{"id":25542,"date":"2021-10-06T20:05:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T20:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/10\/06\/us-leaned-too-much-on-dod-to-rebuild-afghanistan-inspector-general-says\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:24:33","slug":"us-leaned-too-much-on-dod-to-rebuild-afghanistan-inspector-general-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/10\/06\/us-leaned-too-much-on-dod-to-rebuild-afghanistan-inspector-general-says\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. leaned too much on DoD to rebuild Afghanistan, inspector general says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the major mistakes of the war in Afghanistan <\/a>and the simultaneous U.S. effort to rebuild it as a democratic country may have been an over-reliance on the military, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction <\/a>told lawmakers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development were also on the ground throughout that 20-year period, the Defense Department\u2019s budget<\/a> and capacity for risk-taking may have edged out any purely diplomatic or humanitarian efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoD didn\u2019t crowd them out for nefarious reasons,\u201d John Sopko told Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, when asked about the influence the military wielded over the Afghanistan effort. \u201cIt was just, I think ,the reality of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DoD\u2019s funding \u201coverwhelmed\u201d that of State and USAID, he said. They also had the advantage of being able to penetrate and navigate unsafe areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ultimate thing is, Congress, the American people and the administration \u2015 whoever\u2019s in the White House, Democrat or Republican \u2015has to realize that diplomacy is never going to be totally risk-free,\u201d Sopko said. \u201cWe expect, and we understand, when DoD takes calculated risks. There has been a tendency, and I saw this over time in Afghanistan, a fear among State Department officials and AID officials to take risk. As a result, people didn\u2019t leave the compounds. People don\u2019t go over the wire and do work they need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The military also just had more people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou talk about some of the meetings and organizations that were set up, in which there was supposed to be equal membership from State, AID and DoD,\u201d Sopko added. \u201cAnd maybe there\u2019d be one person from AID, and one person from State, and 20 people from DoD. That is a particular problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So many of the projects, from construction to building ties with local leadership, fell to the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t do development or reconstruction in months, or even half a year, or a year \u2015it takes time,\u201d Sopko said. \u201cAnd what happened is, DoD was given the reins to do a lot of the development and didn\u2019t know how to do it, didn\u2019t have the capability, didn\u2019t have the expertise, and that\u2019s particularly a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t