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i 

26–740 2017

[H.A.S.C. No. 115–55] 

EVALUATING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

EQUIPMENT AND UNIFORM 

PROCUREMENT IN IRAQ AND 

AFGHANISTAN 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 25, 2017 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri, Chairwoman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

MATT GAETZ, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

TOM O’HALLERAN, Arizona 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

JIMMY PANETTA, California 

ELIZABETH CONRAD, Professional Staff Member 

BARRON YOUNGSMITH, Counsel 

ANNA WATERFIELD, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Hartzler, Hon. Vicky, a Representative from Missouri, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations ............................................................. 1 

Moulton, Hon. Seth, a Representative from Massachusetts, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations ................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

Farb, Jessica, Director, International Affairs and Trade, Government Accountability Office ......................................................................................................... 8 

Roark, Michael J., Assistant Inspector General, Contract Management and 

Payments, Department of Defense Inspector General ...................................... 6 

Sopko, Hon. John F., Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction ........................................................................................................................ 4 

Velz, Peter, Director, Afghanistan (Resources and Transition), Office of the 

Under Secretary of Defense, Policy; and COL David Navratil, Country 

Director for Iraq, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy ................. 26 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Farb, Jessica ..................................................................................................... 71 

Hartzler, Hon. Vicky ........................................................................................ 43 

Moulton, Hon. Seth .......................................................................................... 45 

Roark, Michael J. .............................................................................................. 63 

Sopko, Hon. John F. ......................................................................................... 48 

Velz, Peter, joint with COL David Navratil ................................................... 84 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[Submitted documents are retained in subcommittee files.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Banks .......................................................................................................... 93 

Mrs. Hartzler .................................................................................................... 93 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

EVALUATING DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

EQUIPMENT AND UNIFORM PROCUREMENT 

IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, 

Washington, DC, Tuesday, July 25, 2017. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vicky Hartzler (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VICKY HARTZLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Good afternoon. This hearing will come to order. 

Welcome to our subcommittee members and witnesses testifying 

before us today. 

In connection with today’s hearing, I welcome the members of 

the full committee, who are not members of the subcommittee, who 

are or will be attending. I ask unanimous consent that these committee members be permitted to participate in this hearing with 

the understanding that all sitting subcommittee members will be 

recognized for questions prior to those not assigned to the subcommittee. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

One of the objectives of this subcommittee is to bring attention 

to programs or activities which face management challenges, are 

too costly, or could be administered better. Given the pressures on 

the budget of the Department of Defense [DOD], every dollar 

counts. We cannot afford to make avoidable mistakes. 

Vigorous oversight can help ensure that mistakes don’t happen, 

and when they inevitably do, we learn lessons from these missteps. 

For this reason, I am happy to convene this hearing today on several recent reports highlighting deficiencies within the Department. 

Last month, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR] released a report assessing that the Department overpaid as much as $28 million on uniforms for the Afghan 

National Army. Furthermore, the pattern selected by the Afghan 

minister of defense may not even be appropriate for Afghanistan’s 

environment. 

I understand it is important to listen to and work collaboratively 

with our partner nations when we are helping to train and outfit 

their forces, but I am eager to know specifically how to avoid similar missteps in the future. I want to know what the Department 
2 

is doing to ensure that Afghan troops are appropriately outfitted at 

a price that is right for the U.S. taxpayer. 

On Friday, the Secretary of Defense sent a very strongly worded 

memorandum to his senior-most deputies. In light of the Afghan 

uniform report, the Secretary directed them to, quote, ‘‘bring to 

light wasteful practices and take aggressive steps to end waste in 

our department,’’ end quote. 

This is essential. Other recent reports by the Government Accountability Office [GAO] and the Department of Defense Inspector 

General identified issues with the management of equipment funded by the Iraq Train and Equip Fund, or ITEF. 

GAO determined that DOD had difficulty tracking and accounting for material as it was procured, shipped to the theater, and 

then provided to Iraq security forces. Similarly, the Department of 

Defense’s Inspector General has conducted two inquiries which determined that the Army had ineffective controls for processing, 

transferring, and securing ITEF equipment in Iraq. 

The Department must improve its monitoring and management 

of this equipment to be more accurate and transparent. I applaud 

the Army for already taking steps to do so. 

I look forward to hearing what progress the Department has 

made in continuing to remedy these various deficiencies. Vigorous 

oversight can ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being 

put to good use in securing our Nation’s defense. 

Our first panel will address the findings and recommendations of 

the various reports. 

Our second panel will address how the Department is working to 

overcome the many challenges inherent to executing train and 

equip programs. 

So I now turn to my colleague, Ranking Member Moulton, for his 

introductory remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Hartzler can be found in the 

Appendix on page 43.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. SETH MOULTON, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MASSACHUSETTS, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

You know, this situation with the Afghan uniforms reminds me 

of when I was in the Kuwait desert with my platoon, and we were 

getting ready to invade Iraq. And a few days before we invaded 

fully anticipating to be hit with chemical weapons, we were issued 

our chemical weapons suits. And we ripped open the black plastic 

packages, we took out green camouflage chemical weapon suits to 

invade Iraq. 

Now, this is back in the ‘‘axis of evil’’ days, and so we joked that 

they must be saving the desert ones for Korea. But you would 

think that we would learn from mistakes like that, and yet, a few 

years later, we see this happening again when it is completely 

within our control. 

The uniforms that were issued to the Afghan National Army 

have been deemed inappropriate for 97 percent of Afghanistan. At 

the same time, there were desert pattern uniforms owned by the 

Department of Defense that would have been perfectly appropriate. 
3 

In response to this investigation, the House Armed Services 

Committee has acted and included a provision in the fiscal year 

2018 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] that would require DOD to perform both cost and requirement analyses before 

awarding any new contract for uniforms in Afghanistan. 

It is designed to ensure this particular mistake never happens 

again, but I want to ensure this oversight body hears from you 

about whether you believe that is the case, whether it will work, 

and whether there is much more we should be doing. 

We need to get to the bottom of what went wrong. I can’t tell you what I can do with $26 million in my district. 

I would also like to hear your thoughts on what we should do 

now that we have bought these uniforms for the Afghan forces and 

whether or not it makes sense to use additional taxpayer funds to 

buy replacements. 

It is easy to conclude that the Defense Department did not subject this decision to sufficient supervision or oversight. But it is 

also important to say that DOD regularly complains that Congress 

imposes onerous reporting requirements and other oversight measures that take too much time, require too much bureaucracy, and 

hurt the operational efficiency of our military. We don’t want to do 

that, but these are the kinds of situations that demand it. 

Therefore, we want to better understand how these decisions 

were made and the broader policy changes you would recommend 

to prevent these outrageous mistakes in the future. 

In the absence of good answers, we will demand stricter oversight, and we will get into the weeds. My hope is that we can eventually gain the confidence that DOD will prevent the massive 

waste of taxpayer dollars in the future without requiring us to impose more bureaucratic oversight on daily operations. 

The second set of findings in some ways should concern us even 

more. If we are not adequately tracking and securing the weapons 

and equipment we send to our allies in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anywhere else, that endangers the critical efforts of the Iraqi security 

forces to defeat ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and ensure 

they are able to stabilize the country after combat operations are 

complete. 

Both of the Department of Defense’s own inspector general as 

well as the GAO have concluded that there are serious shortcomings remaining in our ability to sufficiently track and account for 

the weapons and other hardware we are providing via the Iraq 

Train and Equip Fund, or ITEF. 

More specifically, the GAO found the Department of Defense only 

maintains, quote, ‘‘limited visibility and accountability over equipment funded by ITEF,’’ end quote, and that a key tracking system 

is, quote, ‘‘not consistently capturing key transportation dates of 

ITEF equipment.’’ 

Again, I myself have been responsible for delivering ammunition, 

weapons, and other equipment to the Iraqi security forces. My 

team and I have maintained strict accountability of what was delivered and showed up to inspect those deliveries. We held our 

Iraqi leaders, our counterparts, accountable. We made them sign 

for everything, and we followed up with other inspections to make 

sure that they still had the inventory they accepted. 
4 

We can do this. We can do it right, and we need to do it, and 

the American taxpayer deserves it, not to mention our troops in the 

field, who certainly don’t want to find themselves targeted by our 

own superior weapons and equipment. 

Some progress has been made, but I am eager to hear more specifics about how we can ensure that hundreds of millions of dollars 

in weapons and equipment are, indeed, accounted for and confirmed as properly delivered where intended. 

I thank you for your oversight work, and I look forward to your 

testimony today. 

And with that, I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moulton can be found in the Appendix on page 45.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Moulton. 

And I am pleased to recognize our witnesses today, and I want 

to thank them for taking time to be with us. 

We have the Honorable John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction; Mr. Michael Roark, the Assistant Inspector General for the Contract Management and Payments 

directorate at the Department of Defense Inspector General, and 

Ms. Jessica Farb, director on the International Affairs and Trade 

team at the Government Accountability Office. 

So we will now hear your opening statements. 

Mr. Sopko, we will begin with you. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. SOPKO, SPECIAL INSPECTOR 

GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION 

Mr. SOPKO. Thank you very much, Chairman Hartzler, Ranking 

Member Moulton, and members of the subcommittee and committee. 

It is an honor and a pleasure to be here again to discuss SIGAR’s 

work in Afghanistan, and in particular, the purchase of uniforms 

for the Afghan National Army [ANA] by the Combined Security 

Transition Command in Afghanistan, commonly referred to as 

CSTC–A, which is responsible for the bulk of the training, advising, 

and assisting of the Afghan security forces there. 

CSTC–A, as you alluded to, procured over 1 million ANA uniforms with a proprietary pattern without testing its effectiveness 

and costing up to $28 million more than needed. 

As Secretary Mattis recently noted, quote, ‘‘the key findings of 

the SIGAR report is not just that it exposes waste, but rather, it 

serves as an example of a complacent mode of thinking.’’ He also 

refers to it as a cavalier attitude toward the expenditure of taxpayer funds. 

This $93 million procurement demonstrates what happens when 

people in the government don’t follow the rules. 

Now, I would like to highlight 10 specific areas of concern for you 

to consider. First, it appears that CSTC–A only showed the Afghan 

minister of defense proprietary camouflaged patterns owned by one 

company, a Canadian company called HyperStealth. 

Secondly, CSTC–A failed to consider other available camouflage 

patterns, including those owned by the Department of Defense, 

which would have been cheaper and, perhaps, equally effective. 
5 

Third, CSTC–A never tested the HyperStealth pattern for its effectiveness in Afghanistan. 

CSTC–A never justified the uniform requirements, which made 

those uniforms more costly than those used by other Afghan units 

and paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. 

CSTC–A recommended using a sole source award to HyperStealth, even though DOD contracting officers objected. 

CSTC–A got around those objections by using a de facto sole 

source process, which required whomever won the prime contract 

to use the HyperStealth pattern. 

CSTC–A also mysteriously alerted HyperStealth to, quote, unquote, ‘‘wait by the phone’’ for a call from the Atlantic Dive Supply 

Company, also known as ADS, who ultimately purchased the exclusive license for their camouflage pattern in Afghanistan. 

Now, Federal regulations dictate that brand name acquisitions 

like this require market research and require a justification. 

CSTC–A did neither. 

In addition, we found that CSTC–A was unable to determine the 

total amount of direct assistance spent on procuring ANA uniforms, 

nor the amount of uniforms actually purchased, due to poor oversight and poor recordkeeping. 

And lastly, an area of concern is that we uncovered that the Afghans did not adhere to the Berry Amendment, which requires the 

purchase of only U.S. textiles when procuring ANA uniforms of direct assistance. 

Instead, the Afghans used U.S. taxpayer dollars to purchase inferior Chinese textiles for their uniforms. 

Now, these problems, Madam Chairman, are serious. They are so 

serious that we started a criminal investigation related to the procurement of the ANA uniforms. But I must say, as a result of our 

work and as a result of conversations we have had with OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Policy about other issues, that I 

want to announce today that we believe it is prudent to review all 

of CSTC–A’s contracts related to the procurement of organizational 

clothing and individual equipment in Afghanistan. 

We are pleased that OSD Policy concurred with the report’s recommendations, because if unmodified, this procurement, if it continues, would needlessly cause the taxpayer an additional $72 million over the next 10 years. 

I would also like to thank my colleagues in OSD Policy for identifying some contracts they believe ripe for oversight. 

I would also like to thank this committee and the committee 

members who recently voted for that amendment mandating a review of the cost-benefit analysis of this contract. 

I would also like to encourage the subcommittee to ensure DOD 

conducts proper oversight that addresses the broader problems that 

SIGAR identifies in its work. 

As we all know, oversight is mission critical, and we cannot afford to wait until we waste millions of dollars to try to fix it. 

Finally, I would like to thank Secretary Mattis for his support 

and leadership as shown by his recent memo to senior DOD officials supporting SIGAR’s findings and reiterating the need to, 

quote, ‘‘take aggressive action to end waste in the Department of 

Defense.’’ 
6 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify, and I am 

happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sopko can be found in the Appendix on page 48.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Roark. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. ROARK, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR 

GENERAL, CONTRACT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE INSPECTOR GENERAL 

Mr. ROARK. Chairwoman Hartzler, Ranking Member Moulton, 

and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity 

to discuss our two audits on Iraq Train and Equip Fund equipment. 

We initiated these two audits in 2016 based on concerns identified during previous audits in Kuwait for Operation Inherent Resolve and a request from the Army’s 1st Theater Sustainment Command, or 1st TSC, to review its policies and procedures for the 

ITEF mission. 

Our first audit focused on whether the Army had effective controls for processing and transferring ITEF equipment to the Government of Iraq, or GOI. And our second audit focused on the procedures for securing ITEF equipment, including weapons, in Kuwait and Iraq. 

Congress created ITEF in 2014 to assist the GOI to combat the 

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria by providing assistance for training 

and equipment, logistic support, and supplies and services. Examples of ITEF equipment include body armor, weapons, and cargo 

trucks. 

Army regulations require maintaining visibility and accountability, securing, and conducting inventories of equipment. The 

Army’s 1st TSC has primary responsibility for maintaining visibility and property accountability of ITEF equipment transferred to 

Iraq. 

ITEF equipment is typically staged in Kuwait and then shipped 

to multiple transfer sites in Iraq. 

Our first audit found that the 1st TSC did not have complete visibility and accountability of ITEF equipment prior to transfer to 

the Iraqis because the command did not use automated systems to 

keep track of that equipment. 

Specifically, we found two problems with accountability. First, 

the 1st TSC could not provide complete data for the quantity and 

dollar value of equipment on hand, including vehicles and ammunition. 

Instead, the 1st TSC relied on multiple spreadsheets developed 

by different commands in both Kuwait and Iraq to provide visibility and accountability. When we requested the quantity and dollar value of equipment on hand and that had been transferred to 

the GOI, the 1st TSC had to contact various officials and manually 

calculate the data based on multiple spreadsheets and systems and 

even after that, their response was still incomplete. 

Mr. SUOZZI. I am sorry, Mr. Roark. Could you just tell us what 

a TSC is, please? 
7 

Mr. ROARK. The 1st Theater Sustainment Command is the Army 

command in Kuwait that is responsible for keeping track of the 

equipment. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you. 

Mr. ROARK. Second, the 1st TSC did not consistently account for 

equipment in Iraq. In some cases, they did not enter the property 

into property records when it initially arrived in country, or they 

sent it to Iraq and considered that it was already transferred to the 

Iraqis, although it could still be under U.S. control. 

As a result, the 1st TSC did not have accurate up-to-date records 

on the quantity and dollar value of Iraq equipment that we valued 

at over $1 billion. 

As a result of our audit, the 1st TSC developed a shared spreadsheet for all commands to use to keep track of ITEF equipment, 

and then in the long term, they initiated steps to use automated 

systems by late 2016. 

Our second audit focused on inventory and security procedures 

for ITEF weapons. As of October 2016, there were over 11,000 

ITEF weapons valued at $17.7 million in Kuwait and over 2,900 

ITEF weapons valued at $2.3 million at the one transfer site in 

Iraq that we visited. 

Examples of these weapons included M–16 rifles, M–14 sniper rifles, and 12-gauge shotguns. We found that the Army did not have 

effective procedures for conducting inventories and securing ITEF 

weapons in both Kuwait and Iraq. 

In Kuwait, we identified three main security problems. First, the 

Army did not consistently conduct inventories of weapons. Second, 

and most concerning, ITEF weapons were stored in cardboard 

boxes, some of which had holes in them or had partially collapsed. 

Weapons were also stored in wooden crates that were not banded 

or locked. As a result, we were able to open numerous boxes and 

expose their contents. 

Third, we observed Syrian equipment managed by Army contractors that were stored right alongside ITEF equipment with no 

physical barrier separating the two. In response to our audit, the 

Army established inventory and security procedures for the Kuwait 

warehouse and then reorganized the warehouse to separate the 

ITEF and Syrian equipment. 

In Iraq, we found that the Army did not effectively secure ITEF 

weapons at the site we visited in accordance with Army regulations. Specifically, incoming weapons were stored at a storage yard 

that had a perimeter fence with multiple holes in it large enough 

to grant unauthorized access. 

As a result of our audit, the command repaired the fence and 

then later moved the equipment to a secured location. 

During the audits, the Army commands that we dealt with were 

very receptive to our recommendations and initiated steps to implement corrective actions. These two audits continued our longstanding practice of informing commands in a contingency environment 

of our observations during the audit to allow them to make realtime corrective actions rather than waiting for a final report to be 

issued months later. 

This concludes my statement, and I am prepared to answer any 

questions you may have. 
8 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roark can be found in the Appendix on page 63.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. 

Ms. Farb. 

STATEMENT OF JESSICA FARB, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS AND TRADE, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. FARB. Chairwoman Hartzler, Ranking Member Moulton, and 

members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss our May 2017 report on DOD’s accountability for equipment 

provided through the Iraq Train and Equip Fund, or ITEF. 

Congress created ITEF to provide equipment and other assistance to Iraq security forces to counter the expansion of ISIS. As of 

December 2016, DOD had disbursed about $2 billion of the $2.3 billion Congress appropriated to ITEF in fiscal years 2015 and 2016. 

These funds purchased personal protective equipment, weapons, 

and vehicles for these forces, among other things. 

We found that DOD does not collect timely and accurate information on the status of equipment purchased through the fund. As a 

result, DOD cannot demonstrate that this equipment reached intended destinations in Iraq. 

Specifically, DOD does not ensure that SCIP, the Security Cooperation Information Portal, consistently captures key transportation dates of ITEF-funded equipment. SCIP is designed to provide end-to-end visibility over equipment that DOD provides to foreign governments. For Iraq, SCIP is intended to provide visibility 

over equipment as it moves through three phases: acquisition and 

shipment, staging in Kuwait and Iraq, and transfer to the Government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government. 

We found that SCIP captured some of the key transportation 

dates for orders of equipment during the acquisition and shipping 

phases; however, SCIP captured none of the transportation dates 

for these orders during the staging and transfer phases. 

DOD officials attributed this to three potential interoperability 

and data reporting issues in SCIP. First, SCIP may not be importing key dates correctly from other DOD data systems. Second, 

SCIP’s management report system may not be importing key dates 

from within SCIP itself. And third, DOD component staff may not 

be reporting key dates in SCIP. In some instances, staff are not required to do so, while in others staff reported difficulty recording 

these dates in SCIP due to the lack of clear procedures in a designated data field. 

In addition to issues with reporting in SCIP, we also found that 

DOD cannot fully account for ITEF funded equipment transferred 

to the Government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government 

due to missing or incomplete documentation. 

Most of DOD’s transfer documentation lack case identifier information, which is key to tracking equipment throughout each phase 

of the process. 

Although DOD issued a verbal order requiring the use of case 

identifiers, this was not incorporated into standard operating procedures for ensuring accountability. 
9 

We made four recommendations in our report. First, we recommended that DOD develop written procedures that specify the 

data field to be used to capture equipment transfer dates in SCIP. 

Second, we recommended that the Department develop written procedures for including case identifiers in the transfer documentation. 

Third, we recommended that DOD should identify the root 

causes of the problems, such as interoperability and data reporting 

issues within SCIP and other data systems. And fourth, we recommended that the Department should develop an action plan with 

milestones and timeframes to address the root causes that they 

identify. 

DOD has already taken some steps to begin to address these recommendations. With respect to the first two recommendations, the 

Department just this month provided us with updated procedures, 

and we are in the process of evaluating whether they fully address 

GAO’s recommendations. 

In response to our third and fourth recommendations, the Department said that it has begun identifying the root causes of the 

data reporting issues in SCIP and will develop an action plan and 

timeframe for addressing them. 

In addition, DOD has requested GAO’s assistance to ensure that 

the issues we identified are appropriately resolved. 

We have recently started new work that will examine the disposition of ITEF-funded equipment after it has been transferred to 

the Government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government. As 

we conduct this important analysis, we will continue to follow up 

on DOD’s efforts to improve its accountability and visibility over 

ITEF-funded equipment. 

Chairwoman Hartzler, Ranking Member Moulton, and members 

of the subcommittee, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would 

be pleased to answer any questions you may have at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Farb can be found in the Appendix on page 71.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much. Very good work on all 

your behalf. I appreciate you looking into this very important issue 

of making sure our tax dollars are spent wisely and the equipment 

gets in the hands of those who really need it. 

I want to start with you, Mr. Sopko. So you address some new 

things. First of all, you provided all of us with some pictures here. 

I just wanted to, for the record and for the audience, make sure 

that they see what we are seeing here as a committee. That up 

here on the left is the pattern that was chosen that is proprietary, 

and the one on the right is the woodland battle dress uniform that 

goes to the Afghan special forces that I believe you said is not proprietary. And all of these patterns down below are owned by the 

U.S. Department of Defense and wouldn’t have cost the additional 

money. 

[The pictures referred to are retained in the subcommittee files 

and can be viewed upon request.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Can you kind of walk through how you think— 

how this happened that we end up having this pattern here that 

looks like a forest, and that is what the Afghanistan security forces 

chose or wanted, but yet, we had these down here that were avail-
10 

able at a much more economical cost that have—looked more like 

a sand environment and desert. 

So can you kind of walk us through the different patterns and 

how we came to have this in Afghanistan? 

Mr. SOPKO. Thank you. And I am happy to do that, Madam 

Chairman. 

You are absolutely correct. This is the proprietary pattern. And 

what that basically means is that somebody owned that pattern, 

and the government has to pay a licensing fee for using it. 

The woodland pattern over here that you pointed out, that I don’t 

think—that is a nonproprietary pattern, so we didn’t have to pay 

for it. 

You asked the question, how did this happen? Well, that is part 

of our investigation. But it is pretty clear from our discussion with 

the CSTC–A officials in reviewing the files, the reason it happened 

is that the minister of defense, Minister Wardak, never saw the 

DOD-owned patterns down below. He was basically shown only 

patterns owned by one company, the Canadian company that I 

mentioned previously. 

So that is why—I mean, this kind of reminds me of an old joke 

about buying a Model T. Henry Ford can say, you can get any car 

you want, as long as it is black. Well, basically, we gave—the only 

options we gave the minister of defense was the proprietary patterns. We never showed him this. 

The bigger problem is, no one ever did an assessment as to what 

kind of camouflage is best in Afghanistan. And we talked to people 

who do that for a living. We talked to the military who do that for 

a living up in Massachusetts, and they said that is what you 

should do. You should look at the environment. And as a matter 

of fact, some of our military have two different uniforms, one for 

the desert and one for that small area where there is greenery. But 

that option was never provided. 

Basically, what we were told by CSTC–A, and we are researching 

this right now, is the minister of defense liked this color, so he 

picked it. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Now, some of the information I had read prior 

to this hearing said that one of the reasons that he chose that is 

he wanted it to be unique. He wanted it to be different than, perhaps, what U.S. might be wearing or others to identify them. So 

maybe he had that rationale. 

But I wanted to clarify, so if the U.S. Department of Defense 

owns these patterns down here, are they currently in use by our 

forces? 

Mr. SOPKO. No, they are not. And they are not used—and no one 

is using them in Afghanistan. We have patterns that look like it, 

but not exactly the same. So if he wanted a unique pattern, he 

could have picked one of these if he had been shown. Some are 

green and some are brown or whatever color it is, but he could 

have picked those and wouldn’t have cost the government anything 

extra. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Now, you mentioned—thank you. 

You mentioned that we need to get to the bottom of this or that 

in the future we could have $72 million additional money that was 

already spent. Can you clarify? What are you referring to there? 
11 

Mr. SOPKO. We are locked into providing the Afghans with uniforms. Every new soldier, Afghan soldier, gets four new uniforms 

when he starts, and they get replaced on a regular basis. And the 

way it is now, the only pattern we can buy is the pattern owned 

by the license—the company that owns the license. So we are 

locked into that. If we don’t change this, we are going to pay extra, 

not just for the proprietary pattern, but the second part is they decided to have a more expensive uniform, a fancier uniform, more 

like the Americans, so it has zippers and a bunch of other things, 

they looked more fashionable, but no assessment was done why you 

needed that uniform for the Afghans. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Do you know how long the contract is currently? 

Mr. SOPKO. I don’t have that information right now. I can get 

that for you. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Very good. Well, I appreciate you looking 

at that. 

I wanted to ask the other witnesses regarding the ITEF issues 

that you raised. Is it concerning to you that it took three separate 

reports before the Department of Defense, you know, started agreeing to some of these changes, or would you say that they have been 

doing the needed changes and following your recommendations 

from day one? 

Mr. ROARK. Well, for our two reports, I think it is important to 

remember that the command—the Army commands that we are 

discussing here today, in Kuwait and Iraq, asked us to come in and 

take a look at their procedures. So, you know, in late 2014, Congress created ITEF, and so then in 2015, we were starting to procure equipment and so forth. 

And so in 2016 when we did these two audits, they said, hey, I 

am adopting this new mission, can you come in and take a look at, 

as an independent party, how we are doing and, you know, make 

recommendations for how we could improve. And so we did that, 

and we thought the commands were very receptive to our feedback 

and did take corrective actions in a timely manner. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Great. 

Ms. FARB. My response would be similar. They have been working with us. They asked for our assistance in helping us to implement the recommendations. They actually also asked for underlying data to help identify the particular problems we were pointing out within the data system that they provided. 

GAO’s previously done work on the standard operating procedures issues throughout the theaters that we have been in, and we 

have seen in the past that they have, you know, been very receptive to our recommendations. And so we look forward to our future 

work in terms of looking at this. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Very good. Ranking Member Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

So, Mr. Inspector General, you mentioned that you are opening 

a criminal investigation into this incident. I mean, it certainly 

seems to me like a place where we might not just find a mistake 

but fraud or other improprieties. 
12 

What more should we be doing on this subcommittee to get to 

the bottom of what went on here? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I would suggest that hearings such as this are 

important, bringing the spotlight of oversight is important. 

I would suggest, and I had the good fortune to work for Sam 

Nunn as well as for John Dingell on the famous or infamous ‘‘Dingell-grams’’ that went out. I wrote quite a few for Chairman Dingell. I think a ‘‘Hartzler-gram’’ should get known around the Department of Defense in which hard, tough questions are asked, and 

we are happy to help you in addressing those questions. 

But one question you could ask, and I think the full committee 

should ask, is how many people identified by my office, by the DOD 

office, or by GAO have actually lost their jobs because of wasting 

taxpayers’ dollars? Send that letter to the Department of Defense. 

And while you are at it, send one or have somebody send one to 

USAID [United States Agency for International Development] or 

DOD and the Department of State. 

I bet you no one. We identify these problems, no one is held accountable. We make the recommendations, and they sound really 

good, and you could get great procedures. Everything we identified 

were in the FAR [Federal Acquisition Regulation]. They totally ignored it. No one is being held accountable. 

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Roark, can you comment on that? Has anyone 

been held accountable for this gross error, this gross negligence? 

Mr. ROARK. Well, we have been working on audits in Southwest 

Asia, in both Iraq and Afghanistan and in supporting countries like 

Kuwait, for many years, and each time we write a report or do an 

audit, we do think about does this—do the circumstances here meet 

the need for an accountability recommendation to hold someone accountable? 

But in the end, as IGs [inspectors general], we can make a suggestion or recommendation to the command, but we—it is up to the 

commands to take action on whether or not to hold someone accountable. So there are pretty frequently, recommendations in 

DOD—— 

Mr. MOULTON. I understand that. But do you know in this instance, has anyone been held accountable? 

Mr. ROARK. In this instance, I am not aware of any. 

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Sopko, to go back to you, are there any specific witnesses or other folks that you think we should call before 

this committee to help get to the bottom of what is going on here? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I would ask that you don’t call any other witnesses until we get to the bottom of the criminality. But there are 

some, probably, some of the contractors, some of the contracting officers. But I am happy to sit down and discuss names of people privately. 

But, again, we are opening up an investigation. It is just in the 

beginning stage. So we can work with the committee if you want 

to talk about people, but I would defer, at least on this case—but 

we have many other cases that we have closed. We are happy to 

give you the names and locations of people who—remember, I have 

no subpoena authority over an individual. I cannot compel testimony. Okay? And I—— 

Mr. MOULTON. We will take you up on that offer. 
13 

Mr. SOPKO. Thank you. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you very much. 

Now, stepping back from this specific instance, can you comment 

on some of your observations—you have been doing this job for a 

long time, on the broader circumstances that lead to these situations? 

The Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives 

should not have to pass a specific provision in our law to detail the 

supervision of the purchasing of uniforms for the Afghan National 

Army. I mean, at a certain level, that is absurd. 

We ought to just have an environment where these deficiencies, 

these mistakes, are caught, where proper supervision exists from 

the beginning so that gross—this gross waste of taxpayer dollars 

simply never occurs. 

So can you comment on those broader—the broader situation 

here? 

Mr. SOPKO. You know, the questions you are asking are the type 

of questions I would love to discuss in more detail. And I think we 

could have a broader hearing just about how to fix the government. 

I have been looking at in this job—— 

Mr. MOULTON. I am not trying to fix the whole government. 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, at least my little world for the last 6 years. 

And then I have 25 years on the Hill doing oversight, and I know 

the frustration you feel. 

But based upon my experience in Afghanistan, I think a couple 

of things are very clear. Number one, there is no accountability. 

People are not being held accountable for wasting money. 

We occasionally indict people, but we only indict the slow and the 

lame. I mean, basically, that is about all we are getting. So people 

are not held accountable. 

We have a disincentive for good government. And I don’t want 

to imply, first of all, that the people we send to Afghanistan are 

either very stupid or very venal. They are some of the best, bravest 

people in the world. But we have given our procurement people, 

our ambassadors, our generals a box of broken tools, the same broken tools that you see in the press with the VA [Department of 

Veterans Affairs], with the Department of Energy, Department of 

Commerce, HHS [Department of Health and Human Services], you 

name it. 

Procurement is broken. HR [human resources] is broken. Our rotation, we have what we call in Afghanistan the annual lobotomy. 

Every year we change everybody out. I think I have gone through 

8 or 10 commanders of CSTC–A in the 51⁄2 years that I have been 

there, 8 or 10. 

Mr. MOULTON. How many times was General Eisenhower replaced due to an annual rotation requirement? 

Mr. SOPKO. Zero. He was there the whole length of duration. 

I know we could also talk about Vietnam, while it may not be 

the best analogy. But what I am saying is—and I don’t want to be 

hated by every spouse of every senior military officer, but the problem is this annual rotation. And in some areas, it is even shorter. 

There are FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] agents, there are 

Commerce officials, there are people there for just months at a 

time. They don’t even know where the latrine is by the time they 
14 

leave. So they are never ever held accountable for the screwups, because they are not around when the screwup is discovered by us, 

because we usually don’t get there. 

DOD IG [Department of Defense Inspector General] and GAO 

and my office is really good. But by the time we get there, it is like 

the detective show you’ve seen on TV. If we are lucky, there is a 

chalk outline of the body. But usually, it is 7 years old. Remember, 

this contract is 7 to 10 years. It is ongoing, but the problem started 

back then. So there has to be something done to fix our personnel 

system. There has to be something done to fix our procurement system. We have to stop this disincentive of spend money. 

I don’t know how many contracting officers have told me, I get 

rewarded at the end of the year on how much money I put on contract, not on whether the contract is good or not. 

We have to change that system, and I would highly recommend 

take a look at the HR system in the Defense Department, take a 

look at the procurement system, take a look at the incentives that 

you are allowing to occur, which create this problem. 

And that may be the first place and the best place to look. Look 

at the personnel system and look at the incentives. 

Mr. MOULTON. Great. Thank you very much. Madam Chairwoman. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Mr. Gaetz. 

Mr. GAETZ. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

It appears as though we bought uniforms that didn’t work and 

paid about $28 million more than we should have to do so. 

One of the reasons why that is so frustrating to all of us here 

on this panel is that we are the ones, Republicans and Democrats, 

who work hard every day to convince our colleagues that we need 

the resources in the Department of Defense to effectively protect 

the warfighter and military families. Circumstances like this 

undermine our bipartisan efforts to support warfighters and their 

families. 

This appears to be either an event of stupidity or corruption. 

What is your assessment as to which of the two we are facing? 

Mr. SOPKO. I don’t mean to dodge the question. That is why we 

are doing the investigation right now. It is either venality or it is 

stupidity, or it is, like I say, it is a system that was set up where 

the person who was working this contract was rewarded by getting 

the contract out. 

Mr. GAETZ. Is there any evidence that these proprietary uniforms 

have greater capability than the nonproprietary patterns? 

Mr. SOPKO. We didn’t look at that. I mean, we are not assessing 

whether the proprietary uniform is better or the camouflage pattern is better or not better. We are just saying that there were proprietary uniforms; there are also nonproprietary. 

Mr. GAETZ. What is our current working theory as to why the 

customer was only shown the proprietary product of one Canadian 

company? 

Mr. SOPKO. We don’t know. That is why we are doing the investigation. 

Mr. GAETZ. And we have no mechanism to determine whether or 

not that is stupidity or corruption at this time? 
15 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, we hope after the end of the criminal investigation we will find that out, but that is what we are in the process 

of doing right now, sir. 

Mr. GAETZ. What is your expectation on the timeline there? 

Mr. SOPKO. That is frustrating for me, as for everyone else. It 

takes a long time. One of the problems is, I don’t have subpoena 

authority to compel somebody to talk to my agents. They can slam 

the door in their face. 

Mr. GAETZ. Is there any person that you wish you could subpoena now that you can’t? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I can’t subpoena anyone. 

Mr. GAETZ. Right. Who would be the first three people you would 

subpoena if you had that power? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I don’t want to name names, because I think 

that is sending the wrong message to the people we are investigating. 

Mr. GAETZ. I disagree. I think it sends exactly the right message. 

I mean, our committee has the subpoena power. So if the challenge 

is we have no timeframe, we have no mechanism to find out whether people were stupid or corrupt, we have subpoena power in the 

Congress, you don’t, it seems as though a partnership here would 

be beneficial. 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I am happy to discuss names privately, sir, at 

any time with the chairman, or ranking member, or you. 

Mr. GAETZ. Well, Mr. Roark, you indicated that your office has 

made accountability recommendations. Did those accountability 

recommendations name names? 

Mr. ROARK. We used the position title of the person, that is usually how we do it. 

Mr. GAETZ. And would you be willing to provide those accountability recommendations to the subcommittee so that we might be 

able to see who the individuals are that you seem to believe ought 

to be held accountable? 

Mr. ROARK. We can. Now, just for a clarification, the accountability recommendations that I have issued in the past are on that 

body of audits that I have done over time not on this particular 

audit—these two audits we are discussing today. 

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Roark, I believe you gave testimony about weapons that were not properly guarded. In that particular circumstance, was there an accountability recommendation that came 

from your office? 

Mr. ROARK. Sir, for the weapons storage issue, we made recommendations in real time to the command, and oftentimes they fix 

that right away. 

In Iraq, I am thinking of the example where they used the storage lot that had holes in the fence. And, really, they were—that 

was the only yard that they were given, the only one that was 

available, and then they—I think the reluctance to fix that at the 

time was that they knew they were moving to a more secure location down the road. And so we kind of expedited that by recommending that they fix the fence no matter whether it was just for 

a short time or not, just because of the security risk there. 

Mr. GAETZ. And so in that instance, was there an accountability 

recommendation tied to a specific individual? 
16 

Mr. ROARK. No, we did not make an accountability recommendation for that instance. We just basically talked with the command 

and made recommendations with them and then wrote about that 

in our report, and they fixed the problem in real time, so. 

Mr. GAETZ. And I will go back to Mr. Sopko for my final question. 

Will you—can you illuminate this committee as to any evidence 

of improper influence that this particular Canadian company may 

have had within our Department of Defense as it related to the 

sweetheart circumstances that led to their products being the only 

products shown to the customer? 

Mr. SOPKO. At this stage, I can’t. We haven’t developed it that 

much. 

Mr. GAETZ. I yield back. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Mr. O’Halleran. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I am new at this. And I am sitting here in amazement, and we 

have just approved a tremendous amount of money within this 

body here to go out and fund new weapons, new uniforms, new personnel, and yet, we have a system before me that sounds like it is 

systemic in its problems with audits. 

Now, I know the Secretary, when we were listening to him at the 

beginning of the year, made it clear that he understands that there 

is a problem within the system. But I can’t believe that we haven’t 

known that there is a problem within the system for a number of 

years. 

And so I am—and I am confused by the fact that there is a trail 

of letters to a commander, Mr. Roark mentioned it. And is there— 

is that commander required to send back to you the information— 

the reason why they rejected what you wanted to have done or recommendations? 

Mr. ROARK. So in these cases the commanders did not reject our 

recommendations. They adopted them and agreed with them. But 

I think the process you are discussing is follow-ups. So we will 

make a recommendation and then the command will either—you 

know, either agree or disagree with it. In this case, they agreed 

and took action. 

However, we don’t take their word for it. We either visit ourselves to do follow-up and make sure it was done, or we request 

documentation and photos to prove that it was done so that we can 

close out that recommendation. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. I was mentioning before about the stupid or 

corrupt. And I just, sitting here, feel that is going to happen in any 

system. But what can’t happen in any system is that the system 

is broken, and that the system is at play here. If you don’t have 

enough auditing power, then let us know. But if we are at a level 

here where the taxpayer’s money is being spent without any accountability or limited accountability, then we have a real problem. 

So my question is, to what extent does the current organizational 

structure help to—help the Department’s ability to ensure accountability for the program? 

Mr. SOPKO. Any witness? I didn’t—— 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Any witness. 
17 

Mr. SOPKO. You know, I may defer to my colleague from DOD. 

I don’t think the way the system is currently created helps accountability in the DOD, State, AID, or anywhere. I hate to say that. I 

don’t—I am usually not invited to parties like this, because I always am the—like the crazy uncle; you don’t want him at the wedding. 

But it is broken. I hate to say it. The system is broken on accountability, because we are not holding people accountable. Because by the time we get out there, the money has been spent, and 

the person who was involved is either retired or long gone. Because 

there is a 2-year or shorter appropriation cycle, and everyone’s got 

the incentive to spend money. 

It is—we have got to get ahold of how the government is working. It is not working quite well or as well as we would like to see 

it work. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. So how many times have you requested that 

the system be changed in written form or verbally or to people up 

the ladder? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I am like a broken record in the last—this current job. Every time when I have been asked to testify, and I think 

some of you have heard me testify before, I have talked about that, 

that what we need to fix is not Afghanistan or how we do in Afghanistan. We need to fix it back here. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. That was my—that was what I thought needed 

to be done, that this is just a systemic problem throughout the 

process. But I would like to know, any one of you, the three of you, 

how you have worked to change it and so we can identify how 

many times within this group that there has been a request to 

change it, and it hasn’t been changed? 

Mr. SOPKO. I don’t know if I should hog the answer, but this is 

also one of the problems. I am the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. I have no jurisdiction over OPM [Office of Personnel Management]. I have no jurisdiction over the internal procurement at DOD, although the GAO has had defense procurement 

on a high-risk list since 1991. 

I mean, that is kind of telling you we have a problem with DOD 

procurement. But I have no jurisdiction. That is also part of the 

problem. Every one of the IGs are limited. 

Now, I have jurisdiction over any money spent on reconstruction 

in Afghanistan. And I am unique of any IG, but usually, we are 

stovepiped, and I think that is the problem here. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Mr. Banks. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you, Madam Chair. There is so much to cover, 

and yet I only have 5 minutes. 

But, Mr. Sopko, thank you for what you do. I think I told you 

before, when I was in theater, Sopko was a four-letter word. But 

on behalf of the American taxpayer, I sure appreciate what you do 

in exposing situations like these. 

To begin with, on the note of uniforms, as I understand it there 

would have been a memorandum of request [MOR] that was signed 

by the commander of CSTC–A, the comptroller of CSTC–A, and 

others that would have authorized the purchase of the uniforms. 

But in your testimony, you talk about pattern of issues between 
18 

November of 2008 and January of 2017. Would that imply that 

there were numerous memorandums of requests, or was there a 

single MOR that was involved in this procurement? 

Mr. SOPKO. I don’t think we have found those records at all. Let 

me ask my colleague. 

We don’t have them, and CSTC–A doesn’t have those records. 

Mr. BANKS. But would it be safe to assume that there were a 

number of issues—I mean, in your testimony, between November 

of 2008 and January of 2017, a pattern of issues resulted in what 

you have exposed, therefore, there were, as you said, numerous 

commanders of CSTC–A that would have been involved in these, 

in a pattern of issues throughout those years rather than a single 

accountable commander at the beginning—at the outset of the procurement? 

Mr. SOPKO. You are correct, but we have found no justification 

for lack of competition, no—— 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Could you put your microphone on, please. 

Mr. SOPKO. Oh, I am sorry. 

We have found no records in CSTC–A dealing with the one 

source, the use of the brand name, the acquisition planning, market research, or describing agency needs. So none of those have 

been signed. 

And I know where you are getting to. When you do a sole source 

over a certain amount, it has to go up the chain. We found nothing. 

Mr. BANKS. Okay. But, again, I want to emphasize. I want to 

move on to something else very quickly. In your testimony you said 

between November of 2008 and January 2017, DOD spent approximately $93.8 million to procure X number of uniforms, et cetera. 

That means a pattern of issues in almost a 10-year span period, 

which would lead me to believe rather than stupidity or corruption, 

as one of my colleagues mentioned, that this is the result of a broken system at the end of the day that needs fixed rather than making accusations about stupidity or corruption. 

Mr. SOPKO. We don’t know until we do the investigation. 

Mr. BANKS. Fair enough. Moving beyond uniforms. I have with 

me a copy of your 2012 report regarding end-use monitoring findings for vehicles provided to ANDSF [Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces]. 

Your data at the time described a total shipment of 30,761 vehicles shipped to ANDSF through 2010, and based on my own experience in theater as recently as 2015, I know that we far surpassed 

that number in 2017. However, while your report from 2012 was 

generally positive, I am concerned about the struggles that I witnessed in terms of effective EUM, or end-use monitoring, of vehicles in theater, and the ultimate lack of accountability when it 

comes to the resources purchased by the American taxpayer. 

So given our current troop levels, I am concerned about our ability to track the equipment that we are providing to our Afghan 

partners, whether weapons and ammunition, or uniforms, or vehicles, et cetera. 

Can you describe for us the current environment in Afghanistan 

when it comes to maintaining accountability of resources provided 

to ANDSF? And since I have only got a minute and less than 20 

seconds, can you also describe with a new ambassador chosen in 
19 

Afghanistan, your ability to get out around the country and do the 

important work that you do, whether or not there are any limitations on your ability to do that with the current leadership at the 

embassy? 

Mr. SOPKO. Real quickly, we would have to get back to you on 

what the state is on the equipment. I don’t have the data. As for 

ability—— 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Mic, please. 

Mr. SOPKO. Sorry. 

I would have to get back to you on the equipment. We have done 

a number of audits, but I don’t have that data in front of me as 

to what the status is, and we are happy to get back to you. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mr. SOPKO. As to our ability to get around, we have had problems. Over the last year, we have seen a greater reluctance to get 

out. 

Now, the security situation has deteriorated, we understand that. 

But that is a serious problem. Even when we have U.S. military 

guardian angels protecting us, and even on my last trip, General 

Nicholson wanted me to visit a site that the U.S. military normally 

goes to, and we have an MOU [memorandum of understanding] 

with the Department of Defense to get us out there, the ambassador refused to allow me or my staff to go there. So that is problematic. 

There was no objection for security reasons. It was just an objection—and, again, the explanation I got was, I am chief of mission, 

and I am the one who is accountable, and I am not going to let you 

go. 

Now, I was surrounded by a lot of guys in green uniforms and 

there are green uniforms, not the Afghans, who had a lot of highpowered weapons, and I felt very secure. I have always felt secure. 

My staff has always felt very secure being protected by the U.S. 

military. But for some reason, the acting ambassador has abrogated our MOU with the Department of Defense and basically installed his restrictions on that. 

That is a problem. If that continues, we will not have a wholeof-government approach in Afghanistan. We will have a hole in our 

government approach to Afghanistan. And what that means is no 

matter how many troops you give, it is not going to get an answer. 

I think I am speaking too long. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Suozzi. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you. 

First of all, thank you very much for your testimony and for your 

good work you have done in this instance. 

My background, I am new to Congress. I am a freshman, but my 

background is as a certified public accountant and an attorney. I 

was the mayor of a small city and a county executive of a very 

large county with a $2.8 billion budget. 

We have heard it our entire lives, everybody in this room, about 

the $500 hammer. We hear about waste, fraud, and abuse that 

takes place in huge government enterprises and, certainly, in the 
20 

DOD. And more recently, people have come to talk to me about corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan from the Iraq and Afghani side. 

These issues that you are bringing up, I agree with Congressman 

Banks, you know, this is a systemic problem that exists that we 

need to address. 

I am very attracted to the idea when you suggested earlier that, 

you know, we can help to bring a higher profile to some of the work 

that you are doing, not just by doing hearings like this, but if you 

can share with us areas that you would like us to probe in further 

by sending a letter, by making a phone call, by trying to call attention to areas where there is waste that is taking place, where there 

are bad decisions being made or procedures or processes don’t exist. 

Mr. Sopko—— 

Mr. SOPKO. Sopko 

Mr. SUOZZI [continuing]. Sopko, you have been doing this a long 

time. You have been around this stuff for a long time. Is this, you 

know, an isolated incident do you think that you are seeing here, 

or do you see a systemic problem that is taking place? 

Mr. SOPKO. No, it is not isolated, sir. It is a systemic problem. 

Mr. SUOZZI. So what can we do to help you to shine a light on 

these things? You know, often this stuff becomes partisan, one 

party is going against the other party. 

Now, with the change in administration, this is a good time for 

us to work together on a bipartisan basis to try and make our Defense Department more efficient and less wasteful. And we are 

talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, and there has got to 

be opportunities for us to work together as a team to try and identify places that we can improve the procedures and processes to get 

rid of this waste. 

Mr. SOPKO. Congressman, I am happy to come up, and I can 

bring my staff up and brief any and all of you, including the chairman and ranking member, on issues where you can shine that 

light. 

And having worked on your side for 25 years, that is so important. And I will take you up on that offer. 

And, Madam Chairman, I will take up—ranking member also— 

on any offer you have. 

We have a lot of areas where you can help us on, and that is the 

important role of working together. And as I have told people, 

waste is not red or blue. Waste is green. I am here to try to save 

the green, and I think all of you are, too. And we are looking for 

champions such as yourselves to do that. 

So—and I am certain all of my colleagues in the DOD IG and the 

GAO would be happy to do that, too. I have a list we can give you. 

Mr. SUOZZI. I will have a staff member of mine get your number, 

and you are going to get his number. His name is Connor. He is 

in the back right now. We are going to work together. And I am 

going to take you up on that briefing idea. If any of my colleagues 

want to join, certainly. 

Madam Chairwoman, I don’t want to overstep my bounds here, 

but if you don’t mind, I want to pursue this further. I am very interested in this topic, and I would like to work with you to try to 

address this issue. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 
21 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. And thank you for your contribution. 

Your expertise on this subcommittee, really, really appreciate that. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you so much. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Absolutely. 

We are going to go now to our last member of the subcommittee, 

our newest member, Mr. Jimmy Panetta. We want to welcome you. 

We look toward to having you here on our subcommittee as well 

as Armed Services Committee. 

And so I will be happy to turn it over to you if you have any 

questions. 

Mr. MOULTON. Madam Chairman, if I may, Representative Panetta is also a former Naval Intelligence officer and someone who 

served, himself, in Afghanistan. 

So we particularly appreciate your expertise here this afternoon. 

Mr. PANETTA. Great. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Moulton, other 

members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to be here, absolute 

honor to be here. 

Thank you to the witnesses who came here, prepared and testified. I apologize for being late. I did miss some of your testimony. 

I was meeting with the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Richardson. 

And one of things we talked about, I told him I was going to my 

first subcommittee hearing, and it is on oversight. I said, what do 

you think, you know, for the Navy what would be a big change 

when it came to these types of issues? And he talked about procurement. 

And he said, you know, for now, right now—and he mentioned 

a couple of ships, including the Ford, Zumwalt, that he was having 

issues with, and he talked about how the procurement process is 

too long, too—contracts are too far out, especially with the advances of technology and how quick those are coming now, and that 

you needed to shorten them, shorten those contracts. 

Mr. Sopko, obviously, thank you for your work. You mentioned 

your box of broken tools. And the first one you mentioned was procurement. And I don’t know if this is something where you can talk 

to us about, but I think right now, with the procurement, with an 

issue like this, how would we make it better? How would we fix 

that broken tool of procurement? 

Mr. SOPKO. There are many ways to do that. The first of all is 

to eliminate the incentive to spend quickly. That is one thing. And 

that is a—something I don’t think you can legislate, but you could, 

but I think the first thing is look at how people are rewarded in 

the contracting office. 

If that is what they tell you, what they are telling me and my 

staff out there, then we have a disincentive for good contracting. 

We just have an incentive for pushing money out the door. 

I think the other issue is in procurement is the files and the 

records are horrendous. I think one of your colleagues asked before, 

he said, this is a 10-year contract. Didn’t they do X, Y, and Z. We 

can find no records. They don’t keep them. 

Now, if you were working in the private sector, you would go to 

jail for the kind of records that the Department of Defense keeps. 

That is something we can maybe learn from the private sector. 
22 

Somebody here was a certified public accountant. He would be 

shocked at the quality of records. And we did a whole investigation 

on the task force for business stabilization and operation, and we 

are going to be issuing a final audit on that. And it took us so long, 

because there was nobody in the Department of Defense who could 

discuss a nearly billion dollar program. 

Mr. PANETTA. Culture, laziness? Where did that come from? 

Mr. SOPKO. No incentive. No incentive. Not my watch. Not my 

job. That is the other thing, and that goes to procurement is, you 

do the procurement, then you are gone. 

So when the proverbial stuff hits the fan, you are in another job, 

you may be in a whole different area of the world. 

Mr. PANETTA. That goes to your third point of annual turnover, 

the constant turnover? You mentioned HR? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, the whole HR system is—we—and for procurement we—President Reagan was faced with the buildup—and I 

think Congress was at the time, and I am old enough to remember 

that, and we tried to design a real procurement core where people 

had incentives to do procurement and to stay with it. And I think 

that has kind of dissipated. 

I don’t think people are there. But there are probably smarter 

people on my staff who could give you a list of things to fix procurement. 

And, again, we are happy to discuss that. Again, my world is Afghanistan. My colleagues here can speak, the GAO and DOD can 

also speak of broader issues. 

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you. You have been doing it a while, and 

obviously, we have the uniform issue. 

Mr. Banks talked about a vehicle issue. Is this the worst you 

have seen it? Have you seen—you have got worse examples? 

Mr. SOPKO. Oh, far worse. This is de minimus in comparison. We 

spent $8 billion on counternarcotics; $8 billion, with a ‘‘b.’’ And 

there are more drugs being put out now than when we started. 

The insurgents are getting more drugs, money now than before. 

The insurgents are bribing more Afghan officials than before. We 

occasionally catch, again, the slow and the lame and those that 

don’t pay the bribes, but that is one of the biggest things. That is 

$8 billion. 

We have buildings that are falling down. We had a building 

down in Camp Leatherneck, a 64,000 square-foot building, the 

best-built building in Afghanistan. The general who was there said, 

I don’t want it, don’t build it, I won’t use it. His supervisor, General Allen, said, We don’t want it, don’t build it, we won’t use it. 

By the time it was built, it was built for the surge. By the time 

it was finished, the surge was over, and we were pulling out. 

We gave the name of the general who was responsible for ignoring General Allen and ignoring the Marine Corps general there. 

The Department of Defense—and not under the current leadership, 

I must say, but in the prior leadership—basically said, we didn’t 

find the waste of 60—of $36 million enough to hold the general 

accountable. 

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 
23 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. We are glad Mr. Jones is joining us 

today. And we appreciate your interest and your advocacy for wise 

spending. I turn it over to you. 

Mr. JONES. Madam Chairman, I thank you, and I thank Mr. 

Moulton as well. 

You know, I have been here 22 years. I was here in 2001 when 

we voted for the AUMF, authorization [for use] of military force on 

Afghanistan. I have sat in many, many hearings on the Armed 

Services Committee, both subcommittee level and full committee, 

and this is just what is just absolutely disgusting to the American 

people. If this could be on national TV, you would probably be having rallies out there right now protesting, because there is no one 

held responsible. 

Mr. Sopko, you and your staff have done numerous reports 

through the years. I have read quite a few of them. Not all, but 

quite a few of them. You have recommendations in those reports 

that the American people can see as well as Members of Congress. 

I think about the stories about ghost soldiers: we pay 200,000 Afghans millions and billions of dollars, don’t even exist. Nobody is 

accountable for that. You testified to the Senate, and you told Senator McCaskill, I believe it was, she asked you about the fact that 

we bought nine goats for $6 million. Your people looked for the 

goats, you can’t find them, and maybe somebody ate them. Nobody 

knows. 

Mr. SOPKO. But they were good goats. 

Mr. JONES. Well, they were from Italy, I remember that. They 

were from Italy. They were quality goats to start a goat business. 

It is just one thing after another, after another, after another. I do 

have a question. 

I wrote to President Trump, had it delivered on July the 18th. 

I wanted him, if he was going raise the troop levels in Afghanistan, 

to please come to Congress, ask Congress to meet its constitutional 

responsibility and have a debate. 

After 16 years, we have had no debate on the future of Afghanistan. I want to read this, and then I am going get to the question: 

You also tweeted that your let’s get out of Afghanistan, our 

troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense. Rebuild the United States of America. 

In addition, I put the next paragraph that: Mr. President, I agree 

with those remarks, and so does the 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps, my friend and unofficial adviser General Chuck Krulak, 

as he said in a recent email to me, no one has ever conquered Afghanistan and many have tried. We will join the list of nations that 

have tried and failed. 

That is Commandant Krulak not Walter Jones. 

This is what is to me why the taxpayers are so frustrated with 

Members of Congress, because every time we get these hearings, 

and I want to thank the chairman again and ranking member, we 

will keep funding Afghanistan. To your point and the point of the 

other two witnesses, nobody is ever held responsible. It just goes 

on and on and on. Our Nation is $21 trillion in debt. We are headed for an economic collapse, but yet, we will find money to keep 

spending in Afghanistan. 
24 

And thank you and all the others who are here today for whatever you are doing to try to bring some accountability to the taxpayer. This is what I have never heard—and I am going to ask in 

the minute and 40 seconds left: If we have spent over $800 billion 

in Afghanistan, what percentage of the $800 billion would you estimate should be written off as waste, fraud, and abuse? Five percent? Six percent? Ten percent? What would you estimate should 

be written off as waste, fraud, and abuse out of $800 billion of the 

taxpayers’ money? 

Mr. SOPKO. Congressman, I—again, I am not trying to avoid the 

issue. 

I can’t tell you what percentage. I know Stuart Bowen, who was 

the SIGIR [Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction] in 

Iraq, came up with a number and was later attacked because he 

had no basis. And I would have no basis for giving it. All I can say 

is too much, way too much. Billions, but I can’t tell you what percentage. I would love to, but I would be spending all my time—I 

can’t get records on ongoing contracts nevertheless go back to that. And of course, of that $800 billion, a lot of it is the warfighting. 

And that is extremely difficult. I mean, did they fire too many 

shells this day or less? That’s more difficult. I really can’t tell you. 

But too much was wasted. 

Mr. JONES. Well, I guess the last comment, because time is running out. I would hope that the Congress would feel as I do that 

we are just as responsible for waste, fraud, and abuse when we are 

told by experts like the three of you here today of what is going 

on and, yet, we keep spending billions and billions of dollars, and 

it just keeps going on and on. It is just like it is endless in this 

black hole of money, money going while Americans are being killed 

there. 

And so Madam Chairman, and Ranking Member, thank you for 

this time. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. 

Now, we do have two panels today, and the Department of Defense officials are coming up here in a minute. But I do want to 

give members an opportunity for a second round of questions. 

I do have a couple of questions still for this panel I want to address. With the GAO, your testimony highlighted the importance of 

maintaining accountability over the equipment that the DOD provides to Iraq security forces. 

And you alluded to it in your testimony, but I wonder if you can 

go into a little bit more details, what is the nature of the interoperability and data reporting issues that you have identified as a potential root cause of the problem and how can DOD improve them 

in a meaningful way? 

So, basically, just walk through the process. We send over some 

guns or some body armor, and the different steps that are needed 

and what has been lacking and what you think needs to be done 

or have they addressed those issues to keep track of everything? 

Ms. FARB. Well, as I mentioned, there are three phases, generally 

speaking, in the process of sending the equipment over. So there 

is the procurement and shipment from the United States, the staging in Iraq and Kuwait, and then the transfer over to the Government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government. 
25 

We found that, you know, only the very beginning phase, the procurement and shipment phase, that the dates, the transportation 

dates were reported in the SCIP system, which is the Security Cooperation Information Portal, which is a system that should give 

end-to-end visibility to the Department over where the equipment 

is in the process. When we looked at the other two phases, we 

found no dates entered into the system at all. 

We did not determine the root causes ourselves. We suggested 

that—we made a recommendation to the Department that they 

should look into the root causes, because they are best positioned 

to understand the interoperabilities that we found. 

They could not explain exactly why we weren’t seeing the dates 

in the system. We had a lot of discussions with staff, their contractor, and other experts, which is detailed in our report. And it 

seems to us that they should be able to sort of under—look under 

all of this and understand better where the breakdowns are. 

They did ask for our underlying data so that they could pinpoint 

some of the information that we were not seeing and try to go 

backwards and look from there. 

So I think that is a question that hopefully the second panel will 

be able to address. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Do they have—does our equipment have the 

identification number, like a bar code or something that can be 

scanned at various stages along the way, like, you know, FedEx 

and Amazon and post office and other people do? 

Ms. FARB. Yes, I am looking back at my team. Yes, it does 

have—there are identifiers, case identifiers, that are associated in 

the system as well as individual equipment and procurement—— 

Mrs. HARTZLER. So you say the dates weren’t entered. Does that 

require somebody to type the date in, like scan it with a bar code 

scan and then record it, or can they just scan it? 

Ms. FARB. I think for the dates themselves, there are a couple 

of different ways that they are entered into the system. Either 

users can enter them into the system, or the dates are pulled from 

other DOD sources. So there may be an external data system. 

There are a couple of different information suites that we described also in detail in our report, that are used to pull the date— 

the dates from, but sometimes the dates are in those systems but 

not showing up in the Security Cooperation Information Portal. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. I am going to follow up with this more 

with the DOD officials. But I did want to ask another question of 

Mr. Roark. 

Today, if the committee were to request that DOD provide the 

immediate quantity, dollar value, and location of equipment on 

hand in Kuwait and Iraq, how quickly do you estimate that information could be found, and is the Department working on a system 

to improve recordkeeping? 

Mr. ROARK. So we asked the same question during our audits; so 

one of the biggest problems that we found was automated systems 

weren’t being used, so a lot of things were based on individual 

spreadsheets and so forth. 

So we recommended that the commands implement some more 

recognized Army accountability and visibility systems. And so the 

commands wrote me back last week when I asked for a follow-up 
26 

to see what had happened over the last few months, and they indicated that they have implemented an automated system called the 

Global Combat Support System–Army. So that would be the system that they are using as of last week, and that would be the first 

place to go to try to get that information. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Very good. I think we have checked, there 

are no other questions on this round. So we want to thank you very 

much for your testimony. 

And now we will move on to the second panel. And as they are 

making the transition there, I am going to go ahead with the introductions. 

On this panel, we are going to be joined by Colonel David 

Navratil, the country director for Iraq at the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense for Policy; and Mr. Peter Velz, the director for Afghanistan, Resources and Transition, at the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense for Policy. 

So we appreciate you gentlemen being here, and sitting through 

the first panel. And that will probably be very helpful to you beginning our—your testimony and questions. You know some of the 

issues that have been raised by the subcommittee for questions, 

and so, you know, we appreciate you addressing those. 

So would you please go ahead and proceed with your statements. 

STATEMENT OF PETER VELZ, DIRECTOR, AFGHANISTAN (RESOURCES AND TRANSITION), OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, POLICY; AND COL DAVID NAVRATIL, 

COUNTRY DIRECTOR FOR IRAQ, OFFICE OF THE UNDER 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, POLICY 

Mr. VELZ. Chairwoman Hartzler, Ranking Member Moulton, 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting Department 

of Defense witnesses to testify here today, and thank you for the 

unwavering support that you and the defense committees give to 

the men and women of the Department of Defense, military and civilian alike, who serve and defend our country all over the world. 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department of Defense’s efforts to ensure that taxpayers’ funds used to train, equip, 

and sustain partner forces in Afghanistan are effectively managed 

and deliver results in support of our national security objectives. 

You have our written testimony, so we will each provide a brief 

overview of the key points. Secretary Mattis has made it clear that 

even small instances of inefficient or ineffective use of DOD funds 

can have strategic impacts that can reverberate negatively on the 

DOD mission and our budget situation, and that we must earn the 

trust and confidence of Congress and the American people that we 

are diligent stewards of taxpayer dollars. 

The Secretary expects all DOD organizations to end wasteful 

practices in any mission area and to bring forward proposals that 

make the Department more effective and efficient. 

This guidance certainly applies to the Department’s management 

of the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund, or the ASFF, which is the 

subject of Mr. Sopko’s testimony, and all other DOD partner capacity building appropriations. 

The Department greatly appreciates the strong support from 

Congress in general and the defense committees in particular for 
27 

the ASFF appropriation. This appropriation is the center of gravity 

of the DOD mission in Afghanistan. 

It has enabled the United States and our coalition partners to 

transition responsibility for the security of Afghanistan to the Afghan defense and police forces. The Afghan forces have shown over 

the last 21⁄2 years since the end of the U.S. combat mission that 

with limited U.S. enabler assistance they have been able to prevent 

the insurgency from achieving its strategic objectives, including 

capturing and holding a major city. 

The Afghan forces have also proven to be very capable and critical partners in our counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan. The 

work by the DOD IG, the SIGAR, and GAO are critical enablers 

of the Department’s oversight and our oversight of the ASFF and 

the Afghanistan mission. 

Throughout the course of audits, investigations, and other projects and through implementation of recommendations and production of their statutorily required quarterly reports to Congress, my 

office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, as 

well as our commanders in the field and their staffs, work closely 

with the DOD IG and SIGAR, each of which have a robust presence in Kabul, Afghanistan, to identify opportunities for improvement. 

We also work closely with GAO in their efforts to support congressional oversight requirements. These interactions with oversight organizations provide valuable insights into our efforts to implement the Secretary’s guidance to effectively manage these funds 

while achieving the critically important national security outcomes 

for which these funds are intended. 

The Department’s congressionally chartered Afghanistan Resources Oversight Council, or the AROC, which has statutory authority to approve acquisition strategies and funding requirements 

for ASFF funding procurements, uses the results of IG work as a 

key input in the decision making and oversight. 

And I would note that the Secretary Mattis letter that you referenced, it was directed to the three chairs of the AROC. So he intended those three principals to be accountable for the actions of 

the Department and specifically in the ASFF area. 

We also use regular internal DOD staff interactions among OSD 

Policy staff, Joint Staff, CENTCOM [Central Command], and commanders in the field to ensure a common understanding of actions 

that are needed to improve accountability for the use of ASFF and 

to take appropriate corrective action when needed. 

Regarding the SIGAR report on Afghan National Army uniforms, 

we agreed with SIGAR’s suggestion that a DOD organization with 

expertise in military uniforms should conduct an analysis of whether there might be a more effective, a more cost-effective uniform 

design and camouflage pattern that meets operational requirements. 

We believe this is the best way to determine the merits of the 

report’s claim that DOD may have spent as much as $28 million 

over 10 years more than was needed on uniforms that may be inappropriate for Afghanistan’s operational environment. 

The appropriate DOD experts have begun developing a plan for 

conducting the study, which we expect to begin in the coming 
28 

weeks. Secretary Mattis has made it clear in a recent memo to the 

three under secretaries, who are chairs of the AROC, as I mentioned, that rather than minimize this report or excuse wasteful 

decisions, DOD should use it as a catalyst to take aggressive steps 

to end waste in our Department. 

The bottom line is the Department must continually seek ways 

to improve and enhance existing oversight of ASFF, just as we 

must across all of DOD’s mission areas, whether that involves providing assistance to our partner forces in Afghanistan and Iraq or 

ensuring the readiness of U.S. forces. 

As Secretary Mattis wrote in a memo to DOD personnel on his 

first day as Secretary of Defense, quote, ‘‘Every action we take will 

be designed to ensure our military is ready to fight today and in 

the future,’’ unquote. 

Madam Chairwoman, thank you again for inviting us to participate in this hearing, and I welcome any questions you or other 

members of the subcommittee may have. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Velz and Colonel Navratil 

can be found in the Appendix on page 84.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much, appreciate you being 

here. And I very much appreciate Secretary Mattis’ very, very 

prompt and timely statement on this that we need to get accountable and look into all of this. I think that is what is needed certainly. 

I did want to follow up on the subject of the uniforms. In our 

NDAA, we did put language in there requesting that this be looked 

at, and one of the recommendations is that the cost and feasibility 

of transitioning the uniforms of the Afghan military security forces 

to a pattern owned by the United States using existing excess inventory where available and acquiring the rights. That is something that is supposed to be looked at. 

And I know that you have just said that a study is going to be 

done by DOD. But I wanted to ask your opinion about that. How 

much excess inventory do we have currently of uniforms? 

And if we were to give those to the Afghan security forces, does 

that jeopardize our own security by having a foreign government 

wearing the same uniform perhaps that we had worn at least in 

the past? 

So can you kind of explain the excess inventory we may or may 

not have and the viability of perhaps using this in the situation? 

Mr. VELZ. Madam Chairwoman, I will have to get you the specifics on how much each of the services may have as excess. I know 

that, for example, there might be some quantity of older woodland 

uniforms—I don’t know for sure—that the Army might have. 

But, you know, what is excess and what is just in the inventory 

but not currently used and being held for eventual distribution is 

a fine science to determine. So I would like to get you a specific 

answer for the record on how much is available. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 93.] 

Mr. VELZ. In general, I think it is probably best to focus on trying to make sure that we determine what is the actual best operationally suitable camouflage pattern and design that is cost effective for the Afghan forces. The statute, the HASC [House Armed 
29 

Services Committee] amendment on requiring that study, I think 

it is entirely parallel with what we have signed up to do in the 

SIGAR report. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. That will be very interesting to see certainly the cost involved. If you switched it totally over and whether 

you use excess inventory or whether you tried to replace it, it 

sounds costly to me. 

But I would like to ask Colonel Navratil, since you oversee Iraq 

in that issue, can you kind of go into detail about what steps have 

been taken to address the recordkeeping issue that the GAO as 

well as Inspector General of DOD identified. 

And have you coordinated with any private companies in our 

country, whether it be UPS or FedEx or any others on logistics and 

how they keep track of inventory? Have you incorporated any of 

their ideas? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. Madam Chairwoman, thank you for that question. There have been several steps taken by mostly the 1st Theater Sustainment Command, as the IG and GAO reported is the 

theater sustainment headquarters, the logistic headquarters in 

charge of all this equipment going through to Iraq and through Kuwait. 

So as inspector general mentioned, on site, after some issues 

were identified immediately, the 1st TSC and supporting units took 

steps to either properly safeguard the equipment, banding and 

packaging sealing boxes, or replacing holes in fences that were 

identified by the inspector general. So those are a couple things to 

point to. 

For the GAO report, it has been only a couple months since those 

issues were identified, but I can tell you, we work closely again 

with 1st TSC. And what they have done is update their standard 

operating procedures, ensured that their supporting units below 

them, their at least three mentioned in the report, follow those procedures. 

What GAO didn’t mention in great detail is we are going to be 

working with them probably for a year or more, I would estimate, 

on some kind of system. And they have an automated system. 

And we have heard reference to SCIP, the Security Cooperation 

Information Portal, that we are using and also GCSS–Army [Global 

Combat Support System–Army], which is Army, of course, you 

could tell by the name, Army internal system that maintains accountability for all Army units. 

But what we want to do is find the root cause using the Security 

Cooperation Information Portal and trace it back to the people here 

at Defense Security Cooperation Agency, where the order is essentially placed, to the points of shipment from the U.S. and finally 

to receipt in OCONUS [outside the continental United States], 

whether Kuwait or Iraq, wherever the final destination is and kind 

of find out where the system is broke and the process is now being 

followed. 

At this point we are not sure for that process that it is an IT 

issue or just a following-the-instructions issue. So we have heard 

GAO and SIGAR mention that some of these forces rotate through 

theater at periodic intervals. Army standards is 9 months on 

ground and then back at home station for at least twice that long. 
30 

So keeping the knowledge base is important, especially in written procedures, but I am not exactly sure the context when these 

investigations were performed what the situations were to see the 

unsecured weapons and the problems with the database. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. So you feel confident the database is adequate. 

It is just a matter of personnel training and people not following 

procedure? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. Ma’am, at this point, I cannot conjecture on 

the exact cause. That is why I said, we are not taking our time, 

but we are moving forward systematically with GAO to find out the 

steps from start to finish and where it is broken. 

What we do know is, 1st TSC has changed some procedures. So 

what we are going to do is measure the information in the portal 

since May when they have updated their SOP [standard operating 

procedure], they changed procedures. We will see what kind of reaction we have to that. 

And then we will just kind of narrow it down the root cause and 

work backwards and kind of reverse engineer the problem. So we 

will find out, if it is not in 1st TSC, where in the system it is broke. 

We are not sure the system is broke, the information technology 

system is broke or the procedure is at this point, but we think it 

is probably a combination of the two. We just want to make sure 

we find this and identify so we can be better like some of the civilian companies you mentioned. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. What was that last phrase? Because I was going 

to ask, have you—it sounds like you have not visited with any private companies on how they do logistics. You’re just trying to address this internally or—— 

Colonel NAVRATIL. No, ma’am. We have not yet. Let me caveat 

that. We have not yet, it is a great idea. I will have to ask some 

folks in the logistics community what they have done in the past. 

Because I know, the Army’s transition, I have been in about 24- 

plus years. Since I first got in, it was all internal Army units delivering parts and other things by supply system. 

Then we transitioned to using commercial supply systems, 

whether overseas or CONUS. It worked very well CONUS, 

OCONUS, it worked in some cases. Not sure why it is not used 

more. I mean, I have a feeling some of these bulk procurements, 

the heavy lifts are better done by TRANSCOM [Transportation 

Command] and mobility forces. But we will have to find out more 

information for you on that question because I think it is valid. 

[The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Ranking Member Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

Going first to Afghanistan, Mr. Velz, can you talk about what 

changes DOD made in response to this particular incident? You 

talked about how you think that we did the right thing here on the 

committee by instituting this requirement. I would certainly like to 

think that that kind of thing is not required in the future. So what 

changes has DOD actually made? 

Mr. VELZ. Ranking Member Moulton, I think the Secretary’s 

memo that he just sent to the AROC principals, the Under Secre-
31 

taries for Policy, ATL [Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics] and 

Comptroller, will really be the catalyst. 

Mr. MOULTON. So it is safe to say, no changes have been made 

to date? 

Mr. VELZ. The report has been out for about a month. The primary suggestion in the report was that we determine whether or 

not there is a uniform pattern that is more suitable. 

So certainly that was something that was not done 10 years ago, 

in 2007. There wasn’t, you know, a real requirement study that is 

normally done for something like this. That is what we are going 

to do now. The new commander of CSTC–A is supportive of that 

approach, and so that is how we are remedying this immediate 

issue. 

The broader issue you are talking about though, as far as accountability for other aspects of execution of ASFF, I think that 

will flow from the Secretary’s memo to the AROC principals. And 

then, you know, that will probably lead to further implementation 

guidance and more rigorous structures in oversight by those principals of decisions to expend ASFF. 

Mr. MOULTON. So could you comment for a second on some of the 

recommendations made by the special inspector general, some of 

the things that he said about everything from rotations of units 

and commanders down to contracting procedures and incentives 

and whatnot. 

Did you agree with most of what he had to say? Did you have 

specific areas where you disagreed? We would really appreciate 

DOD’s perspective on this. 

Mr. VELZ. Sir, I think, in some of those areas I think there is a 

recognition within the Department at the senior levels that are involved in Afghanistan that those are issues and concerns. There 

are short-term rotations of people into theater. 

They may not have the exact expertise that is needed for the 

more complex jobs that are done in the security assistance arena, 

for example. When Congressman Banks was there, I think he probably saw some of this firsthand. 

And those are things that we are very cognizant of. General 

Nicholson is very cognizant of them. We are looking at things like 

making significant improvements to adviser training before advisers deploy. 

We also—we have put in place structures in the last 2 years or 

so, a governance board, if you will, that my immediate boss is the 

chairman of that is bringing together people who have been advisers over the last 2 or 3 or 4 years to stay part of the dialogue so 

that they don’t just do their year and wander off into DOD and 

they are never heard from again. 

So that is a mechanism that can bring in continuity of mission, 

and that is a really important principle for it because as people rotate in and out they lose corporate knowledge. So we are trying to 

put in place structures that maintain that corporate knowledge. 

Mr. MOULTON. So just going to Iraq for a minute, Colonel 

Navratil, what sort of timeline should we expect to see the changes, 

the increased accountability, the improvements in security that you 

discussed? 
32 

I am the co-chair of the Iraq Caucus here in the House of Representatives, and we are going to be making a trip to Iraq this fall. 

We would like to know what we can expect to see by then and 

where to find it? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. Yes, sir. 

I think talking to IG, like I said, we work pretty well with IG— 

it sounds like the improvements have been done, either a work 

order has been implemented to fix the fence, they have changed to 

a new location with a more secure perimeter, and the boxes and 

crates that were identified before in a previous report are already 

banded up and better secured. 

So it sounded like those two instances are done. But I agree with 

the IG where he wants to see it, they have to see pictures, they 

have to do an on-site visit just to make sure that it is done, for one; 

and for two, in the future when we receive more packages, they 

continue to use updated security procedures. 

For the GAO report, it is a little more complex. I owe an action 

plan very shortly, I would say within 30 days, I mean, as far as 

working with GAO. I won’t be ready to brief Congress within 30 

days. But at least to GAO we are working out some sort of timeline 

on this action plan. 

And we already started the work a month or so ago, initial discussions. But it is a big project. And speaking of accountability, 

which I know is a big discussion on the previous panel, I won’t be 

in DOD and OSD for more than another year, but I fully expect 

this project to follow me wherever I end up. 

So I will make sure it is completed, whether it is by myself or 

handing it off to somebody who replaces me. But this is a big 

project. So I think within the quarter we will have a solid plan as 

we figure out what the actual problems are in the system. 

And probably within a quarter after that, we will have buy-in 

with the system, if you will, probably mostly in the Army system 

up through Defense Security Cooperation Agency to get this fix-it 

plan in place. 

Mr. MOULTON. Well, we would certainly appreciate follow-up, 

and my staff and the committee staff can help get that follow-up 

from you. If you have this plan within 30 days and say in about 

40 days we would appreciate a brief on it, because that would be 

in anticipation of our trip to Iraq where we hope to see some of 

these changes and improvements. 

You know, to me, the bigger issue than the few boxes with holes 

in them is really the fundamental accountability in the system and 

ensuring that that is fixed. 

You know, it also strikes me that we have spent literally tens of 

millions of dollars delivering weapons to the Iraqis. The same could 

be said about Afghanistan. But to focus on Iraq for a second, tens 

of millions of dollars of weapons, equipment, et cetera. 

There are plenty of pictures on the internet that we see today of 

ISIS using many of those pieces of equipment, weapons, and associated ammunition against us. You know, at what point does Iraq 

have enough weapons? At what point are there enough weapons in 

the country that we should stop just spending millions of American 

taxpayer dollars on putting more guns on the ground in Iraq? 
33 

Colonel NAVRATIL. Sir, that is a great question. And I cannot provide a very detailed answer on that. What I can say is, we do not 

yet have what the Government of Iraq and what CENTCOM and 

the commanders in the DOD think are enough hold forces to protect these areas after ISIS has been defeated, like for Mosul, recent 

example. 

So we continue to work with the Government of Iraq, by, with, 

and through them, and with our coalition partners, but we are not 

at a point yet. A lot are destroyed, some highly visible examples, 

you know, that weapons may be compromised or stolen or whatever 

the case may be, given to people who should not have them. 

But those are things that as we identify them, we work through 

the Government of Iraq to take care of that situation. And they 

take those seriously. I can’t say they get many results getting them 

back or what action they do take, but they take those seriously and 

we talk to them all the time. If we find any violation of that sort. 

Mr. MOULTON. If you came to me and you said, you know, Congress, we really need to appropriate some money to send some oil 

to Iraq because Iraq is running short on oil, we would say that 

seems a little absurd because there is an awful lot of oil in Iraq. 

Well, at some point there are enough guns in Iraq that we 

shouldn’t be buying more; that we should tell the Iraqis to get the 

guns off the street or wherever else they need to get them from, 

or from the insurgents, and start putting them back into their inventory, it seems to me. I mean, maybe I am being too logical about 

this, but at some point this is not a good use of American taxpayer 

dollars. 

Colonel NAVRATIL. No, sir. And I don’t want to make an excuse 

for what we are doing, because I am not the commander on the 

ground. I know as we fight ISIS and we continue to fight them— 

and there is probably a year or two, maybe more left, as we fight 

them and eradicate them in Iraq, you know, we continually arm 

the soldiers that we are arming in the Iraqi security forces. Some 

of the partnered, vetted forces that we are working with with ITEF 

support provided by Congress. 

So at some point we are going to cut the weapons off. I would 

just offer a data point that this war is very cheap compared to previous OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] and OND [Operation New 

Dawn], as you are probably aware. So I hate to compare it, but 

economy to scale, it is very—it is a lot better this way. 

And when you look at the American people who have sacrificed 

in this war as well, there have been only been like six over the past 

3 years that have died in hostile acts. So a couple measurements, 

but I just think at some point you are correct, we will cut them off. 

But that point is not yet. 

Mr. MOULTON. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Mr. Gaetz. 

Mr. GAETZ. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Colonel, no one is really responsible for overseeing end use of 

equipment that we provide once we provide it to the Iraqi military. 

Isn’t that right? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. So that is not quite accurate. The Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq has that responsibility on them. 

Mr. GAETZ. And how would you assess their performance? 
34 

Colonel NAVRATIL. That is a difficult one to answer. But what I 

will tell you, it is a difficult environment. And I won’t make excuses for them. We all know there is a lot of conflict in Iraq and 

those folks are over there trying to do a good job. 

What they do is work with, through the GOI, the Government of 

Iraq, through the various ministries to get reports back, usually 

the quarterly reporting cycle. 

Mr. GAETZ. I am speaking more to outcomes and less about process. So if we were to evaluate not the process that they use but the 

outcomes, would you say they have been effective at managing end 

use or ineffective at managing end use? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. I am going to cut it down the middle and say 

so-so. I mean, I know there is a DSCA [Defense Security Cooperation Agency] report, I think from last year, that said they need improvement. But I can’t get into that many more specifics on the 

topic because we weren’t really prepared for this. 

Mr. GAETZ. Okay. Well, so in 2015, Senator McCain said that— 

and I am quoting here—‘‘The Iraqi military is a long way from 

being prepared to act in an impactful fashion. Meanwhile, the vacuum is being filled by Shia militias that are Iranian backed.’’ And 

he continued, ‘‘Some of those arms have come from the United 

States of America.’’ 

So is the statement from Senator McCain accurate that the U.S. 

has allowed arms that are our arms to fall in the hands of Shia 

militia? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. Sir, I would never contradict anything Senator McCain said. But what I can say is, I mean, ‘‘allowed’’ is kind 

of an exaggeration and I am not saying he exaggerated. But some 

U.S. equipment bought for ISF has more than likely found its way 

into enemy hands, whether—and I don’t want to lump all the PMF 

[Popular Mobilization Forces] into enemy, but some of them have 

strong Shia backing, some strong Iranian ties. We all know this 

reading the paper. 

So the same as before, when we determine these situations exist, 

we work with State and our partners through the Government of 

Iraq and the ministries to get those back in proper hands. 

And we are—we deal with these issues infrequently, but when 

we do we treat them very seriously because, like you all know, we 

are putting a lot of money into this country trying to support them 

and enable them to govern and police themselves. That is a serious 

concern for us. 

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, I would like to seek unanimous consent to enter into our subcommittee’s record a January 8, 2015, 

Bloomberg News article titled, ‘‘Iran-Backed Militias Are Getting 

U.S. Weapons.’’ 

Mrs. HARTZLER. So ordered. 

[The information referred to is retained in the subcommittee files 

and can be viewed upon request.] 

Mr. GAETZ. And Madam Chair, I also would seek unanimous consent to enter into our subcommittee’s record a series of photographs showing U.S. tanks, U.S. equipment all flying under the 

flags of Iranian Shia militias. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. So ordered. 
35 

[The photos referred to are retained in the subcommittee files 

and can be viewed upon request.] 

Mr. GAETZ. My final question, Colonel, is what can we do to 

move from so-so performance on the management of end use to improved performance where the warfighters from my district and the 

districts of my colleagues all over the country are not having to 

fight against American equipment? 

Colonel NAVRATIL. Sir, at this point it is partly a process of procedures, partly a—sorry. It is dependent on security and some is 

dependent on procedures and people following procedures. I think 

for the most part people know what the procedures are. We have 

written procedures, very easy to follow usually in the Army, and 

we do it that way for a reason. 

The situation we are in right now, it is getting better in Iraq. 

There is still a lot of fighters, a lot of ISIS out there, so it is not 

as easy to get out and follow up as we should. 

But at least for the very visible incidents, like the pictures you 

mention there, there is a lot of pressure from up high, and Secretary Mattis is, of course, tracking that very closely, to get the 

tanks where they should be, to get other weapons and equipment, 

if it is in the wrong hands, back to where it should be. 

It is a delicate situation now with, you know, counterbalancing 

Iranian influence with all the other countries that are surrounding 

Iraq and may want some part of that country after this fight is 

done. 

Mr. GAETZ. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Madam Chair, I thank you again. 

And Mr. Velz, I think you and I met a few months ago when I 

wrote the former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to please explain 

to me how we made the mistake of taking the taxpayers’ money 

and paying over 200,000 Afghans who didn’t exist. The article said 

ghost soldiers, and I expressed that in the letter. 

You and Mr. Royal, very kind, came to chat with me about that. 

And the only thing I took from the discussion was that they are 

changing the metrics on how they keep up with who we are paying 

for this and that. I still don’t question you or Mr. Royal, but I still 

think it is an impossible situation. But that is my problem, not 

yours. 

Last night I saw Peter Walsh, I believe his name is, with CNN 

[Cable News Network], with marines, I don’t know if it was 

Helmand, but somewhere in Afghanistan, that they were waiting 

for the Afghan unit to come in to help them with a possible firefight. 

I think they were—the unit was about 500 Afghan soldiers. It 

ended up that they got less than 100 soldiers. So, again, that just 

adds to the frustration of our military, I am sure, but also the taxpayers and those of us who represent the taxpayers. 

Also this morning, I get in the office around 7:00, and I turn on 

the TV. And then I hear that the Russians are now doing a—quite 

an extensive supply of weapons to the Taliban. As we know, the 

Taliban make up the Afghan people. Most of them are Pashtuns. 

They have been fighting for 1,000 years and probably will for the 

next 1,000 years. 
36 

And I said to you and Mr. Royal, and I know we are going to try 

to get together in September, I just don’t know how in the world— 

when I hear the testimony, I want to thank again the chairwoman 

and also Mr. Moulton. This has been an excellent hearing, and I 

think that it should be on national TV. I said that early on the 

stand. 

But when we get to a point that we are spending billions and billions and billions in Afghanistan and we can’t even get the majority—not all but the majority of the Afghans to stand up. And particularly what has distressed me—I represent Camp Lejeune, I represent Cherry Point Marine Air Station. 

When I know that these marines that I talk to, who have been 

there many, many times, feel that there is nothing that is changing—I don’t expect you to tell me today in 2 minutes that everything is changing. I understand that. But it is the accountability 

that I think is missing. 

I don’t know why someone cannot say to the Congress, you have spent close to $800 billion. We have been training the Afghans for 

16 years. Honest to God, I don’t mean this is too ugly, but you can 

train monkeys to ride a bicycle in 16 years. 

But we keep training and training, and half the people that we 

are training end up going with the Taliban. And a few of those we 

are training they killed two marines from my district, Major Palmer, Benjamin Palmer, and Sergeant Kevin Balduf, they both were 

shot and killed by the Afghans they were training. 

And just in the last month, there were three Army fellows who 

were shot by the people they were training. And at some point in 

time, somebody has got to be honest with the American people and 

the Congress and say to us, what is the benchmark? What are we 

trying to do? 

This 16 years cannot become 32 years. I will be dead and gone, 

but so America will be financially broke. When is the truth going 

to be told as to what is the benchmark? 

Mr. VELZ. Sir, I think—first of all, thank you for your comments 

and questions. I think the main answer to your question will be 

when we get a decision from President Trump on our strategy and 

policy in Afghanistan. That is under review right now. 

Secretary Mattis, Secretary Tillerson, National Security Adviser 

McMaster have been in discussions with him about that. I think 

they are very close to making a final recommendation and decision 

on what our posture will be going forward. And the outcome of 

that, I think, will include some points that can address your concerns, sir. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you. 

Mr. VELZ. So I can’t offer you anything more on that. 

If you don’t mind, sir, a couple quick comments on some of your 

other points. 

On the situation in Helmand, that has long been the most difficult security environment, most difficult area of responsibility 

within Afghanistan. And the problems of the Afghan National 

Army corps in that area are well known and have been the focus 

of a lot of attention over the last couple of years. 

There are other parts of Afghanistan where the Afghan army and 

the Afghanistan police, and certainly the Afghan special forces are 
37 

frankly better organized, better led. Although, there have been 

leadership changes in the 215th Corps that are beginning to show 

improvements, but it still remains a work in progress. 

But, sir, the key metric I would hold out to you as to Afghan will 

is the number of casualties that they are suffering: 7,000 or 8,000 

a year KIA [killed in action]; 14,000 or 15,000 wounded in action. 

I think there is no question about the will of the Afghan soldier 

and police to fight. 

There are questions about whether they are all adequately led, 

as we would like them to be, in some cases, perhaps not adequately 

equipped and supplied. But they are doing the bulk of the fighting. 

Our combat forces are providing minimal support right now. Our 

special forces are working with the Afghan special forces who are 

highly, highly capable and are having a lot of successful counterterrorism operations. 

But I would just note that it is the Afghans’ fight now; we are 

there to support. They are fully responsible for the security of their 

country. The U.S. and dozens of other coalition partners are assisting them. 

And, sir, I think, as I mentioned at the beginning, you know, 

once we have a decision from President Trump, I think we will be 

able to have more in-depth discussions on your question. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. I want to thank the witnesses today for your testimony as well as your service to our Nation. That concludes our 

hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 3:51 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

JULY 25, 2017 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

JULY 25, 2017 

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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. HARTZLER 

Mr. SOPKO. The Department of Defense currently contracts for the provision of 

uniforms for the Afghan National Army (ANA) on an ‘‘as needed’’ basis. The most 

recent contract was issued as a $7.8 million firm-fixed-price, sole-source award in 

September 2016 for the production of fabric printed with the Spec4ce Forest uniform 

pattern necessary for the assembly of an additional 195,000 ANA uniforms. The contract was awarded to Atlantic Diving Services (ADS), Inc., which holds the exclusive 

rights to the proprietary ANA camouflage pattern developed by HyperStealth, Inc., 

of Canada. The Department is not locked into any future purchases of uniforms 

from ADS, to SIGAR’s knowledge. However, purchases using the existing camouflage pattern can only be made through ADS, as it holds the license from 

HyperStealth. [See page 11.] 

Mr. VELZ. The Department of Defense does not have enough excess uniforms in 

inventory of a type that could be transferred to the Afghan Security Forces without 

jeopardizing our own security to outfit more than a few thousands Afghan soldiers 

at one time. 

U.S. combat military uniforms may be eligible for sale or transfer to foreign countries via Foreign Military Sales if the following three conditions apply: 

1) The uniform must be designated as excess by the U.S. Armed Forces; 2) The 

uniform must no longer be actively used by the U.S. Armed Forces or Reserves; and 

3) The uniforms cannot contain Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) technology. 

The Defense Logistics Agency has confirmed that only three types of uniforms in 

its inventory currently meet all three requirements: 

1) Three-color Woodlands Battle Dress Uniforms; 2) Three-color Desert Camouflage Uniform; and 3) Six-color Desert Camouflage Uniform. 

Of these three types of uniforms, the quantities available of a full set are in the 

low 1000s whereas the annual requirement for Afghan National Army uniforms is 

in the hundreds of thousands. 

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, and in accordance with SIGAR’s suggestions, DOD experts are undertaking a study to determine whether an Afghan National Army uniform could be produced that would be more cost effective and meets 

operational requirements, taking into account clothing design and camouflage pattern. [See page 28.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BANKS 

Mr. SOPKO. SIGAR has consistently observed and reported on poor record keeping, 

limited oversight, and unclear roles and responsibilities, in regard to maintaining 

accountability for equipment purchased through the Afghanistan Security Forces 

Fund (ASFF) and provided to the ANDSF by CSTC–A. For example, in April 2017, 

SIGAR issued report 17–40, ‘‘Afghan National Defense and Security Forces: DOD 

Needs to Improve Management and Oversight of Uniforms and Equipment,’’ which 

included recommendations to CSTC–A to improve accountability of uniforms and 

equipment provided to the ANDSF. SIGAR found that CSTC–A’s ability to develop 

and validate clothing and equipment requirements for the ANDSF is limited by poor 

data, reliance on questionable assumptions, and a lack of clear roles and responsibilities. For example, because CSTC–A relies on unreliable Afghan data, coalition officials assume that the Afghan military is operating at full capacity and consumes 

all its clothing and equipment every year without any surplus left over. CSTC–A’s 

history of delivering large shipments of clothing and equipment at a level that often 

exceeds the number of assigned personnel in the ANDSF, makes it unlikely that the 

ANDSF is using all of its clothing and equipment every year. Reports from DOD 

describing unopened shipping crates of clothing that is not reflected in the ANDSF’s 

current inventories lends credence to that presumption. SIGAR also found that 

CSTC–A did not demonstrate that it conducted effective oversight and accountability of clothing, equipment, and funds transferred to the Afghan government. The 

Department of Defense concurred with the five recommendations SIGAR made in 

the report, including improving needs forecasting models, and improving inventory 

records. In addition, SIGAR report 14–84, ‘‘Afghan National Security Forces: Actions 
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Needed to Improve Weapons Accountability,’’ found that poor record keeping by the 

Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police limited the Department of Defense’s ability to monitor weapons after transfer to the ANDSF, as required by the 

National Defense Authorization Act of 2010. SIGAR will continue to conduct regular 

oversight into CSTC’s ability and effectiveness to maintain accountability for equipment purchased through ASFF and provided to the ANDSF, and will keep the subcommittee apprised of SIGAR’s findings. [See page 19.] 

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