The latest report from the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction details America's failed policies and miscalculations in the two decades of its intervention in the troubled Middle Eastern nation, culminating last week in the collapse of the Afghan government a hands of the Taliban and the dramatic evacuation of the US embassy in Kabul.
Criticism against the Administration chaired by Joe Biden has not ceased for
its poor handling of the US withdrawal, which had already been agreed upon by former President Donald Trump.
Some suggest that the symbolic date of September 11 for the departure took away time to plan an orderly and safe evacuation, just as an offensive phase of the Taliban began.
However, the report entitled 'What We Need to Learn: Lessons from 20 Years of Reconstruction in Afghanistan' accounts for multiple failures of the three previous Administrations, which spent $ 145 billion on projects undermined by inefficiency and corruption.
Another $ 83.7 billion was invested in strengthening the Afghan Army, which ended up collapsing in a matter of days.
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1. A question of (lack of) strategy: why were you going to Afghanistan?
Initially, the goal was to destroy Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden, which had engineered the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in which thousands of people died in the United States.
But very soon it evolved and expanded to include the fight against the Taliban, an insurgent group that served as the support and social base of Al-Qaeda;
to include the corrupt Afghan government officials who undermined that fight.
"The US government was simply not equipped to carry out something this ambitious in such an uncompromising environment, regardless of budget," the report's authors wrote.
2. The problem of time: what to spend and how?
There were not one, but many efforts to rebuild Afghanistan in the 20 years of the American occupation.
In the many projects that were undertaken, the report indicates, short-term solutions were often favored, such as increasing the number of troops and money, especially between 2009 and 2011.
[The Taliban try to reassure the United States about possible terrorist attacks: "They will not suffer harm from our land"]
As resources increased, so did the pressure to show results, so there was more incentive to spend more to achieve goals that were not sustainable in the long term.
Instead of reforming and improving, Afghan chieftains and institutions found ways to appropriate resources for their own benefit, which only worsened the problems these programs were designed to solve.
When US officials finally recognized these dynamics, they simply found new ways to ignore conditions on the ground, ”the report states.
3. Sustainability: how to build institutions that last
By definition, an institution is a set of rules that last, not humanitarian aid or resources that are depleted and no longer serve.
Despite the millions of dollars invested in training new Afghan government officials and infrastructure and social projects, they could not keep up with the US demand for quick results.
As US troops and funds began to be cut, the Afghan government was unable to contain the insurgents on its own.
An American Chinook helicopter flies over the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 15, 2021;
the day the Taliban fighters entered the capital.
4. The staff problem: how to get the right people in the right place
Getting the right professionals to oversee the right projects at the right time was one of the most glaring shortcomings of the American rebuilding mission.
“Department of Defense police advisers watched American television shows to learn about law and order, civil affairs teams were mass-produced through PowerPoint presentations, and all agencies suffered annual bleeding when staff entered. and he left, which caused his successors to have to start from scratch and make the same mistakes over and over again, ”the report denounces.
5. Insecurity
In almost everything they tried, American officials ran into the problem of insecurity.
They could not organize reliable and credible elections because voters were intimidated, they were not allowed to register and on election day the counting tables were closed.
There was also no investment or economic growth due to the uncertainty caused by the violence, especially in rural areas.
[The Taliban try to reassure the United States about possible terrorist attacks: "They will not suffer damage from our land"]
6. Not understanding the context or the problem of cultural barriers
In trying to impose a rule of law like that found in more developed countries, American officials failed to understand the difficulty of imposing equal norms on such an unequal society.
While they sought law enforcement, 80% to 90% of disputes in Afghanistan were resolved through informal means.
“The US government clumsily forced Western technocratic models onto Afghan institutions;
the security forces were trained in advanced weapons systems that they could not understand, much less maintain, "the report explains.
“There were often difficulties in understanding or mitigating cultural and social barriers to supporting women and girls,” she adds.
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7. Better evaluations or "the risk of doing the wrong thing perfectly"
The involvement of multiple US agencies and nongovernmental organizations made it difficult to coordinate evaluations quickly and efficiently.
As the campaign focused on accomplishing a lot in the shortest amount of time, many times the illusion was given to believing that marking a task as 'completed' on the forms was making a real change:
"The absence of periodic reality checks created the risk of doing the wrong thing perfectly: a project was considered 'successful' if it completed certain tasks, regardless of whether it had achieved or contributed to other broader objectives," the report states.
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Hundreds of people run alongside a US Air Force C-17 plane as it moves down the runway at Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021.UGC verified, via AP
What does the future look like?
Afghan society has been mired in wars for the past four decades, since the Soviet occupation (1979-1988) and after that in a bloody civil war and a radical Islamist government of the Taliban, before the war with the United States in 2001. , which have destabilized and impoverished it.
Although in the American reconstruction stage (2001-2021) there were important achievements, such as a decrease in the infant mortality rate, an increase in the Gross Domestic Product, higher literacy rates and the conquest of rights for women, this was
not reflected in the creation of a legitimate and stable government.
While the US military intervention has come to an end, next year an additional $ 3 billion will be earmarked for the 'reconstruction of Afghanistan', according to the amount requested from Congress in the last budget.
In this sense, the Inspector General's report affirms that it seeks to raise important questions so that future decision makers learn from the mistakes of the past.