Follow the Money: Ukraine Edition
Have we learned nothing from Afghanistan?
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Who could’ve guessed that Ukraine would still be holding its own against Russia? Perhaps the Ukrainians could.
What was supposed to be a short war is far from over, and while the odds remain long(ish) that Volodymyr Zelenskyy will prevail, I’m not betting against him.
Support for Ukraine in the United States is so strong that most Americans haven’t asked many questions about the reported $54 billion we’ve shoveled overseas in the form of weapons and other aid.
“The package also contains about $16 billion for economic support to Ukraine, global humanitarian relief, and a wide variety of international programs,” Mark Cancian writes about the latest $40 billion in aid in a report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Maybe it’s time to ask for receipts.
Cancian details where the money is allegedly going. “Although some elements of the aid package will be available quickly, many will take years to fully implement,” he writes. “This raises questions about why long-term elements could not have gone through the regular congressional authorization and budget processes.”
When it comes to oversight of U.S. dollars in war zones, the current expert is John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). He has no problem asking tough questions. “I’m sort of like the mad uncle you don’t want to invite to the wedding,” he jokes. “I come in and I say, ‘Hey, they’re already married.’”
We spoke last summer about the taxpayer dollars showered for 20 years on a country that was then collapsing. “We [SIGAR] determined that about 30% of the money spent in Afghanistan was either wasted or stolen,” he told me. That equated to $43 billion.
One year later Sopko is still on the job, because we’re still sending money to Afghanistan — nearly $800 million in humanitarian aid since last August. Sopko is also running about 40 criminal investigations. He says some Afghans accused of ripping off American taxpayers left Afghanistan after the country fell, taking their (alleged) ill-gotten gains with them. Those refugees “are now in places where we can grab them and grab some of the money.”
These days, though, with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan considered a disaster, Sopko is suddenly having trouble getting the State Department to respond to his requests for information. More on that in a moment.
"Bake in oversight early on."
I contacted Sopko last week to get his take on how we should monitor American cash and resources heading to Ukraine, even in these still-early days of war. “One of the key things we should’ve learned [from Afghanistan] is that when you’re spending this much money this fast, in whatever country it is, you’ve got to bake in oversight early on,” he says. When you don’t jump in and establish a system for records and receipts, people on the ground often end up having selective amnesia later, especially if a program fails.
As an example, Sopko points to his investigation of a task force that he says spent billions of dollars to stabilize the business community in Afghanistan. The program “was hailed as the great success story,” but by the time his team started asking questions, the program had ended, “and we couldn’t find anybody in the department who knew anything about it.”
So if he was in charge of following the money in Ukraine, he would focus on three areas.
1 – Contracts. “Sole-source contracts, that’s always going to be a problem,” he says. Sopko believes contracts that aren’t put out for competitive bidding are a bad idea, “but we tend to do it…because we want to get money out the door quickly.”
2 – Logistics. “That was a big problem in Afghanistan, where moving the equipment, moving the supplies, moving the materiel to Afghanistan, we, the U.S. government, were being ripped off by everybody.” Much of that taxpayer money ended up in the pockets of the Taliban. So who’s moving things around with our money in Ukraine?
3 – Strategy. “What’s Winning?” This has nothing directly to do with money, but Sopko says it’s crucial to spending tax dollars wisely. Afghanistan is the perfect example. He says our 20-year war there is best described as 20 separate, one-year wars. “We kept changing the strategy and the personnel.” He contends that Congress and the administration would serve the taxpayer better in Ukraine by defining, “What’s winning?” If you know your strategy and your definition of victory, “then you can see if you’re going in the right direction.”
“We shouldn't be naive."
John Sopko admits he’s biased toward Ukraine, because “my family comes from that neck of the woods.” But he says there’s nothing wrong with demanding accountability, even if it makes you unpopular. “I think the most noble war we had was World War II,” he says. “But there was a not-too-well-known senator from Missouri who did a series of hearings about war profiteering by American contractors and the stupidity of American bureaucrats.”
That senator was Harry Truman.
“We shouldn’t be naive just because there is a noble calling.” Fraud is inevitable, Sopko says. “It’s human nature.”
Which brings us back to Afghanistan.
Among its many investigations, SIGAR continues to look into lessons learned from the $80 billion Americans spent on training an Afghan military that collapsed within weeks. The latest report is both fascinating and depressing. Sopko’s team lays out how the U.S. created a situation where Afghan troops relied too heavily on Americans. For example, “The AAF [Afghan Air Force] was not projected to be self-sufficient until at least 2030.” The U.S. knew that but pulled out anyway.
Now, though, as Sopko tries to follow the current money being sent to Afghanistan, he claims the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are denying him access to records. He says a lot of information has recently been classified, a tactic that he believes is often used to keep information from the public.
He recently wrote a letter to Congress — the people who created his job through legislation — asking for help:
“It is shocking that State and USAID officials are choosing at this particular juncture to violate the law, obstruct SIGAR’s oversight work, and refuse to cooperate with our oversight requests.”
Sopko tells me he’s been told that he has no right to the information because humanitarian programs are outside his purview, but he counters that humanitarian assistance has been part of reconstruction oversight for over a dozen years.
Congress has yet to respond. I reached out to the State Department and USAID, and if I hear anything, I’ll attach an update.
As for Ukraine, Sopko believes Congress should appoint a Special Inspector General — but not him. He doesn’t want the job. The regular Inspectors General (IGs) for the Departments of Defense and State are already tasked with keeping tabs on the cash, but Sopko says they’re only “acting” IGs, which may give them less clout. Plus, they’ve got their hands full. “The DoD IG has the whole world to look at,” he says. “State IG has the whole world to look at.”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies seems to agree. “The large amount of money being provided [to Ukraine] might require more oversight than existing structures can provide.”
Finally, John Sopko is surprised that no one in the U.S. government is applying the lessons learned from Afghanistan to Ukraine. “We wasted billions of dollars, and nobody says we won in Afghanistan,” he says. “Shouldn’t we hit the pause button and say, ‘Okay, how do we do this better the next time?’ We aren’t doing that now.”
UPDATE on July 11:
I heard back from the State Department about Sopko’s claims of being stonewalled over humanitarian aid still flowing to Afghanistan. I was told:
State and USAID are committed to assisting SIGAR with its important auditing and oversight role.
Our agencies have regularly responded to other SIGAR requests for information over the years and continue to provide data to SIGAR for its audits, evaluations, and regular quarterly reports.
Since receiving SIGAR’s October letter, we have had concerns about how some of SIGAR’s requests for information relate to their statutory jurisdiction.
The April 25 letter was our effort to resolve those concerns -- including nuanced, technical details -- to help us best comply with all of our oversight bodies.
Meantime, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) isn’t pleased. As the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he’s demanding that the State Department and USAID comply with SIGAR’s requests for information. Grassley writes in letter that “your brand new, suffocating interpretation of SIGAR’s jurisdiction and scope,” conflicts with “years of precedent.”
Grassley is also asking whether employees in both departments are being told not to communicate with Sopko’s office, “contravening federal law requiring federal employees to comply with IG investigations.”
Stay tuned.
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Cover image: A crater is left after a Russian airstrike in Druzhkivka, Ukraine on July 09, 2022. (Photo by Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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