John Sopko had a thankless job. The Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (SIGAR) was to investigate a military disaster that officially does not exist.
Sopko and his colleagues investigated the Afghan war - a conflict in which the US is fighting longer than any other in its history.
Since 2001, US troops are in Afghanistan. And Sopko's team states that the world's most powerful military power has failed there, even if those responsible do not admit it to the outside world. Officially, Sopko produces his reports for the US Congress and then publishes them. This report should be kept secret.
However, the "Washington Post" complained to the publication of the documents and won after a long lawsuit. In the "Afghanistan Papers" is now as ruthlessly as never before read to what extent the public was deceived and lied to the disaster in Afghanistan.
"We lacked a basic understanding of Afghanistan"
Sopko's staff interviewed hundreds of high-ranking officials in the Afghanistan war. For the first time, military and advisers speak unprotectedly and openly about their experiences. Not a single one of the generals or high officials actually believed in a positive course of the operation or even a victory during his assignment. Nevertheless, they all publicly claimed the opposite.
One of the main Afghan advisers to the Presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Douglas Lute, revealed, "We lacked a basic understanding of Afghanistan - we did not know what we were doing, we did not have the faintest idea."
To date, the operation in Afghanistan, the fight against the Taliban cost the lives of 2,400 US soldiers. 20,000 American soldiers were injured, many are forever distorted. The operation devoured a trillion dollars (about 900 billion euros) in taxpayer money.
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John Sopko: Debunking report
And for what all this? The findings of the Sopko Report, evaluated by the Washington Post, are as disturbing as they are profane.
- Dan McNeill, who commanded US troops in Afghanistan twice (2003/2004 and 2007/2008), said, "There was a lot of talk, but there was no plan, so I tried to define what winning means, but it did nobody will tell me. "
- Michael Flynn, Lieutenant-General in Afghanistan and later National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump: "We had no idea what our task was."
- Christopher Kolenda, an army colonel who has been sent to Afghanistan several times as a counselor, is quoted as saying: "The Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai ... organized a kleptocracy internally, and the kleptocracy grew stronger, and instead of wanting to govern well, officials were getting more and more involved to maintain the kleptocracy ... kleptocracy is ... like brain cancer, it's deadly. "
"Who will say that all this was in vain?"
In recent years, journalists and analysts have repeatedly pushed for answers. Despite all efforts, why is there no Afghan army and police able to provide security in the country? And how did this level of corruption materialize between American companies and Afghan government officials?
The answers are now on the table. Sopko and his 197 employees have undoubtedly produced the most comprehensive report on a war that is still not over after 18 years.
General Lute, who has long been known in the White House as the Afghanistan luminary, also reveals why none of those responsible spoke the truth. Nobody wanted to describe "the extent of this dysfunction". And he asks a question to which no one may answer: "Who will say that all this was in vain?".
