How Ukraine Can Avoid Afghanistan’s Aid Sinkhole

Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), went to Kyiv this week to hand over another tranche of American aid to help rebuild Ukraine as Russia’s aggression continues to take a terrible toll on its people and infrastructure. The latest batch of American assistance totaled more than $500 million, mainly to help civilian victims of the war—and there were fresh ones almost immediately, as Russia scuppered a deal to let Ukraine export grain and then bombed its biggest port for good measure.

The latest U.S. delivery brings U.S. humanitarian aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last February to more than $2.6 billion, almost $2 billion of that from USAID. That’s not counting the more than $100 billion in economic and military aid appropriated by Congress since last year. The total puts Ukraine near the top of the list of recipients of U.S. humanitarian and military assistance and, with the increasing possibility of a protracted and expensive conflict, raises the question of if—and when—the Biden administration might want to consider setting up a track-and-trace for all that money.

America’s international adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan saw billions of dollars meant for humanitarian and military aid and reconstruction disappear—through fraud, waste, abuse, or plain old theft. A lot of the money meant for Afghanistan never even left the United States, skimmed by war profiteers dubbed the “Beltway bandits.” Billions more that did get through fell between the cracks of poor oversight or lazy allocations, making instant millionaires of corrupt officials or canny contractors. Salaries were paid to “ghost” soldiers who were dead or never existed. Funds were approved for buildings that were never built or, once built, never used. The Pentagon once spent $549 million on Italian cargo planes that didn’t work and were later largely sold for scrap, for around $40,000.

Ukraine and Afghanistan are chalk and cheese when it comes to political, social, economic, and developmental comparisons—but they’ve both offered epic displays of corruption. Ukraine is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe, last year ranked by Transparency International at 116 of 180 countries surveyed. And that’s an improvement: That ranking is up from 142 in 2014, when Russia invaded the country the first time and illegally grabbed a piece of it. 

But with a fresh round of apparently never-ending conflict and huge amounts of aid flowing in, some on Capitol Hill are asking whether it might not be wise to name a special inspector general sooner rather than later, to help the Ukrainians in their anti-corruption quest and keep a gimlet eye on U.S. taxpayers’ money.

John Sopko thinks so. He was appointed to helm the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in 2012, four years after it was mandated by Congress to follow the money pouring into Afghanistan. Yet even SIGAR’s creation came years after the U.S.-led international effort at rebuilding Afghanistan began, when the Taliban’s first regime was pushed from power for colluding with al Qaeda in the attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001. A lot of SIGAR’s work has been playing catch-up, something the United States could avoid in Ukraine if a similar body were mandated now. Sopko has been fielding queries from lawmakers on the viability of a special inspector general for Ukraine. His response: “Why not?”

“The amount of money is phenomenal, and that was one of the problems, everybody said, with Afghanistan and Iraq: a phenomenal amount of money spent so quickly with so little oversight,” Sopko said in an interview. “So why wouldn’t you create a special IG [inspector general]? That would send a clear message—to Ukrainians, to bad contractors, to the U.S. government itself, to all the U.S. agencies—that we really take oversight seriously.”

The advantage of a special inspector general is that it would draw the multiple U.S. government departments and agencies under one oversight umbrella, he said, cutting through the complications inherent in a hydra-headed body of aid. “I think there are already 17 different U.S. agencies operating in Ukraine, not on the ground but shoveling money over there. And 50-some countries dealing with it. So following the money over there is going to be very complicated,” he said. “It’s a problem when you have multiple IGs doing it; nobody can look at the whole of government and the whole of governance. You really need somebody in charge of the oversight. The special IG was very good for that in Afghanistan.”

The issue has been taken up by a number of conservative lawmakers eager to avoid the financial shenanigans of Iraq and Afghanistan and especially keen to find bad behavior in the Biden administration. Last month, Sens. John Kennedy, Kyrsten Sinema, Kevin Cramer, and Mike Braun asked SIGAR’s advice on applying lessons from Afghanistan, “as the U.S. Congress has already appropriated more than $113 billion for Ukraine assistance since last March.” 

That followed a letter to Sopko from Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, seeking views on strategies, obstacles, and best practices in war-zone reconstruction efforts and how lessons from SIGAR’S oversight of the U.S. taxpayer-funded, $146 billion reconstruction effort in Afghanistan “can be applied to current and future U.S. assistance in conflict-affected environments, particularly Ukraine.” 

As Sopko has found, however, having the job of inspector general is one thing, but getting it done is another. Since the collapse of Afghanistan’s republic in August 2021, SIGAR’s relationship with the U.S. administration has all but collapsed. His reports in the last two years have included complaints about a lack of cooperation from a range of departments, like State and USAID, as well as the United Nations, World Food Program, and other multilateral organizations that receive much of their funding from the U.S. taxpayer. 

Obstruction from the multilaterals that he describes as operating with apparent impunity is nothing new and hasn’t impeded SIGAR’s doggedness—it has issued around 700 reports, including a dozen “lessons learned” reports, detailing the disappearance of aid, reconstruction, and military assistance. Yet there’s been little fallout for those who really splashed out with other people’s money, he said. 

“I don’t think one general, one senior officer, one ambassador, one senior aid official has gone to jail or lost a job or lost a promotion as a result. If you’re a buck private, and you back up a backhoe onto an airplane and damage it for $10,000, you’ll get fired and maybe serve some time in Leavenworth prison,” Sopko said. “But if you’re a general who OK’d building a building he knew was never going to be used, you didn’t lose your pension, you didn’t even get brought up on charges. That was the most frustrating thing.” 

SIGAR’s focus for now is on the billions of dollars that continue to flow to Afghanistan. Sopko has accused the Taliban of pilfering it and has blamed the Biden administration for the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul. With some on the political right seeking to exploit international aid—like Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s efforts to force an audit of what’s earmarked for Ukraine—Sopko says oversight is integral to the transparency of governance.

“I think every donor has a right to know specifically how their money is being spent. I think it behooves these international organizations if they remember that it’s not their money, it’s the donors’ money, and they have a fiduciary duty, and part of that is to tell the donors how their money is being spent,” Sopko said. “I personally think that without accountability, government doesn’t work.”