{
  "id": "R46197",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R46197",
  "active": true,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 615110,
      "date": "2020-01-28",
      "retrieved": "2020-01-30T23:03:09.212629",
      "title": "The Washington Post\u2019s \u201cAfghanistan Papers\u201d and U.S. Policy: Main Points and Possible Questions for Congress",
      "summary": "On December 9, 2019, the Washington Post published a series of documents termed \u201cthe Afghanistan Papers.\u201d The Papers comprise two sets of documents: about 1,900 pages of notes and transcripts of interviews with more than 400 U.S. and other policymakers that were carried out between 2014 and 2018 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), and approximately 190 short memos (referred to as \u201csnowflakes\u201d) from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, dating from 2001 to 2004. The documents, and the Washington Post stories that accompany them, suggest that U.S. policies in Afghanistan often were poorly planned, resourced, and/or executed. These apparent shortcomings contributed to several outcomes that either were difficult to assess or did not fulfill stated U.S. objectives. Key themes of the SIGAR interviews include\nNegative effects of U.S. funding. The most frequently discussed subject in the SIGAR interviews was (a) the large sum of U.S. money ($132 billion in development assistance since 2001) that poured into Afghanistan and (b) the extent to which much of it was reportedly wasted, stolen, exacerbated existing problems, or created new ones, particularly corruption.\nUnclear U.S. goals. Many of the interviewees argued that, from the beginning, the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, supported by the money noted above, lacked a clear goal.\nCompeting priorities. The proliferation of U.S. goals in Afghanistan led to another complication: U.S. actions to achieve some of these objectives seemed to undermine others.\nOrganizational confusion and competition. While U.S. efforts in Afghanistan were dominated by the Department of Defense, given the wide array of U.S. interests in Afghanistan, U.S. policy formulation and execution required input from many federal departments and agencies. The problems associated with trying to coordinate among all of these entities was a consistent theme.\nLack of expertise. Multiple SIGAR interviewees criticized U.S. policies that they claimed failed to generate relevant expertise within the U.S. government or even disincentivized the creation or application of that expertise in Afghanistan.\nDisorganized multinational coalition. Many of the SIGAR interviewees who worked on coordinating U.S. and international efforts discussed what they saw as a disorganized system. \nIraq as a distraction. U.S. officials who were working on Afghanistan in the first decade of the war held a nearly universal judgment, in SIGAR interviews, that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 distracted U.S. attention and diverted U.S. financial and other resources.\nPakistan\u2019s support for the Taliban. A number of interviewees, particularly senior U.S. officials, attributed the Taliban\u2019s resurgence, and the failure of the U.S. to solidify gains in Afghanistan, to material support for the group from, and its safe havens in, Pakistan.\nOther voices: U.S. efforts as relatively successful. Some of the officials interviewed by SIGAR lauded arguable gains made and facilitated by the international community\u2019s work in Afghanistan since 2001, a perspective not generally included in the Washington Post stories.\nThe documents, released at a time when the United States is engaged in talks with the Taliban aimed at ending the 18-year U.S. military presence in the country, have attracted significant attention. Some Members of Congress have called for further investigation into U.S. policy in Afghanistan. However, there is debate over how revelatory the SIGAR interviews are: policymakers and outside analysts disagree about whether they contain new and relevant information and, if so, how the information should affect U.S. policy in Afghanistan going forward.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": true,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "encoding": "utf-8",
          "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/R46197",
          "sha1": "5f44e3287c5c247df4fbe91e9d61b54961a4b65a",
          "filename": "files/20200128_R46197_5f44e3287c5c247df4fbe91e9d61b54961a4b65a.html",
          "images": {}
        },
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "encoding": null,
          "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R46197",
          "sha1": "9f1b67a1b995b179acf078b24f4bb2be6eba2dc5",
          "filename": "files/20200128_R46197_9f1b67a1b995b179acf078b24f4bb2be6eba2dc5.pdf",
          "images": {}
        }
      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Foreign Affairs",
    "Middle Eastern Affairs",
    "National Defense"
  ]
}