but I may not have understood that
question there.
Audience: It was just from another conversation that didnt quite
connect, basically the former State Departments point was DOJ can
go after a corrupt official overseas if the money winds up in a US
bank account because its a criminal act
Sopko: Oh thats true. We can do that also but you gotta prove an
underlying offence. And if the money hits the US banking system
then we can proceed against it
Audience: I think he might have been saying that he wanted State
Department diplomats to sort of use you as a shield so they dont
have to use the word corruption, right?
Audience: And using technical bodies to spare political alliance
is that the recommendations you have for them
Sopko: Use me, I dont care. Everyone else does, why dont you?
Ok, the other questions, but all Im saying is read what we said,
all we did was ask the questions. Its amazing, we just ask
questions and all of a sudden the sky falls. But, when I talk to
officials, Afghan officials and US officials, everybody agreed,
there are ghost schools, ghost teachers and ghost students, so its
a problem that people know about.
Wright: Well I kinda want to go back to that original question
about the sort of the use of bad news narratives - if thats alright
- just to say, you know, one of the things that has been happening
from the get go is that weve had some policy ambivalence and
certainly debate from the beginning of this conflict: is this a
long-term nation-building effort? Is this a counter-insurgency
fight? Is it a counter-terrorism mission? Different types of tools
are required to do all that.
I couldnt agree more though that the news, the sort of technical
expertise and actual facts development that the IGs other oversight
[recording muffled] when its not classified or otherwise damaging.
And, you know, are some people that are gonna try and argue that
thats a justification to pull out of Afghanistan tomorrow or
yesterday? Absolutely. They did it with our Warlord Inc. report six
years ago and were still there but I think getting that information
out of those who are backing the policy either side of that debate
needs the information if we are going to have the kind of informed
debate our policy makers need to have and hopefully the success
narratives coming out of the country team and [recording muffled]
that are stewards of our programs are going help, you know, give a
better snap shot holistically than just the IG narrative.
Sopko: And Andrew Im certain you went through the same thing
and, you know, I read your report when it came out It was a
fascinating report Still one of the best reports on that whole
issue and people still cite it around the world Im certain you were
criticized for not supporting the mission. Your boss was criticized
- he was a politician and hes always worried about that.
Politicians are always worried about that. [Recording muffled] Boys
and girls Fighting over there and, you know And thats You know,
that threat happens all the time. But we do support the mission by
speaking the truth.
Wright: Yeah I mean Walter Reed Services get better healthcare
now because we told a bad story about...
Sopko: Classic example Classic example.
Wright: You know: Faulty body armor. Thats oversight. Bring it
out. So You know.
Sopko: Heres the thing and its a slippery slope: when I stop
Where do I stop? Im only going to withhold information now but it
just keeps going. And a good examples the Walter Reed. A better
example: I heard Senator Johnson give a speech - actually to CIGI
(Council of Inspectors General) - and he described a story: he
says, I have a constituent (hes a senator from Wisconsin) So theres
a young lady Took her elderly father, a World War II veteran to a
hospital A VA hospital (Veterans Administration hospital) The VA
hospital killed her dad through incompetency and just the filth and
disgust. He got an infection and died. The IG had issued a report
Had done an investigation on a hospital and identified all those
problems. What did he do? He classified it. It was never released.
It was only after the fact they found out the IG had identified it
and what Johnson was saying is: If you had published the report,
Mr. Inspector General, that man would be alive. So theres the
problem. If I withhold things If I withhold a report I gotta have a
reason to do it, otherwise people are going to get hurt. And I grew
up a child of Vietnam and I had friends who died in Veterans
Administration hospital and their filth In Cleveland Because there
was no aggressive Inspectorates General highlighting those
problems. And I dare you If nobody would have cared about [the OPM
scandal] unless it hit the Washington Post and New York Times. The
OPM scandal, we all know, is the fact that anybody who has ever
gotten a security clearance in the United States The Chinese now
have all your background information. There are multiple Inspector
General reports But they never saw the light of day. We could have
planned for that. Congress could have planned for that. And that is
why we publicize. The truth will set you free. The truth is
important and its just as important in Afghanistan as it is here
And I beg to differ if anybody is leaving Afghanistan because of an
IG report Or a GAO report Or a newspaper article. There may be a
culminating You know There may be a time in which, hopefully, the
Afghan press and the Afghan Attorney General and the Afghan
Inspectors General (there are Inspectors General over there) will
be doing this work for you and we dont have to do it But, until
then, Ive gotta publicize the reports.
Wallace: Very shortly Im gonna circle back and give you chances
to make last comments Now, specifically, Im gonna ask what
[Interruption from speakers.] Yes I was going to say I think you
may have answered my questions But whats the one lesson that you
want to learn from this? But, before we do that, were just going to
take one last round of questions (but thought Id give you a chance
to think on that). So we have one at the back and one just here. Is
anyone else bursting to ask a question? Okay, one at the back and
one just here.
Audience: Hey Im Katie Watson. Im an investigative journalist at
the Daily Caller News Foundation So its been many years since my
reporting days in California but Ive written about kites But I
wanted to thank you first of all Its really helpful And then my
question, for you Inspector General Sopko, is: How do How does the
US get to a point where an Inspectors General has as much
independence as you do Are as aggressive as you are. What are the
steps that need to be taken to get there (cos thats obviously very
important)?
Wallace: Thank you.
Audience: Hi. My name is My question is that: There have been
public opinion polls in Afghanistan and a lot of people are as much
concerned for corruption as their own security. So youre doing the
anti-corruption work for the international [recording muffled] but,
inside the country, do you think the Afghan government has the
administrative and judicial capacity to fight corruption in
Afghanistan in the long term or do you see Sort of a hybrid justice
entity Like the need for a hybrid justice entity in Afghanistan
with judicial capacity for cases of corruption, because most of the
time its the brother of the [prisoner] whos involved Its the cousin
of the [prisoner] whos involved And most of the time they are
warlords and they have They have a lot of power in the country. Do
you see something like that possible in Afghanistan? Like, the one
in the Guatemala [state]?
Sopko: OkaySo Those two? Okay, real quickly. I may have been
[recording muffled] Never be an opportunity like this.. They
probably made a mistake by passing that statute that appointed me,
so I dont know. Every Inspector General can do this Every Inspector
General can do this And, you know, I think they should: I think the
1978 Act gave tremendous power. I dont think the IGs have, as a
body, lived up to the 1978 Act. I took an oath to do this and I
think every one of them do. They cant be fired. You know Okay, so
they dont get invited to the office Christmas party. Who cares? You
know Its not gonna They should be doing this.
Whens the last time you saw the DODIG talking about procurement?
Whens the last time you saw the VAIG talking about issues of the
cleanliness in the hospitals? Whens the last time youve seen any of
them out there? Whens the last time youve seen the OPMIG? You know
You dont even know there is an OPMIG. What Im saying is: everyone
of em can do this. The reason why Im doing this is because I was
lucky. I had the opportunity to learn about oversight from Sam
Nunn, Bill Roth, Carl Levin, John Glenn, John Dingell and Henry
Waxman And I did it for 25 years. And they taught me: youre not
going to change the government unless you publicize it and
repeatedly publicize it And thats how I do it.
When I worked for John Glenn I mean for John Dingell - famous
congressman (hes probably the father of modern oversight) - I put
on 15 hearings on food safety just to (And youre from California -
you understand about all those crises what led us You know Leafy
greens and all that) Just to change the way we protected the
American people on eating leafy greens. 15 hearings! Thats what Sam
Nunn did. Thats what Henry Waxman did. Thats what your boss did.
You got to repeatedly do it. Anybody can do it. Whether theres
going to be another person like me I hope there are. There are some
more people being appointed by IGs who I think are By the President
Who I think are very effective IGs but we havent lived up to the 78
Act.
Question on corruption: yeah I cant really say for sure. Its so
difficult And who am I to tell the Afghans how to set up their
system? I can only tell em (and I dont have the time Im happy to
talk offline Ive spoken about it) Looking at the history of how we
fought corruption in the United States, maybe they can learn
something from it. You have to have independent police, independent
judiciary and you have to have an independent press. You are never
going to win the war against corruption and win the war against
drug dealers and win the war unless you have those. I worked with
the organized crime and racketeering section - at least they
actually teach the history of organized crime in the United States
up at American university (actually it was the most popular course
there because for the final exam we had to blow up a car But thats
Thats a joke Thats a joke. We didnt blow up anything Nobody No
animals died in my class) - but you gotta look at our history and
that was the only reason. And we fought a very bloody fight against
organized crime. We talked to the Italians. They still are fighting
fights against organized crime and corruption and there are many
other countries doing it Its not easy and its not quick. And
narcotics is horribly difficult. And Afghanistan has a horrible
narcotics problem. And its not just affecting the Russians and the
Uzbeks and the Pakistanis and the Iranians... Its affecting the
Afghan people and they have to address that. And yeah, the bad
thing is Only when the government and the people of Afghanistan
realize that narcotics are an inherent and serious threat to their
ability as a state will they be able to fight and win the battle
against the narco-traffickers. My biggest fear now is: Afghanistan
will become a narco-trafficking state And that could be a serious
concern unless they eventually address that. But only the Afghans
are going to be able to do that Based upon our history with
Columbia and other countries [recording muffled].
Wallace: And the last thoughts Should every [recording muffled]
and, based on the work that SIGIR has been doing, what is the one
thing that we need to make sure has resonance for the future?
Wright: Sure. I mean. I think Constructive oversight (and I use
the word constructive, not just breathless, oversight but
constructive, meticulous, fact-developed, fact-supported oversight)
is critical both to the policy decisions about what your outcomes
you want and also whether or not youre going to be able to achieve
them, so I think its just a critical piece that has to be embedded
at the design phase and in the after-action phase. So thats my
general take and the one takeaway from sort of the SIGIR experience
is We need to find more ways to have our oversight structures have
that inter-agency, inter-operability sort of perspective, and tie
it to geographic regions that allow them to be outcome-focused
rather than sort of output focused So those would be my general
sort of takeaways.
Wallace: Thank you. John? Last thoughts? If one thing sticks
from the work that SIGIR has done
Sopko: You know I think if we can develop some really good
lessons learned that are adopted by the various agencies and get
buy in. Now thats my goal and that I think is the lasting legacy.
People we indict will hopefully stay convicted and in jail The
money we collect - that will happen But its the lessons
learned.
Wallace: Thank you: Andy Wright John Sopko Everyone who has
joined online and in the room - thank you very much. On behalf of
the Project for the 21st Century, we very much appreciate you
joining us And thanks again to these two gentlemen.
Transcript by Amanda Blair, Crisa Cox, Christopher Stephens,
Rhea Menon and Claire Connellan22