Washington—Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, today made the following statement:

“The war in Afghanistan has gone on too long and I’m disgusted by the failures in U.S. policy-making which has kept our forces there for years after they should have departed. Since becoming Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I have pressed the Administration to talk directly with the Taliban to find a responsible way to end the war and bring our troops home. This week’s reporting confirms many of my concerns about the lack of a coherent and achievable strategy to ending the war in Afghanistan, and the committee will continue to seek answers about what went wrong in Afghanistan and how to bring the war to an end.

“The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, created by Congress in 2008 specifically to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse, has done tremendous work to understand the failures and struggles of our effort in Afghanistan. I have pushed inspectors to conduct a ‘lessons-learned’ review and I’m glad the findings are making their way to the American people. Now, the committee will continue this work by holding a hearing with the special inspector general, which I will schedule early in the new year.

“I fully expect the State Department and other agencies to cooperate in the Committee’s endeavor to provide transparency and accountability to the American people on the impact of 18 years of war and more than $2 trillion dollars spent.”

Background

This week, the Washington Post reported on the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s report of the war in Afghanistan, which found that American leaders had failed to devise a clear strategy with concise and achievable objectives, while spending more than $2 trillion dollars on the war effort.

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