SIGAR releases report featuring scathing criticism of U.S. stabilization efforts in Afghanistan

During the first 16 years of conflict with Afghanistan, U.S. efforts to stabilize insecure and contested areas in that country "mostly failed," according to a new report issued today by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The SIGAR's fourth "lessons-learned" report examines the U.S. government's efforts to stabilize Afghanistan between 2002 and 2017.

The U.S. government "overestimated its ability to build and reform government institutions as part of the stabilization strategy. They focused on troop numbers and their geographic priorities and mostly omitted concerns about the Afghan government's capacity and performance," according to a summary released alongside the report.

"Under immense pressure to quickly stabilize insecure districts, U.S. government agencies spent far too much money, far too quickly, in a country woefully unprepared to absorb it," the report states. "Opportunities for corruption and elite capture abounded, making many of those projects far more harmful than helpful."

Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff, characterized the assessment as a "mixed report."

"I think we're still pretty early in the fighting season this year and I think there's a lot of fighting left to be done," he said today during a Pentagon press conference. "I'd wait until I gave a final characterization until we're a little further along in the year."

Read the full report here.