(Judicial Watch) Less than a year after Judicial Watch reported that the Taliban has established fake nonprofits to steal millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Afghanistan, a new investigation reveals that the terrorist group has also received hundreds of millions in development assistance from Uncle Sam because the State Department fails to properly vet award recipients. At least $239 million have likely filled the coffers of the extremists running the Islamic republic since the 2021 U.S. military withdraw, according to a report published this month by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The money was disbursed by State Department divisions known as Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) to implement development projects intended to help achieve American foreign policy and national security goals in Afghanistan.
Investigators found that the State Department failed to comply with its own counterterrorism partner vetting requirements in Afghanistan before awarding at least 29 grants to various local entities.
The agency has a system to identify whether prospective awardees have a record of ethical business practices and is supposed to conduct a risk assessment to determine if programming funds may benefit terrorists or terrorist-affiliates before distributing American taxpayer dollars. In the more than two dozen cases examined, the agency did not bother and failed to keep proper records. “Because DRL and INL could not demonstrate their compliance with State’s partner vetting requirements, there is an increased risk that terrorist and terrorist affiliated individuals and entities may have illegally benefited from State spending in Afghanistan,” the SIGAR report says. “As State continues to spend U.S. taxpayer funds on programs intended to benefit the Afghan people, it is critical that State knows who is actually benefitting from this assistance in order to prevent the aid from being diverted to the Taliban or other sanctioned parties, and to enable policymakers and other oversight authorities to better scrutinize the risks posed by State’s spending.”
The watchdog found issues with 29 awards distributed by DRL and INL. For instance, DRL failed to properly screen the recipients of seven awards totaling about $12 million, investigators found. INL did not provide any supporting documentation for 19 of its 22 awards totaling about $295 million so there is no way to determine if they complied with the vetting requirements.
The State Department acknowledged that not all its bureaus have complied with document retention requirements, which makes it conveniently impossible to fully assess the magnitude of its transgressions. The explanation offered for INL not retaining records is “employee turnover and the dissolution of the Afghanistan-Pakistan office,” according to the report. SIGAR points out that, given the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, it is critical that U.S. government activities adhere to the laws, regulations, and policies intended to prevent certain transactions with terrorists.
