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76–263 PDF 2012

SIGAR REPORT: DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION AND 

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS UNACCOUNTED FOR AT 

THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, PART II 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 

Serial No. 112–181 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

VACANCY 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN

OPERATIONS

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Ranking 

Minority Member 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on September 20, 2012 ..................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. John F. Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 6 

The Honorable Allen F. Estevez, Assistant Secretary for Logistics and Materiel Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 8 

Mr. Donald L. ‘‘Larry’’ Sampler, Jr., Deputy Assistant to the Administrator, 

Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, U.S. Agency for International 

Development 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 10 

APPENDIX 

Interim Report on Afghan National Army Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants 

(SIGAR 12–14) ...................................................................................................... 33 

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz, A Member of Congress from the State of 

Utah, Opening Statement ................................................................................... 49 

Department of Defense Not Adequately Prepared To Transfer Responsibility 

for Fuel Management to the Afghan National Army, Statement of Mr. 

John F. Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction .... 51 

Joint Statement of Mr. Alan F. Estevez, Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Logistics and Materiel Readiness and Lieutenant General Brooks Bash, 

Director for Logistics Joint .................................................................................. 63 

Mr. Donald ‘‘Larry’’ Sampler, Senior Deputy Assistant to the Administrator 

& Deputy Director of the Office of Afghanistan & Pakistan Affairs at 

the United States Agency for International Development, Testimony for 

the Record ............................................................................................................. 68 

(1) 

SIGAR REPORT: DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION 

AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS UNACCOUNTED FOR AT THE DEPARTMENT OF 

DEFENSE, PART II 

Thursday, September 20, 2012 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND

DEFENSE, AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:30 p.m., in Room 

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Platts, Tierney, and Lynch. 

Staff Present: Thomas A. Alexander, Senior Counsel; Alexia 

Ardolina, Assistant Clerk; Brien A. Beattie, Professional Staff 

Member; Mitchell S. Kominsky, Counsel; Jaron Bourke, Minority 

Director of Administration; Devon Hill, Minority Staff Assistant; 

Peter Kenny, Minority Counsel; Leah Perry, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel; Cecelia Thomas, Minority Counsel; and Carlos 

Uriarte, Minority Counsel. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The committee will come to order. 

I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight and 

Government Reform mission statement. 

We exist to secure two fundamental principles: First, Americans 

have a right to know that the money Washington takes from them 

is well-spent; and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective 

government that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and 

Government Reform Committee is to protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold the government accountable 

to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get 

from their government. We will work tirelessly, in partnership with 

citizen watchdogs, to deliver the facts to the American people and 

bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. 

This is the mission of the Oversight and Government Reform 

Committee. 

I appreciate everybody here. I appreciate your patience here as 

we had votes on the floor. And we will have votes in approximately 

an hour, hour and 15 minutes or so. 

I want to welcome everybody to this hearing, which is entitled, 

‘‘SIGAR Report: Document Destruction and Millions of Dollars Unaccounted for at the Department of Defense, Part II.’’ 

2 

I would like to welcome Members from both sides, in particular 

Mr. Lynch, who has worked tirelessly on these types of issues. 

Today’s proceedings continue the subcommittee’s efforts to oversee billions of taxpayer dollars spent in support of military and civilian operations within Afghanistan. Last week, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or the SIGAR, Mr. 

John Sopko, testified before this committee on the findings contained in an interim report entitled, quote, ‘‘Interim Report on Afghanistan National Army Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants,’’ otherwise known as POL. 

His report contains serious allegations of potential waste, fraud, 

and abuse and document destruction associated with PLO procurement. I want to thank Mr. Sopko for being here again today and 

for the work that he and his team do. 

Given this finding, we found it necessary to seek answers from 

the Department of Defense. We also believe it is necessary to talk 

about the broader issue of direct assistance to foreign governments, 

including Afghanistan. USAID has considerable experience in this 

area, and I look forward to hearing how they ensure accountability 

in other regions. 

From fiscal years 2007 to 2012, CSTC–A has channeled approxi- mately $1.1 billion through the Afghan Security Forces Fund to 

purchase petroleum, oil, lubricants for the Afghan National Army. 

In fiscal year 2013, the U.S. Government will purchase approximately $343 million more in POL. 

According to Mr. Sopko, CSTC–A does not have accurate or supportable information on three key things: how much U.S. funds are 

needed for ANA fuel; where and how the fuel is actually used; and 

how much of the fuel has been lost or stolen. Those seem to be 

some very basic, simple questions that everybody should be able to 

see and have in order to make reasonable, rational decisions. Thus, 

to the extent in which ANA fuel is in stock, consumed, or lost at 

any given time remains an unknown. Mr. Sopko also testified that, 

quote, ‘‘No single office within the U.S. or Afghan Government has 

the complete records on ANA fuel purchased, ordered, delivered, 

and consumed,’’ end quote. 

There are allegations that the Defense Department may have 

shredded financial records for hundreds of millions of dollars in 

POL. And yet, at this time, they are seeking to increase the assistance by hundreds of millions of dollars. If accurate, this is totally 

unacceptable. I have been working closely with Mr. Tierney and 

perhaps will introduce legislation soon to redirect this effort. 

Despite the lack of records and justification for fuel purchases, 

the Department of Defense proposes increasing funding. From fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2018, it plans to provide $555 million 

worth of POL per year. The Department of Defense plans to give 

two-thirds of this funding directly to the Afghan Government starting on January 1, 2013, so that it can buy the petroleum, oil, and 

lubricants for itself—this from a government which I believe is one 

of the most corrupt governments on the face of the planet. 

It begs the question, why do we even bother sending it to Afghanistan. Why don’t we just send it to Dubai and let them just 

put it in their own bank accounts? There are some serious questions. 

3 

We are here to try to provide more oversight, and yet what I see 

the direction of the Department of Defense going in is less oversight, less accountability. And that is, again, why USAID is here. 

They, too, didn’t seem to be moving in this direction. We can’t get 

the basic information about what we are consuming and what is 

being used, and the administration keeps moving in a direction to 

send it directly to them. We can’t even account for it; we think the 

Afghans are going to account for it? And we are going to increase 

their funding? That is why we are here today. 

Under the current plan, the Afghan Government will be respon- sible for overseeing the expenditure of roughly $2.8 billion of our 

taxpayer dollars. There are virtually no assurances, however, that 

the Afghans will properly oversee this money. We simply cannot 

delegate the authority and oversight of billions of taxpayer dollars 

to the Afghan Government without reliable controls in place. Trust, 

but verify. I believe that, and we are not doing that in this instance. 

Afghanistan is not the only recipient of direct assistance, however. This administration has made it a priority to increase direct 

assistance to governments in developing countries all over the 

world. Under President Obama, the USAID has developed a new 

initiative called Forward. Under this program, the administration 

plans to double the amount of U.S. foreign aid budget it gives directly to foreign governments, NGOs, and businesses. 

Already, between fiscal year 2009 and 2010, the administration 

has more than tripled its awards of direct assistance to Afghanistan to $2 billion. And, overall, excluding Afghanistan and Pakistan, the administration goal is to give 30 percent of nearly $40 billion in foreign aid budget directly to foreign governments, NGOs, 

and businesses by 2015. This is a staggering figure. 

I would like to hear from USAID how it ensures accountability 

in other regions and whether lessons can be applied to the Department of Defense. 

We must also get a better handle of who is receiving the contracts. In a letter on Tuesday, Mr. Sopko listed 43 contractors in 

Afghanistan with affiliations to the Haqqani Network, the Taliban, 

or al Qaeda. According to this letter, these entities have not been 

suspended or debarred by the U.S. Government. The fact that these 

firms with known affiliations to terrorist groups are omitted from 

the debarment list is simply outrageous. I want to know why the 

Defense Department has not acted on the SIGAR’s recommendations in a timely manner. I hope today’s discussions include solutions on how to prevent groups with terrorist ties from doing business with the United States. 

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here on short notice. 

I appreciate your patriotism, your commitment to the country. 

What I like to share with people is, what differentiates the 

United States of America from everybody else is we have these 

types of candid discussions, in the light of day, on television, so 

that everybody can see and hear the good, the bad, and the ugly, 

all with the same mutual goal of making it better. That is why we 

are here today. I am not here to just try to embarrass people. We 

are trying to make it better and challenge the notions that are potentially there on the table. 

4 

So I appreciate these gentlemen who are here answering the 

questions from the panel. 

And I would like to recognize the distinguished ranking member, 

the gentleman from Massachusetts who has worked tirelessly. I appreciate the partnership we have in trying to put good government 

in place, and I would like to recognize Mr. Tierney for his opening 

statement. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the chairman for that, and thank our witnesses for being here today. 

And, again, the SIGAR, thank you, Mr. Sopko, for your report 

last week and your testimony, as well. I am glad to see you back 

here again today. 

Mr. Chairman, other than to just take this opportunity to acknowledge and honor the loss of Ambassador Chris Stevens and 

the three other United States citizens and note that we have had 

our 51st death of NATO forces on the so-called blue-green situation, and we honor the sacrifice of them and their families and all 

of the people that are dedicated servants still serving, and to note 

that I think we have a joint interest here in making sure that our 

investments in development, while laudable, are threatened by the 

potential that they may exacerbate the situation as opposed to improve it, and that a lot of the oversight work has to be done to 

make sure that this program or any program like it works to our 

advantage and not to our disadvantage, I will ask that we just accept my remarks for the record and we can proceed. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Absolutely. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Does any other Member seek to make a comment 

or opening statement? 

Mr. PLATTS. Mr. Chairman, not any real statement, other than 

I am going to apologize to the witnesses. I am due in another meeting here and just wanted to thank the witnesses for their written 

testimony and for you holding this very important hearing. 

The issue of transparency and getting to the bottom of these 

issues is so important. I commend you and the ranking member for 

moving forward with the hearing. And I apologize, I will be running out of here shortly. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Understood. The flexibility, a lot is happening 

today, and the lateness in which we start. So I appreciate that. 

Would the gentleman from Massachusetts care to say anything? 

Mr. LYNCH. I would, just a brief statement. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing. I thank the ranking 

member, as well. I know you both worked on these issues extensively. 

I also want to thank the witnesses for coming before us and trying to help us with our work. 

This is an important issue for us going forward. The Inspector 

General has been—the Special Inspector General has been terrific 

on this issue. 

Mr. Sopko, you were nice enough to join us last week, where we 

in this committee had the opportunity to hear testimony from the 

Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction regarding the 

current system for procuring petroleum, oil, and lubricants for the 

Afghan Security Forces. 

5 

We discovered at that hearing that the process is completely dysfunctional and that the Combined Security Transition CommandAfghanistan is not yet in a position to ensure that any entity, Afghan National Army or otherwise, will be able to take over future 

procurement. This is particularly disturbing as the Afghan National Army is set to take control of the petroleum procurement in 

January 2013. 

Corruption and lack of transparency are endemic in Afghanistan. 

I have often said that corruption is to Afghanistan like wet is to 

water. And that corruption has proven to be a significant hurdle 

for U.S., allied, and Afghans to overcome as we transition out of 

Afghanistan. 

We should not be handing over such responsibilities and resources without being certain that the institutions in question are 

ready to ensure proper oversight and transparency. That is the 

mission of this subcommittee as well as the full committee and our 

responsibility to the American people. 

The witnesses we have brought here today will be able to shed 

additional light on the petroleum procurement matter and what is 

being done to remedy the deficiencies. They will also be able to 

share what improvements are being done to increase overall oversight of funds provided by the United States taxpayer. 

Now, look, if we don’t have the oversight in place, this money 

will be stolen. This is billions of dollars of taxpayer money. We all 

know the situation in Afghanistan, and right now they are totally 

incapable. We have seen it. We have seen it from Kabul Bank right 

on down. We have seen it through the fuel supply contracts—terrible corruption. 

And if we proceed down this road where we just hand billions of 

dollars over, 30 percent or otherwise, to the Afghan Government 

without the proper controls there, this money is going to go out the 

door, this will be stolen. So it makes no sense—it makes no sense 

to take American taxpayer money and hand it over to people who 

are not going to spend it for its intended purpose. 

And I would like to hear from our witnesses today as to how they 

envision a way forward to ensure that the transition of Afghan control will be sustainable, if not successful. 

I would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to come 

and testify before the subcommittee. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for staying on this issue, especially 

with the short deadline we have in January. We will not be in session that much more before this transition to Afghan control commences. So we have little time and a lot of work to do. 

And I just hate to see us, you know, put good money at risk here, 

in any circumstances, but especially right now with the economy 

and the finances of the United States being what they are. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

Members may have 7 days to submit opening statements for the 

record. 

And we will now recognize our panel. 

Mr. John Sopko is the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, also known as the SIGAR. 

6 

The Honorable Allen Estevez is the Assistant Secretary for Logistics and Materiel Readiness at the Department of Defense. 

Lieutenant General Brooks Bash is the Director for Logistics 

with the Joint Staff at the Department of Defense. 

And Mr. Larry Sampler is the Principal Deputy Assistant to the 

Administrator and Deputy Director of the Office of Afghan and 

Pakistan Affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

That is quite the title. It is a long one. It just rolls off the tongue. 

Nevertheless, we are glad that you are all here. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses need to be sworn in 

before they testify. If you would please rise and raise your right 

hands. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

Thank you. You may be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

In order to allow time for discussion, we would appreciate it if 

you would limit your testimony to 5 minutes, but we will be fairly 

generous with that if you want to continue with a thought. 

And we will now recognize Mr. Sopko for 5 minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF JOHN F. SOPKO 

Mr. SOPKO. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Tierney, and members of the 

subcommittee, last week I testified before this subcommittee that 

SIGAR had serious concerns about how CSTC–A has managed and 

accounted for the fuel provided to the Afghan Army. Despite these 

problems, CSTC–A still plans to increase annual funding for the 

Afghan Army fuel by $212 million per year and is pushing forward 

with the transfer of fuel responsibilities and funding to the Afghan 

Army. 

We believe there is no basis for either decision, and I continue 

to surge CSTC–A to halt its plan to increase fuel funding until it 

develops a better process for determining fuel needs, establish a 

comprehensive action plan to improve fuel accountability, and 

delay transferring fuel responsibilities and funding to the Afghan 

Army until the problems we have identified are fixed. 

Now let me briefly update you on the destruction-of-records 

issue. 

First of all, SIGAR’s investigations have identified and begun 

interviewing individuals located in the United States, Afghanistan, 

United Kingdom, and Belgium who were involved in this matter. 

We have confirmed that shredding did indeed take place and have 

identified two Air Force officers who admitted to destroying documents covering the time periods of February 2010 to February 

2011. 

According to these officers, they obtained supervisory approval to 

shred the documents because they did not have adequate storage 

space. They also claimed that they saved them in an electronic format. Our investigators are now working to locate those electronic 

7 

records to review to see if they are actually the records in question. 

These are the records, of course, that we requested from—in February of this year. 

In addition, just this Tuesday, CSTC–A provided our auditors in 

Kabul with a CD which they claim contains 97 percent of the documents we had requested for the time period of March 2011 to 

March 2012. As you can recall from my testimony last week, 

CSTC–A had promised our auditors that they had complete records 

for the time period of March 2011 to March 2012. However, when 

they turned the records over to us and we did a sample, half of the 

documents were missing. Nevertheless, our auditors are now reviewing this new disc to ascertain whether it contains complete and 

accurate copies of the records we requested. 

Now, regarding the bulk of the records, those prior to February 

of 2010, we still do not know what happened to them. CSTC–A 

tells us that—tells our auditors in Kabul that they have located additional hard copies of the records, including some prior to February 2010, which we intend to examine. 

Let me just say at this point, CSTC–A’s handling of its records 

is deeply troubling and, to us, raises questions about their ability 

to perform this serious function. It appears it has to take two congressional hearings, 6 months of IG requests, an interim audit report, a management alert letter, and my personal meeting with 

every senior military official in Afghanistan before CSTC–A deigns 

to seriously take our request for records as something they should 

respond to. We find that very troubling. 

Now, let us also update you on other developments since our last 

testimony last week. 

CSTC–A informed us of changes to their plans to transfer responsibilities to the Afghan Government. Subsequent to our testimony, CSTC–A now says they are going to revise the amount of 

funding it plans to provide directly to the Afghan Government from 

two-thirds of total funding to one-third. 

The time frame for transferring that fuel has also changed. It appears in a meeting, again subsequent to our testimony, that the Afghan Ministry of Defense has said they can’t handle this new mission until March of 2013. Although we think this is a good move, 

to delay, we are surprised that apparently CSTC–A never talked to 

the Afghan ministry about this important function until subsequent to the hearing. 

These developments indicate that CSTC–A is perhaps approaching the transition to Afghan-run logistics more cautiously than before. Unfortunately, we know from our audit work and the work of 

others, including the Army Audit Agency, that CSTC–A has struggled with direct assistance in the past. 

As I mentioned last week, the Army Audit Agency reported in 

February 2012 that CSTC–A’s standard operating procedure for 

making direct contributions to the Afghan National Security Forces 

did not provide a solid quality-control process. SIGAR itself reported in 2011 that CSTC–A’s efforts to help the Afghan Ministry 

of Interior develop and implement a personnel management system 

to account for the Afghan National Police workforce and payroll 

was unsuccessful. 

8 

Providing direct assistance to the Afghan Government is a critical part of handling responsibility for the Afghan reconstruction— 

excuse me, for the reconstruction effort over to the Afghans. But 

moving forward with direct contributions in the face of the serious 

problems that CSTC–A itself has encountered in its fuel programs 

reconfirms our belief that transferring funding responsibility in 

January is doubling down on a very risky bet. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. I 

am open to any questions. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

We will now recognize the Honorable Mr. Estevez. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ALLEN F. ESTEVEZ 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Thank you. 

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, distinguished 

members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear 

before you to review the findings of the Special Inspector General 

for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s interim report on the subject of 

Afghan National Army petroleum, oil, and lubricants. 

I would like to note that Lieutenant General Bash and I have 

submitted a joint statement for the record. 

I would also like to note that we appreciate the work of the Special Inspector General and that across the Department of Defense, 

to include in our deployed forces in Afghanistan, we are committed 

to working with the Special Inspector General to strengthen our 

processes in Afghanistan and to protect the taxpayers’ dollars. 

Before addressing the issues raised by the interim report, it is 

important that we put our actions with regard to Afghan forces in 

context. It is critically important that we build Afghan force capability and capacity. This is the key to a stable, secure Afghanistan, 

an Afghanistan that is not a safe haven for extremists like al 

Qaeda that threaten this Nation. 

As part of the process to build Afghan military capability, we 

must also build Afghan force sustainment capabilities. Developing 

the ability to provide petroleum, oil, and lubricants, or ‘‘POL’’ in 

the military vernacular, is a critical part of that process. 

I would like it address the Special Inspector General’s concerns 

with the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan’s 

ability to fully account for POL provided to Afghan forces and the 

statements that officials shredded all Afghan fuel-related financial 

records from October of 2006 to February of 2011. 

And I will note that I just heard new information regarding that. 

However, I will stand by our statement that, to the best of our 

knowledge, no documents have been shredded, and records have 

been appropriately maintained. And I will say that electronic copies 

are valid records, so if a record was shredded, there is a valid electronic copy. That is to the best of our knowledge today. 

We will continue to provide the Special Inspector General with 

all documents relevant to this audit as we accomplish our ongoing 

mission in theater. To date, we have collected 97 percent of the documents requested by the Special Inspector General. These documents include scanned copies of delivery tickets, invoices, and acceptance forms dating back to 2006. 

9 

Ongoing logistics training for the Afghan forces includes developing the proper procedures for fuel ordering and receipt and the 

verification of the quantity and quality of fuel delivered. Our current process requires Afghan Security Force units to submit the appropriate requisition and consumption forms, or fuel orders are refused. Afghan Security Force personnel, working under the guidance of their coalition advisers, process fuel order documents by 

verifying the quantity of fuel authorized and comparing it with fuel 

requested to ensure units do not exceed their fuel allocations. The 

quantity and quality of fuel delivered to Afghan Security Force 

sites is verified through the reconciliation of appropriate forms. 

The NATO training mission has refined its method for estimating fuel funding levels for fiscal years 2014 to 2018. They used 

1 year of consumption data, from August 2011 to July 2012, to establish an annual requirements baseline. From that baseline, using 

simple trend analysis and taking into account expected operational 

tempo increases, planned equipment fieldings, and seasonal weather factors, they developed future-year fuel requirements. 

To improve the accountability of supplies, the NATO training 

mission issued a memorandum in April 2011, prior to the audit, to 

the Afghan Ministry of Defense noting that it would apportion fuel 

based only on vehicles that were properly accounted for by the ministry and coalition forces. 

The NATO training mission also issued a fragmentary order in 

May 2012 directing coalition personnel at Afghan Security Force 

sites to report fuel storage capacity at all 46 Afghan force fixed-location fuel storage sites. This data enables the NATO training mission to compare quantity of fuel requested with capacity of potential storage in either fixed storage fuel tanks or mobile fuel transportation assets. 

To further improve the accountability of fuel and provide closer 

oversight, we are also consolidating the number of fuel delivery 

sites. 

In accordance with the overall campaign objectives, the NATO 

training mission is currently working with its Afghan partners in 

the Ministry of Defense to transition fuel management responsibility in a controlled, conditions-based manner—phased, conditionsbased manner. Next year, the NATO training mission will transfer 

responsibility for only one-third of the estimated 2013 fuel budget 

to the Afghan Security Force. The remaining fuel budget will remain under the direct control of the NATO training mission. 

To mitigate any financial risks, disbursements of funds for future 

Afghan Security Force fuel orders will occur quarterly and will be 

subject to the outcome of quarterly financial audits to ensure responsible use of funds. 

In addition to the specific actions mentioned above, the NATO 

training mission is instituting a number of initiatives to strengthen 

Afghan Security Force fuel and POL program. 

First, the training mission has formed an assistant-minister-level 

bulk fuel transfer executive committee with members from the 

NATO training mission and key Afghan ministries. 

Second, the NATO training mission, with the assistance of the 

U.S. Central Command-Joint Theater Support Contracting ComVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:52 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76263.TXT APRIL
10 

mand, will advise Ministry of Defense acquisition personnel on the 

development of an enforceable contracting mechanism. 

Finally, the NATO training mission has requested the Defense 

Logistics Agency experts to review the NATO training mission procedures and provide feedback on how it can improve operations. 

Again, we want to thank the Special Inspector General for his 

work and this committee for its work. Ultimately, the aim of the 

collective effort is to ensure that Afghan Security Force POL operations are implemented properly while judiciously managing taxpayer resources. We continue to work hard to improve our oversight and management of this critical area. 

I look forward to your questions. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

And my understanding, again, as you stated, is that it was a 

joint statement with General Bash. So we will now recognize Mr. 

Sampler for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DONALD L. ‘‘LARRY’’ SAMPLER, JR. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, and members of 

the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

My name is Larry Sampler, and I am the Senior Deputy Assistant 

to the Administrator and Deputy Director of the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at the United States Agency for International Development. 

Afghanistan is and has been a difficult place to do assistance 

work. USAID’s development assistance for Afghanistan continues 

to remain a critical component of our core U.S. national security 

objective there, which is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda 

and to prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a safe haven 

from which extremists can attack the United States and our allies. 

USAID’s efforts are part of a whole-of-government, civil-military 

effort to advance this strategic objective. Together, we are committed to promoting the development of a stable Afghanistan by 

partnering with the Afghan Government and the Afghan people to 

solidify a foundation of sustainable economic growth and effective, 

legitimate governance. 

I have been working on and off and in Afghanistan since 2002 

in both civilian and military capacities for the U.S. Government. I 

have worked as a representative of an international NGO, and I 

served for about 2 years as the chief of staff of the U.N. Assistance 

Mission in Afghanistan. So I do have personal experience with the 

challenges of implementing assistance programs in such a difficult 

environment, and I have seen the benefits of our assistance programs in Afghanistan. 

Under the Taliban, less than 9,000 boys and almost no girls had 

access to education. Today, more than 8 million children, more 

than a third of whom are girls, are enrolled in school. This is important because now there is a generation of young men and 

women graduating with critical thinking skills that will make them 

better citizens and more resilient in their opposition to malicious 

doctrines of the Taliban or others. 

In 2002, only 9 percent of Afghans had access to even the most 

basic health care. Today, that number is over 60 percent, and life 

11 

expectancy at birth has risen by almost 20 years. Furthermore, maternal mortality and infant mortality have both dropped significantly. 

And, finally, our work in energy has helped triple the number of 

Afghans with access to reliable electricity, which has enabled the 

economic growth in the country. With USAID’s support, Afghanistan’s national power utility has increased its revenues by approximately 50 percent every year since 2009, reducing the needed Afghan Government subsidy to that organization from $170 million 

to approximately $30 million last year. 

Of course, our ultimate goal is to work ourselves out of a job by 

enabling Afghanistan to stand on its own two feet without direct 

foreign assistance. To that end, USAID has been working through 

select ministries in the Afghan Government since the previous administration. This work is commonly referred to as government-togovernment or on-budget support assistance. 

I should note that on-budget assistance encompasses a range of 

mechanisms such as funds provided to and through the World 

Bank’s Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund, or the ARTF, as well as 

specific project assistance that we provide directly to and through 

ministries and agencies at the Government of Afghanistan. 

USAID has been constantly learning and reforming our operations in Afghanistan over the course of our engagement there. 

Oversight and accountability is an area where USAID’s leadership 

has focused extensively throughout the agency and in particular 

with respect to Afghanistan. 

Protecting taxpayer resources is a vital concern to USAID, and 

we have established a variety of layered measures to ensure that 

our programs are cost-effective and are having the intended and 

the expected impacts. We are mindful that, as stewards of the U.S. 

Government taxpayer funds, that we serve as their representatives 

as we provide this assistance to the people of Afghanistan. 

USAID works to ensure that the ministries and agencies to 

whom we provide assistance are capable of implementing the desired programs, achieving the desired results, and doing so in a 

way that is transparent and fiscally responsible. USAID accomplishes this through a system of pre-award assessments, mitigating 

measures, financial controls, and rigorous monitoring and evaluation. 

As part of the financial controls, USAID maintains control of 

funds throughout the lifecycle of a project. We work with the Afghan Government to develop projects that are going to achieve specific outcomes, and we allow funds to be distributed only when certain benchmarks have been met. This ensures that the funds are 

accounted for and that we achieve the outcomes that are critical for 

our success. 

Another layer of oversight and accountability is provided by the 

multiple independent oversight bodies that review our programs. 

These, of course, include your own Government Accountability Office, the USAID Inspector General, and the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction. They complete numerous audits of 

our programs in Afghanistan every year that complement and reinforce our own efforts to ensure that taxpayer dollars are effectively 

used. And I should add, we welcome the oversight and the disVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:52 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76263.TXT APRIL
12 

cipline that these reviews impose on our work. A number of the reviews, actually, have been requested by our staff. 

Finally, I know well that there have been significant sacrifices 

made by the American people in support of sustainability and stability in Afghanistan. We are under no illusions about the challenges that we face, but these challenges call for exercising diligence in how we operate as we carefully and deliberately transition 

to an Afghan-led process which meets our standards of achievement and of accountability. 

Our mission of defeating terrorists and denying them a safe 

haven remains critical to U.S. national security. The programs implemented by USAID are making important contributions toward 

that goal by helping Afghanistan stand on its own. 

I look forward to answering any questions you have, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I appreciate all of your statements. 

I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

And, Mr. Estevez and General Bash, help me understand, who 

is ultimately responsible for the POL in Afghanistan? I mean, does 

that go through the two of you? Who at the Department of Defense 

is responsible for this? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. If you are talking POL for U.S. forces, I would say 

I have ultimate responsibility in that regard. We are talking about 

for billing capacity for the Afghans, so it is a shared responsibility. 

We both have oversight of our contracting capability that is in Afghanistan that supports both our forces and supports CSTC–A and 

its mission. 

CSTC–A is operating in a training capacity, so, you know, their 

ultimate responsibility is through the command structure there. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. This Special Inspector for Afghan Reconstruction, 

I think he is honest, sincere. He is trying to do the right thing. It 

takes months and months and months and months, as you said, a 

couple of congressional inquiries. 

With all due respect, I would rather not be sitting here with you 

today. I would much rather have you provide the documentation to 

him and be able to reconcile the books. He said there is no documents—that they found some of them now. 

Why is there such a challenge? Why does it take so long to get 

some what should be basic information? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. First, let me say that we also do believe that the 

Special Inspector General is doing great work. It is very helpful 

work for us and for our mission in Afghanistan. 

Right now I think in CSTC–A there are 30-some audits going on. 

Of course, they are also engaged in the mission and training in Afghanistan, and I will let General Bash talk a little bit about that. 

So they are working to provide those records—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Have you seen them? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I have not. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Who has seen them? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. The folks in Afghanistan that are pulling them and 

the folks around—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. When will they have them? 

13 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. They provided, as Mr. Sopko said, a disc. They are 

going through that disc to make sure they are giving them the 

right documents. A lot of this is electronic backup records. 

They did not know, at least to our knowledge again, until September 5th that there was an allegation of shredding and that documents were not available. And they are working very hard to provide those documents. We expect them to do so. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. They were going to take roughly—and I am 

rounding here—a $350 million line item and bring it up to $555 

million. What gave you the confidence that that was an accurate 

number? Who signed off on that? 

General BASH. Well, Mr. Chairman, ultimately, you know, the 

commander at CSTC–A is responsible for the estimation and the 

building of the Afghan Army. 

Having, myself, spent a year in Iraq and having numerous visits 

to Afghanistan, as I know you have, the environment is challenging 

to help them build their institutional capacity, which is really what 

the core issue here is, trying to make an assessment of when they 

can start handling this and the training of advisers. And because 

of the way the mission has developed, they focused on the fighting 

forces first, and then now they are starting to get to the enablers, 

which includes logistics. So it brings us to the point of how we have 

confidence of how much fuel they actually need. 

And I would say that, since this special inspection started in 

March, in April, and the initial report was provided in May, which 

was the preliminary issues of concern provided to the commander 

at the time, our review with the commanders there have shown 

that, of at that time the six issues, they have made considerable 

progress. And I am prepared to share some of those details. 

But I think that there have been challenges—just the fact that 

the Expeditionary Sustainment Command only stood up 9 months 

ago. Because when they recognized that they wanted to start building a logistics capacity for the Afghan Army, they said, you know, 

this is really hard stuff, we need to have the pros from Dover come 

out, which is the SC, which has been there for 9 months now. 

So, since that time, since 9 months ago, they have made considerable progress, and that is in parallel with Mr. Sopko’s investigation. And I think they have been working with that team. In fact, 

there has been a SIGAR team member there consistently. And they 

were meeting weekly, at least initially. And I know there are team 

members still there. So I think they are working very closely together. 

Admittedly, there is frustration that it takes time to find the 

records, I think because of the scale. When we talk about the—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But, General, we are talking about increasing 

funding by $200 million, just this one line item, $200 million annually. The SIGAR is saying, there is no basis for this; we don’t see 

any accounting that would justify this in any way, shape, or form. 

You two gentlemen are saying, yes, there is. Where is it? I think 

that is a fair and reasonable question to ask. 

And if there has been progress, please do that. I am past my 

time, but feel free to share those answers. And then we will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts. 

14 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Let me just address the growth of the Afghan 

Army, the Afghan forces, so it is Afghan Army, police, border police—you know, the whole group. So that has expanded significantly year by year by year. 

In addition, we are providing substantial pieces of equipment— 

armored Humvees, pickup trucks, armored pickup trucks and the 

like—that all consume fuel. We are providing an air force capability to the Afghans—I am saying us and our coalition partners— 

in doing this. 

And as we expand sites, that, of course, also expands the requirement for fuel at those sites and for using that equipment. And the 

Afghan forces are taking more and more of the responsibility for 

engaging in combat. So they are out there using that fuel, consuming it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How much of the fuel are they paying for, and 

how much of the fuel are we paying for? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I believe right now we are probably funding their 

fuel requirement. I would have to get you—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. A hundred percent? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I really need to get you that for the record, sir, but 

I believe right now that we are probably fully funding their fuel requirement. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. General, you said there were some other developments. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to expand that 

thought. 

General BASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will try to be 

brief here. 

But in May, when the SIGAR provided the preliminary issues of 

concern to the command, there were six primary issues. And I will 

just briefly cover those, and if you want more, we can provide it. 

But, at the time, they said there needed to be a complete inventory of storage capacity, and also perform an assessment of shortlived consumption needs. Since that time, NTM has actually reduced the number of sites from 191 delivery sites—down to 191 

from almost 800. And they are going to 68. So the scale of the number of sites for delivery has shrunk significantly, which makes it 

a lot easier. 

They have issued a direction to collect data on fuel storage capacity. And today they do know how much capacity each of these sites, 

46 sites have, and they know the million-of-liters capacity. So that 

gives them an idea of, when they push fuel out, you know, how 

much they can actually accept. 

They have also refined the processes for determining consumption. They are just beginning this process, and so we don’t have 

any success—you know, evidence that I have at this point. But 

they are using NATO standard fuel consumption formulas for vehicles. They are also using NATO operational planning factors that 

are accepted. 

So for the first issue, I feel confident that they are making 

progress. Perhaps still a ways to go there, but I think they have 

a process in place. 

The second issue talks about, they should establish a contract vehicle that includes more stringent provisions regarding fuel quality, 

quantity, and contractor performance. They now have a new fourVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:52 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76263.TXT APRIL
15 

step process. I won’t go into details on that, but it is a new process. 

Based on this process, in August and July they had three cases of 

invoices that were rejected because the Afghans weren’t following 

that particular process. So we do have evidence that that is beginning to work. 

And, finally, they are looking at coming up with an indefinite delivery contract to replace the current blanket purchase agreement, 

which was one of the suggestions, I think, that the SIGAR made 

at the time. That has not been done yet, but they are moving forward in that regard. 

On the third issue, as far as ordering and purchasing, they are 

requiring that CSTC–A account for all fuel orders. And today they 

are doing 100 percent reconciliation of those fuel orders, which we 

have confirmed with the theater. 

On the fourth one, which was with regard to documentation, 

again, this comes back to the new four-step process, where they 

have to get the fuel orders, which are the Form 14s that the Afghans use. That goes all the way through the reconciliation, which 

is the Form 32 at the end of the process. And they are trying to 

put maturity into the trainers and advisers that are advising the 

Afghans, that overwatch, trying to help them understand how to do 

that process with integrity. 

And the final two, the last issue, complete info on any POL purchases not available, the suggestion was to require them to perform 

monthly reconciliations, which I already mentioned that they are 

doing 100 percent today now, which wasn’t necessarily the case 

when SIGAR brought this to their attention in May. 

And, finally, a suggestion to revise the Afghan Ministry of Defense Decree 4.6 to establish minimum proficiency requirements for 

the Afghans, that has not been completed yet. It is in progress. Obviously, this is one that the Afghans have to change their policy direction. The advisers are working with the Afghans right now to 

help them understand what changes need to be made. And hopefully in the future the Afghans will make that change so that what 

the advisers are trying to teach them, they have overarching guidance to follow. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the rest of the 

afternoon, right? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. For such time as he may consume, yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So, Mr. Sopko, what do you say to this? 

Mr. SOPKO. A couple things. 

First of all, any of the efforts that the General mentioned to improve oversight and accountability we fully support. The problem 

is where the rubber meets the road. My auditors—and you have to 

remember, they were reviewing CSTC–A’s response as late as August and September—they found no evidence of actual consumption 

data reports being used to estimate fuel requirements. 

Now, that is a key. And that is the problem I think we are seeing 

with CSTC–A. CSTC–A is using purchase data, not consumption 

data. We know what we purchased. We know what we paid for. 

16 

The question is, do we know what the Afghans got, and do they 

need it? And we are not seeing consumption data. 

Now, Mr. Tierney, let me go back to the question that the chairman asked about the records. It is not just that they couldn’t find 

the records for us and our audit was delayed 6 months and that 

we had to narrow the scope from 4 years to 1 year. What it really 

shows is they didn’t have access to the records that they are now 

claiming they have access to, that they are using on a regular basis 

to determine if the Afghans are stealing the fuel. 

And what we would posit is that the total confusion of where the 

records were—we asked a simple question, to give us the records 

you are using to oversee the Afghans’ usage. They couldn’t find 

them for 6 months. 

We are really concerned. And I don’t know how else we could express it other than to say: Do not proceed with cutting a blank 

check in January until you are sure you have a program in place 

that you, CSTC–A, is using. 

We have had problems with CSTC–A and CSTC–A records in the 

past. I mentioned and alluded to it in my opening statement and 

my written statement. In January of this year, we had to delay an 

audit on the number of vehicles that CSTC–A was using and had 

purchased for the Afghan military by 4 months because CSTC–A 

didn’t have an accounting of how many vehicles they were actually 

fueling. We later found out, and we saved over $5 million in fuel, 

because it turned out CSTC–A was giving fuel to the Afghans for 

vehicles that had been destroyed. 

My auditors tell me, to this date, CSTC–A is still paying for fuel 

to fuel trailers, to fuel nonfunctional vehicles, and nonexisting vehicles. 

So, Mr. Tierney, my response is, I will use President Reagan’s 

terminology, and I think the chairman did: Trust, but verify. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

So, General, I am concerned that we have this estimate for $200 

million additional dollars a year at a time when your people 

couldn’t access or weren’t accessing the records. So, you know, 

without that kind of consumption information as to what was being 

used, I am a little curious as to how they got this estimate that 

they were going to need $200 million more next year. 

General BASH. First, I would say that I think the challenge that 

CSTC–A has is, there is a difference between the detailed end 

records, which are the consumption data and the forms that the Afghans do, and the trend analysis that they are doing from a macro 

perspective of what they are using. Certainly—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Could you explain that to me? You think that, to 

make a trend analogy, you don’t need to have a good core base of 

information, of data? 

General BASH. The individual transaction, so it is more—I am 

making a distinction between the retail and the wholesale level. 

You know, so if you have, you know, hundreds of bases out there 

and thousands and thousands of vehicles and generators, what 

goes into each individual tank and what is used is a huge challenge. And—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, less so if you have the records indicating it. 

You just add them up. 

17 

General BASH. Right. So, at the supply level, that is where they 

are doing the trend analysis to understand what the FOBs are 

using. And they are using a trend analysis, as I previously mentioned. 

As far as the increases—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. You know, can I go back? Maybe I am obtuse here 

or something like that. I don’t think you have answered my question, but you can maybe bear with me and try again so even I get 

it on that. 

I would think you need to know how many storage tanks exist, 

how many vehicles, and what capacity per vehicle there are in 

order for you to get a feel for what is needed collectively and base 

by base before you can make any trend analysis going forward. You 

have to know where you start in order to trend forward. Is that not 

making sense? 

General BASH. You are absolutely right, sir. And, in fact, when 

this SIGAR started, that information was not readily available, and 

today it is based on—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. But it appears not to have been available when the trend analysis was made and the projection for $200 million additional money was made. 

General BASH. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about the timing. I 

mean, they have been making considerable progress since—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, let me say it this way, because the Inspector General knew that they were asking for $200 million more when 

the documents were still not found. So now the documents were 

subsequently found. I think it stands to reason that they didn’t use 

those documents to establish their baseline on which the trend was 

then set. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Let me try to answer you, Congressman Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Before you do that, Mr. Sopko, am I off base here? 

Does that sound reasonable to you? 

Mr. SOPKO. You are absolutely correct. And that is our concern. 

And I am happy to give more detail because we were provided— 

CSTC–A provided their spreadsheet that they used, and it didn’t 

include consumption data. 

So, you know, my auditors on the ground have been doing this 

for 9 months, and what they are saying is they are not using consumption data. They are using purchase data. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Now, Mr. Estevez, if you care. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. So what they have done is they have looked at the 

last year, they have used NATO consumption standards against 

the type of vehicles that the Afghans have, and that is vehicles 

ranging from, again, armored-type pickups to armored Humvees to 

helicopters, aircraft, generators, et cetera. So they have a year’s 

worth of data. They used NATO consumption trends against that. 

They look at what the expected operational tempo is, because, obviously, if you have a vehicle and it is not being used, then there 

is no consumption. If it is being used X amount, there is X amount. 

If I am going to go out on patrol more because we are pulling back 

and we are expecting them to take the lead, that gives you another 

calculation. All that is into the calculation on how much fuel we 

need to buy for the Afghans. 

18 

And the growth of the force, so we are fielding new vehicles into 

that mix. All that went into the trend analysis to calculate how 

much budget, as well as the calculation of what it is going to cost. 

Obviously, price of fuel fluctuates. 

Mr. TIERNEY. What of the trailers and things like that that were 

in that calculated number, you know, things that don’t move and 

don’t use energy that were somehow calculated in that base? 

General BASH. Sir, the best that we can figure on that one is 

that—and in talking to the commanders out there, is that today 

they have done a reconciliation with the Afghan books, if you will, 

and they do not provide fuel for vehicles that don’t require fuel. 

There are trailers that do have pumps and engines on them to, you 

know, pump water and that sort of thing that perhaps are on the 

records that they get an allotment for fuel based on the NATO 

standards. 

But the commander has told us that, if that was happening previously, it is not happening today, because they have gone through 

and they now know exactly how many vehicles are on the Afghan 

records and they have oversight into—and, of course, that changes 

all the time based on losses and whatnot. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Sopko, are you satisfied that the 1-year records 

that are said to have been used were accurate for that 1 year? And 

do you think that that is a complete enough basis on which to 

make projections? 

Mr. SOPKO. No, we are not. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Why? 

Mr. SOPKO. And, again, let me—maybe the best way to do this 

is look at the—our vehicle work showed that at least 1,600 Afghan 

military vehicles that are not operational are still getting fuel. 

And I would like to also refer to an audit report that I mentioned, January 12, 2012, and just read from the findings. And it 

said—and, again, this is the one where CSTC–A had to ask us to 

delay doing our work, doing our field work, because CSTC–A reported it could not readily provide the documentation required to 

address our questions and was in the process of conducting a nationwide field inventory. 

After they did that inventory and allowed us in, they said, the 

U.S. was providing fuel for destroyed vehicles. As a result, CSTC– 

A saved over $370,000, and if you estimated it—and 200,000 liters. 

And if you estimated, it would amount to over $5 million in savings. 

We are not comfortable with the number they are giving, based 

upon our prior work there. We don’t feel they know what they are 

buying and what is being consumed. 

And the simple answer is, do you remember the chart I showed 

you about how the system was supposed to work? We put it up. 

There is a form called a MOD, Ministry of Defense, that is a form, 

it is a very good form, that the Afghans are supposed to fill out 

which talks about monthly consumption report. As of last week, 

when we got a report from CSTC–A in the field, they are saying 

they are still collecting those consumption reports and they are 

reaching out to the Afghans to try to find them. 

19 

So if they are right now trying to find the consumption reports, 

how can they justify their budget, which was submitted, I think, 

a few months ago? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you care to take a shot at that one, Lieutenant 

General? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. How about if I try to take a shot at that? A couple 

things—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. I am sure the General is happy with that. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. We work together. 

I think, you know, as far as the vehicles, you know, we do not 

dispute that we had problems with this in the past. We think we 

are much better today—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess the key is—I hope you don’t mind a conversation. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Certainly, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. The key seems to be, you had a problem at the 

time that you were making your estimates and your projections. 

That is what—you know, I don’t mind if you had a problem in the 

past. But if you had a problem at the time you were then finding 

some reason to make projections and trend analysis on it, that is 

what I have a problem with. They can’t be very trustworthy if they 

are not set on solid ground. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. The trend analysis is done in the July-August time 

frame, so I believe we are okay there. But I would like to—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, not according to Mr. Sopko. You are still getting information in August and September. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. May I suggest on how we did our trend analysis— 

and his auditors may have already looked at this, but I believe that 

we need to get CSTC–A and his auditors together again to walk 

through that process and hopefully find a way forward on that. We 

are satisfying the Special Inspector General. Again, they are providing us useful help in doing this. 

And I will go back to, you know, back in January, earlier last 

year, one of the reasons, as General Bash alluded to, that we deployed an active Army expeditionary support command to CSTC– 

A—and we have one in Afghanistan supporting our own forces in 

order to train Afghans how to do this and to do this in conjunction 

with them—was because we needed the pros from Dover in order 

to get in there and work this process. 

And so it is an evolving process as we go forward in doing this. 

So we do believe we have the right trend analysis, but we will be 

happy to have our folks work that with the Inspector General. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, I understand about trend analysis from one year to 

the next. But in order to have a good feel for that, you have to have 

a good reference point. And the reference point would be consumption. 

Knowing how everything else goes in Afghanistan, you know, 

just hearing what I have just heard and in the previous hearing 

as well, I don’t get a lot of confidence that we know what the hell 

we are doing. 

20 

Mr. LYNCH. If we are just using a NATO model and we don’t 

know what—first, we don’t know how many vehicles we have, we 

don’t know how much fuel they are using. I do know how things 

go in Afghanistan, and I am not encouraged by that. And so we are 

just adding $200 million to what we used last year. And we don’t 

know if we were being robbed last year, but I suspect the odds are 

we were. This is crazy. This is crazy. 

So, Mr. Estevez, you said in your opening statement that you 

have all the records; they have been properly kept. And the man 

to your right, the Special Inspector General, says he has no 

records. And you are both under oath, so what am I supposed to 

believe here? 

I mean, from what I—and all of our members have been over to 

Afghanistan a bunch of times. We know how things are going over 

there. I mean, how do I get that? All the records are there; they 

have been kept in order. 

And, by the way, we have been tracking this thing since 2006. 

Everybody is fast-forwarding to 2011, 2010. What happened back 

in 2006? Have we been doing this since 2006? Have we been counting vehicles, and have we been tracking consumption? Have we 

been doing that? 

General? Mr. Estevez? 

General BASH. Well, sir, to address your most previous one, as 

you well know, the surge and the buildup in Afghanistan didn’t 

occur until the last couple years, so the challenges prior to that—— 

Mr. LYNCH. But, but, but, we know what the surge was, so if we 

had a reference point before that, then you account for the surge, 

so you have a known point. 

So I don’t want to fast-forward and make believe we arrived in 

Afghanistan in 2010. I don’t want to do that. We have been there 

for a long, long time, and so what were we doing then? We have 

been there 10, 11 years. What were we doing since the beginning? 

Have we been just pulling the number out of a hat? Because that 

is the way it seems, that we are just taking an arbitrary number, 

and God knows we have to justify next year’s budget, so increase 

it by a substantial amount. You know, it is just unacceptable, number one. But it is not going to continue. We have to get to the bottom of this. 

So let me go back. You say all the records are in order. We have 

everything. They have been kept in, you know, due diligence. So 

how do we figure out how many vehicles we have and how much 

those vehicles consume? 

Mr. Estevez? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Let me address a couple of things there. 

First, as General Bash was alluding to, 2006, there was not a 

drive to a 352,000-man force, Afghan force. That didn’t start, the 

concerted effort, until the last 3 years or so. So there was a change 

in focus and mission in the midst of that and push of equipment 

in doing so. 

When we say all the records are in order, I said we have the 

records, we are pulling the records. Going back to 2006, we have 

evidence that that is the case, that we have them on electronic—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, how come Mr. Sopko doesn’t have them then? 

How come he sits there under oath and tells me he has nothing 

21 

and you say, we have everything and it is all in order? How do we 

get that? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. We are providing those to his auditors. Hopefully 

at the end of this, and it is the Department’s belief at this point, 

that he will have the records that he needs—— 

Mr. LYNCH. When is he going to get the records? Because you are 

really—— 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Our folks in CSTC–A, sir, are working with his 

auditors as we speak and providing him those records. And—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Sopko, how are you doing on the records? Are 

you getting the records? 

Mr. SOPKO. They have provided—as for the records in the 2011 

and 2012 framework, time frame, they have given us a CD and 

they said the records are there. We are reviewing to see if they are 

there. 

Mr. LYNCH. That is for 1 year, though, right? 

Mr. SOPKO. That is for 1 year. Remember, that was the year 

where they said they had all of the records, and when we did the 

survey and we pulled, they didn’t have 50 percent of the records. 

Now, that doesn’t mean the records are complete. You recall from 

last week’s testimony, when we pulled it, we could only find four 

complete packages which had all of the appropriate forms you 

would want and were all signed. 

As for the prior records that were shredded—and there is no 

doubt that they were shredded. I mean, two Air Force captains 

have admitted to my investigators they shredded the records. Now, 

I am not saying they did it for evil purposes, but they were shredded. They claim they made electronic copies. We haven’t found 

those, and we haven’t had a chance to look at those electronic 

versions. But the records were shredded. 

Mr. LYNCH. Now, Mr. Estevez, you know, you are saying there 

was no shredding going on. We got—you know, this is a good hearing, this is pretty good. Okay, we got one guy who says we have 

two Air Force folks that have testified that they shredded the documents. And you tell me none of the documents were shredded and 

they were all properly maintained. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. If I could—— 

Mr. LYNCH. It is like a parallel universe here. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. —I will concede that if the Special Investigator has 

people who say they shredded records, records were probably 

shredded. That does not mean that records were destroyed. Electronic copy of record is a valid copy of the record. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, hard copy was destroyed. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. That is what I am hearing, sir. 

General BASH. Sir, I would also say that CSTC–A was focused 

on the initial request of records, which, as the Special Investigator 

said, 50 percent was required to be provided right away. Over the 

past 4 or 5 months, they have provided now 97 percent of those 

records. 

Now—— 

Mr. LYNCH. That is what you say, right? You are saying 97 percent? 

Is that what you are getting, Mr. Sopko? 

Mr. SOPKO. I beg to disagree with the General. 

22 

Our initial request—and I am happy to go through the timeline. 

We opened the audit on February 13, 2012. February 21st, we held 

our first conference, entrance conference with CSTC, and we explained to them what was the scope of the audit. On April 3rd, 

we—— 

Mr. LYNCH. And what did you describe as the scope of your 

audit? Refresh my recollection. 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, it was multiple—4 years of records. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay, good. 

Mr. SOPKO. On April 3rd, we made the initial request for fuel 

order documents to CSTC–A. At that meeting, the CSTC–A fuel-ordering officer informed us that he did not have supporting documentation for any of the earlier fuel orders, period, no supporting 

documentation, because they were shredded. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay, let’s stop right there. 

All right, Mr. Estevez and Lieutenant General Bash, what do you 

say to that about the previous years? We are not talking about the 

1 year; we are talking about the other 3 years of the 4-year request. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I don’t doubt that the officer in question said that 

he had heard—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Do you have those records? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. We believe we have given the records that the Special Inspector General is looking for on the disk. We also have 

records—— 

Mr. LYNCH. He is asking for 4 years. Are you giving him 4 years? 

Earlier, you said the disk was 1 year. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Sir, we are giving him the records that his auditors 

requested. They asked for records by number, you know, I guess by 

each—and we are giving him the records that he asked for. 

We have records stored going back in time. And I can’t say, you 

know, what is in these boxes. But we have moved all the financial 

records, as time evolved in Afghanistan, back to Shaw Air Force 

Base—— 

Mr. LYNCH. All right. From this point forward, I just want to 

make sure everybody understands: When we are looking for 

records, we are looking for 4 years’ worth of records. We want 4 

years, not 1 year. So when we say we had all the records, 97 percent of the records, I am hearing you have 97 percent of the 4 years 

that we are looking for in the audit. That is what I am hearing. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. We have 97 percent of the records, specific records, 

that the Special Inspector General has asked for. If they were looking for other specific records, we will, inside the Department of Defense, go and find those records for him. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. 

I am sure I am exceeding my time. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are not the first, so—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Yeah. 

Mr. SOPKO. Mr. Chairman, can I just add to that? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Please. 

Mr. SOPKO. Because I don’t want to add to the confusion, but I 

think what the confusion is—and then on April 18th—remember, 

April 3rd, we were told the 4 years of records are destroyed. April 

18th, that same fuel-ordering officer says, ‘‘You can’t get the earlier 

23 

records, but we do have records for 1 year.’’ That is March—so that 

is what we are talking about, the 1 year. So—— 

Mr. LYNCH. So, Mr. Estevez—— 

Mr. SOPKO. —97 percent is the 1 year. We immediately asked 

for—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Let’s stop right there. 

So, Mr. Estevez, after you told him you can’t get the previous 

years, you can get the 1 year, are we skipping over that? Is that 

what you are telling me? In this 97 percent response, you are skipping over the part where he asks for 4 years, and you are hearing, 

well, we don’t have the other 3 years, but we will give you 1 year? 

Is that what is causing the confusion here? Because we want 4 

years. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I hope not. But I will say that neither General 

Bash nor I are privy to the discussions between his auditor and the 

levels in CSTC–A that they were dealing with. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. I am talking about the original response that 

asked for 4 years of records. And your guys are probably saying, 

‘‘Well, we got them to back off on the first 3 they wanted. We told 

them we didn’t have them. We told them we have 1 year.’’ And so 

now you are dealing with a much narrower request. But that is not 

the entire request. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Sir, if the Special Inspector General asked for 

records, we will go find those records for him. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. And we are talking 4 years. All right. 

I will yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize myself. 

One of the allegations, if you will call it that, or one of the concerns—probably is a better word—is that you had not been working 

with the Afghan ministry. Mr. Sopko mentioned that in his opening 

statement. How would you react to that? 

General BASH. Well, having been an adviser myself, Mr. Chairman, there is a team that works with the ministry every day to 

help them build that institutional capacity. 

I wasn’t assigned to Afghanistan in that regard. However, there 

is no doubt in my mind, once they started to—they decided to build 

logistics capacity, which—and they have a whole plan of eight different ways of building that enabler—they start to work with the 

ministers to help them understand how to do logistics. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Sopko, did you want to add anything to that 

concern about talking to the ministers? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, all I can say is that, in the latest—they have 

set up a meeting, which we applaud, but it was only set up recently, I believe in the August—well, actually, it was set up before 

your hearing, but I think it met after the last hearing, so it would 

be last week or earlier this week, at which time the Afghan ministry, I think, was the first time it looks like they were consulted. 

And they said, we are not prepared to start January 1st. 

And that was a briefing that CSTC–A gave us and some documents they gave us and PowerPoints just this week about this 

meeting. So we are just saying it looks like—now, again, that 

wasn’t the scope of our audit—— 

24 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, let me give the General—we are going to 

have to pick up the pace here. 

General, how do you—I mean, you said you are meeting daily. 

The Inspector General is saying you met for the first time since we 

had our last hearing, which was a week ago. 

General BASH. I think it is a matter of level. I mean, there are 

engagements consistently—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Are they ready to handle this in January? 

General BASH. Sir, sitting here in Washington, D.C., and talking 

to the commander out there, their plan is to have a phased approach based on conditions. So if they are not ready—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Based on your assessment of the conditions 

today—and I think it has been benched back to March of 2013. 

General BASH. In fact, that is what we have heard today, and 

that tells me that they are not ready on 1 January. And so now 

they are going to move that to March to make a new assessment. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. All right, let me keep going. 

You talked about an ongoing effort to do a quarterly review as 

the ministry starts to take over again. I seriously question we 

should even do that. But at what point, what is the threshold, what 

is the level of acceptable—what is the threshold by which we say, 

this is unacceptable, this is acceptable? Where do you say, well, 

they got 80 percent of it right, so we will just keep going? Where 

is that threshold? 

General BASH. Sir, I would think that, to a certain extent, there 

is going to be some commander judgment in balancing the needs 

of the mission to grow the Afghan—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I guess as a follow-up we would love to know 

what sort of metrics are going to be in place so we can look at it 

objectively, we are not doing this subjective analysis. I think that 

is what the Inspector is looking for, and I think that is what Congress is looking for, as well. 

If somebody did shred the documents, what should happen to 

them? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Obviously, we should investigate the cause of the 

shredding, why they were shredded, and we should hold people accountable. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I guess I am questioning, what would be ‘‘holding 

people accountable’’? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I mean, that will have to—it will depend on the circumstances. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. If you could perhaps follow up on this. Is there 

any justification—I mean, one of the things that popped up in this 

interim report was this $20 million for firewood. Is there any justification for that? 

General BASH. Well, in fact, we did follow up with that on the 

commanders. And as you probably are aware, firewood is the primary source of energy in rural Afghanistan. In the Afghan Army, 

every DFAC, every dining facility has a fire that helps them cook. 

That is just how they operate there. And so they use the estimates 

of fuel—you know, wood is as important as gas. 

And so that is the nature of the requirement. We don’t necessarily question the requirement. But, again, it is the situation of, 

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25 

cause of deforestation, there is only, like, 1 or 2 percent of the 

country that has it. And so the price of firewood has no doubt gone 

up because of demand. 

But they have told us that they have, you know, procedures in 

place similar to other commodities to track the requirements for 

firewood and make assessments about those needs. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I guess that is the same concern, because when 

the Inspector General’s office went in there and asked for the assessment, how did you come up with this number—I will let Mr. 

Sopko fill in the blank on what they said. 

Mr. SOPKO. They basically told our auditors, Mr. Chairman, ‘‘We 

don’t know. We don’t have the records. We just pay it.’’ 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So, General, you are sitting in my seat; what do 

you do with that? You call a general up here and ask him to help 

answer it, and what is the answer to that? 

General BASH. I can appreciate that. And we read that testimony 

and yesterday asked the commander about it, and he said that they 

have—the commander in charge now, they said they have records 

that give him confidence that the—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. When we will have those records? 

General BASH. Well, they are working with the Special Investigator—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. No, I want a date from you, General. When is the 

Inspector General going to have those records? What is reasonable? 

If they have them, right, and they know they have them, just 

send them over. I mean, FedEx probably doesn’t work in Afghanistan like it does in Provo, Utah. But, nevertheless, when is he 

going to get those records? You are being told they have them, so 

it shouldn’t be that hard. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Well, again, you know, Mr. Sopko has said we have 

given him a disk, he is going through that disk—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I want the firewood records. Where are the firewood records? 

General BASH. All I can say, Mr. Chairman, is that we will take 

that for action and—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Sir, with all due respect, I am looking for a date. 

Give me a date. What is a reasonable date? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Really, we cannot answer that question sitting 

here at a table in Washington, Chairman Chaffetz. There are a lot 

of other things going on in Afghanistan—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Will you commit to giving me a date within a 

week? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I will commit to giving you a date, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Within a week? Is that fair? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Within a week. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Very good. Thank you. 

I need to talk quickly about debarment. One of the allegations 

is that the debarment process is not working. The Inspector General, in a letter to myself and Ranking Member Tierney, identifies 

I believe it is 43 contractors that have not necessarily been put on 

the debarment, and that this process has a backlog. 

Can you give us your perspective on that? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I can. SIGAR has referred 122 individuals and entities to the Army with recommendations. Fifty-two we received 

26 

prior to August. Forty-two of those folks are already debarred. Seventy referrals were received in the last 45 days, and 59 of those 

referrals were given after September 4th, or on September 4th. 

There is a due process way that you do a debarment that is written into law and into the FAR, the Federal Acquisition Regulation. 

So we have to follow that process to debar, and it takes a preponderance of evidence. So there is going to be back-and-forth on evidence. If everything is in order, the Army can—in this case, the 

Army happens to be the suspension debarment authority—can 

debar within 30 days. 

Outside of that process, there is the process that this Congress 

authorized last year in Section 841, which is not contracting with 

the enemy. And that is not a suspension debarment process, but we 

can terminate contracts of folks identified under that. And, again, 

that is done within the CENTCOM chain of command. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What sort of backlog do you have currently? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I can’t speak to the total Army level of backlog, but 

as I just said, they are going through the number that the Special 

Investigator just sent over. The Army has—total debarment this 

year in Afghanistan is 100. That is double what was done in the 

last 4 years. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And what is the time frame? If the Special Inspector General gives a name, what should happen and what is 

happening in terms of when does it get to the finish line where a 

determination is made? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Well, again, it depends on—first, suspension and 

debarment has to be in the interests of the Federal Government, 

and it has to follow the Federal Acquisition Regulation in order to 

do that. If all the evidence lines up properly that they need in 

order to do this, following due process, they can do it within a 30- 

day time frame. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And, Mr. Sopko, can you give us your perspective 

on what is happening and not happening in this regard? 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think the question here—and 

we don’t disagree with the Army that they have set up a very good 

process. But we think that process was set up for the normal, runof-the-mill cases, for cases dealing with U.S. companies or companies here in the United States. 

What you have here is you have a war. We are in a war zone. 

We have to move quickly. This has to be a priority. 

When the Department of Commerce puts an entity, an individual, a company on a list that is called the entities list, and these 

are entities and individuals and companies that are tied to our enemies, and we have to stand in line with the other thousand cases 

and there is no priority given to us and no priority given to the fact 

that these are entities which could actually be getting access to our 

military bases as we speak because they have only four—only 

four—debarment officials in the entire United States Army and 

only one assigned to this region, and it will usually take a year. 

That is what the backlog is. 

All we are saying is you have a great process, but it was a process set up for a non-war. We are in a war. Let’s take it seriously. 

Let’s give suspension and debarment authority to the commanders 

in the field; let’s give it to the SIGAR. And let’s move on this. 

27 

I mean, I find it very troubling that one branch of the government can list an entity as being identified to the Haqqani organization and the al Qaeda, and now we are waiting for a year to debar 

and suspend them. And particularly in Afghanistan, where we are 

dealing with subcontractors. That is what the threat is. You know, 

the system they have in place is a system that is excellent when 

we are not fighting a war. We are in a war now. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I will yield my time and recognize the gentleman 

from Massachusetts. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I only want to follow up on that line of questioning. 

Secretary, the SIGAR has made a recommendation for a draft 

regulation to the Office of Management and Budget, but the understanding is that the Department of Defense issued an objection to 

that. Can you shed some light on that? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Unfortunately, sir, I can’t. I will have to look into 

that. 

We believe that the process is working. 

The entities list, by the way, with the Department of Commerce 

is not a list for suspension/debarment, has nothing to do with it. 

It is an export control regiment. So that is not the process. 

However, I will point out that this Congress has given us a number of authorities that we can use, including the requirement to do, 

you know, when the contract clause is written—and, of course, that 

was just given—to manage subcontractors and Section 841, which 

does allow us to terminate contracts related to contracting with the 

enemy. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I am familiar with that one; I wrote it. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. I know you are, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Having written that, I am very familiar with it. 

But the bottom line is how long does it take to debar somebody 

when you are told or the Department of Defense is told that this 

person is working with the Taliban or with the Haqqani group or 

with al Qaeda? I hope you are going to tell me a matter of days 

and not a matter of months or years. 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. With proper evidence and—two things: again, 841, 

which you are familiar with, you do not have to suspend/debar. You 

can use 841 under the authority of the CENTCOM commander to 

do that. So that can be done with evidence, and that can be done 

with evidence that can’t be used in a suspension/debarment activity, classified evidence. 

A suspension/debarment activity separate and distinct from what 

would be done under 841 can be done within 30 days, given the 

proper evidence. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Just a little bit more questions. 

Mr. Sopko, did you want to add to anything that was just said 

there? I just want to finish that up. 

Mr. SOPKO. Well, I would—you know, with all due deference to 

the Assistant Secretary, as a lawyer I would think, first of all, 

being listed on the entities list would be grounds for suspension/ 

debarment. And 841, being listed on 841 is not being used currently to suspend and debar people. 

And the other thing is, once you are on the suspension/debarment list, then international organizations take notice of this also. 

28 

And that is the other problem. We have international organizations 

that may be contracting; of course, we are funding those international organizations. 

So the suspension and debarment—and I am happy to provide 

additional legal justifications we did on this matter. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I would also mention that myself and the ranking member, Mr. 

Tierney, and I are working on a piece of legislation we may be 

dropping soon to talk about discussing the possibility of pushing 

this back, the POL, and the money going directly to the Afghan 

Government, until we can sort this out. 

One of the deep concerns here is, we can’t seem to manage it, we 

can’t even seem to get this right, and we have been operating intheater for 10 years and we are the United States of America. And 

we expect that suddenly the Afghan Government is going to handle 

hundreds of millions of dollars and do so in a proficient manner 

and do so with great oversight and accountability? It just seems totally unreasonable. 

There was way a reason we invited Mr. Sampler here. I would 

like to talk a little bit about USAID. I am going to transition here 

for a moment as we start to try to wrap this up. 

But, Mr. Sampler, we appreciate your work and what USAID is 

trying to do. I have been very supportive of Mr. Shah in his responsibility as the Administrator there at USAID. I think he is passionate and cares. 

But one of the deep concerns that I have is that USAID is moving in a direction that is, in essence, less accountability, less oversight, and more direct assistance. And I would point to this USAID 

Forward program that was put out, which talks about, quote, ‘‘to 

achieve capacity-building objectives in using host country systems 

where it makes sense,’’ end quote. In some regards, that sounds 

good, but we are typically looking at third-world countries, developing countries, that don’t have the assets or the sophistication to 

necessarily do what we would like them to do. 

My general concern is that, rather than teaching them how to 

fish, we are just continuing to hand them fish; in fact, we are trying to expedite that by just handing them more fish at an accelerated rate, more money, directly there, not knowing if it actually 

gets to the finish line, not knowing if it actually achieves what we 

are trying to achieve. 

We have trouble getting information from USAID to justify these 

expenditures as it is, and it seems to me that this would make it 

even worse. That is exacerbated by the fact that we are at war, 

that we have tens of thousands of U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan trying to do some very difficult work. 

Do you have a sense of—and so, that is the general concern. Can 

you give me a sense of how much foreign aid we have given to Afghanistan and how much of that would be categorized in this, sort 

of, direct assistance bucket, if you will? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Mr. Chairman, in a previous testimony, I said that it was $15 billion was the assistance that had been delivered to Afghanistan. I cannot at the moment recollect how much of that is 

direct or what we call on-budget assistance, but I will get you that 

answer. 

29 

The number of $15 billion is huge. And as a taxpayer myself, 

that raises concerns. But I would characterize the way that USAID 

does this as being a layered defense, in the sense that we protect 

U.S. taxpayer dollars through a number of different mechanisms. 

And if I could, I will give you two or three of the examples of 

how on-budget—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. One or two would be great. We have to move 

swiftly. Sorry. 

Mr. SAMPLER. We projectize the money that we give to the Government of Afghanistan. That is, we don’t give them money and 

ask what they are going to do with it. We work with the ministry 

to say, the ministry wants to do X. And so it is projectized. 

And at that point, we also provide technical assistance to help 

break out milestones for that project. If you are going to do X, how 

do we get halfway and halfway again and halfway again. And on 

those milestones, we identify particular benchmarks that we will 

pay for on a cost-reimbursable basis. 

So throughout the lifecycle of the project, we control the money. 

The deal is—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But, you know, the concern is, going back to last 

year, the GAO determined that USAID had failed to conduct appropriate risk assessments prior to granting a lot of the bilateral aid. 

Are you telling me that those problems the GAO identified last 

year have gone away, they have been solved? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Actually, I will if we are talking about the same 

problems. I pulled the report after I saw the testimony, and I believe the report referred to determinations that we are required to 

make before any disbursement. And, in this case, it was a series 

of disbursements to the World Bank Afghan Reconstruction Trust 

Fund. And in that case, there were determinations that were not 

made. We made some, and then there was a period of time when 

they were not made. It was brought to our attention through the 

report, which is, again, one of the reasons we find these reports so 

valuable. 

And in the response to the report, the mission director and Sean 

Carroll, who was our Chief of Staff at the time, noted that we had 

been lax in doing those determinations and confirmed that they 

would be done henceforth. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I guess part of my concern is that, under the new 

Forward initiative for USAID, USAID plans to funnel roughly 30 

percent of U.S. foreign assistance directly to foreign governments 

and NGOs in the hopes that this money can, you know, quote/unquote, ‘‘build capacity.’’ Yet I don’t see examples of where—and 

maybe, you know, as a follow-up to this—where we can point to 

something and say, ‘‘This is how we are becoming more accountable. This is how we are doing more oversight.’’ 

That is the help that this committee would like. It is one of the 

concerns with this so-called Forward initiative, and it is an even 

deeper concern in Afghanistan. Because I think one of the untold 

sad stories that we are going to look back here upon in Afghanistan 

years, decades from now is the waste, the fraud, the abuse, that 

we were exacerbating the problem, we were funneling money to the 

enemy, we were funding the enemy. I mean, the host-nation truckVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:52 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76263.TXT APRIL
30 

ing work that my colleague here, Mr. Tierney, did is crystal-clear 

in how problematic it was that we were funding the enemy. 

And I just can’t—I just fundamentally have trouble sending 

money directly to these governments without the accountability 

metrics in place. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, you articulated two dimensions of 

this problem. 

One is the 30 percent goal across the world. And that is actually 

an aspirational goal. And I will note that the 30 percent is aggregate at the agency level. So if in a particular country it doesn’t 

make sense to even attempt to get to 30 percent, we won’t. There 

are no disincentives, there are no punishments if mission directors 

don’t reach this goal. It is an aspirational goal. 

And it is actually in the service of good development. Development is one of the few industries, perhaps other than dentists, 

where we try to put ourselves out of business. And for us to do development—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Not my dentist, I will tell you that. We are trying 

to put his kids through college, is what we are trying to do in our 

family. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Well, we work to build the host national capacity. 

And to not do that would not be to execute our duties as development professionals. 

But we do recognize that, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, we 

have to do it responsibly. And there are examples in Afghanistan 

where we have done pre-award assessments and we have said, we 

will not allow you to do what you have described but will allow you 

to do something lesser. 

The Department of Education is an example. The Department of 

Education wanted us to fund textbooks and training for teachers. 

Because textbooks can be counted, we actually evaluated the Department of Education and said, you meet a rational standard for 

being able to on your own execute this budget and buy textbooks. 

We will give you money, you will buy textbooks, we will count the 

textbooks, and we will consider it done. 

We did not believe that the Department of Education reached a 

level of ability to take the same kind of money and execute teacher 

training, because it is harder to count the quality and the number 

of teachers trained. 

So we are still providing technical assistance to the Ministry of 

Education so that in months or years ahead we will be able then 

to provide that ministry with a higher level of control and a higher 

level of autonomy to provide teacher training. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I would appreciate it—and, again, I am not expecting you to respond right here at the moment to the details of 

this. But myself and Chairman Issa, on April 26th of this year, 

sent Administrator Shah a request asking for USAID’s internal 

country assessments—this is also known as the Public Financial 

Management Risk Assessment Framework, the PFMRAF documents—related to this new direct assistance program. But as of 

yet, USAID and the State Department have refused to provide this 

list in an unredacted form. 

I guess what I am asking you to respond to is, will you give us 

and provide the Congress that information? 

31 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I do know that that process is under 

way and your staff have been talking to State—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, the problem is we asked for it in April, and 

here we are in September and the process is still under way. I just 

don’t understand why this isn’t a photocopying exercise. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I am sorry, I am not the person who 

deals with what documents—I am not familiar with the details of 

that process. I do know that—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But you were told to say today that we are working on this? Is that the idea? 

Mr. SAMPLER. Congressman, I wasn’t told to say it. I just know 

that we are working on it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay. This is one of the core questions that we 

have, and it gives some of the oversight that—or some of the information that we need. Would you please talk to Administrator Shah 

and look at this April 26th letter? Because we still have not had 

the proper and full response to that letter. 

Mr. SAMPLER. I will take that back today. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

If the ranking member has no additional questions, I wanted to 

provide you each a very brief—because we have gone exceptionally 

long—opportunity to give a closing comment, and then we will conclude this hearing. 

We will start with you, Mr. Sampler, and then we will just kind 

of work down the list. 

Mr. SAMPLER. Thank you, and I will be very brief. 

I think at this committee it is an opportunity to reinforce the importance that oversight and accountability does play in what 

USAID does. 

A large part of our work that is seen is seen to be humanitarian 

in nature. It is providing education. It is providing opportunities 

for women. It is providing health and benefits to the people of Afghanistan. But a tremendous amount of our work is done beneath 

the surface, so to speak, which does involve the kinds of oversight 

and the kinds of accountability that I think your committee and 

certainly SIGAR, GAO, and our own inspectors general expect of 

us. 

So it was not gratuitous when I said in my opening remarks that 

we value and appreciate the value of oversight and accountability. 

And as we move in the direction of on-budget support, that will become even more important. So I welcome the opportunity to speak 

to you today. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

General Bash? 

General BASH. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that we take these 

issues very seriously. As the chairman’s representative, we do not 

want to let the taxpayer money go to waste. So we very much appreciate working with the Special Investigator. We will continue to 

do that, absolutely, as we go forward for their requests to be responsive. 

The mission, you know, in Afghanistan is the primary issue, and 

to build the institutional capacity is really the core thing. As we 

leave, can they do it on their own? And that is the art of the comVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:52 Oct 22, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76263.TXT APRIL
32 

mander’s judgment out there. You know, to use an analogy, how do 

you take the training wheels off to let them have a chance? 

And from a logistics perspective, we have only been doing that 

for about a year or so. As we move forward, those challenges will 

only increase. So it is a journey. But with regard to the issues we 

have discussed today, we are focused, and we will make sure that 

we make progress. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Estevez? 

Mr. ESTEVEZ. Likewise to what General Bash said. 

First, our folks out there are doing some very hard work, and we 

need to recognize that in trying to build this Afghan capacity. It 

is the key to our success in Afghanistan. 

We appreciate the dialogue with this committee on that matter 

today. We appreciate the work of the Special Inspector General. 

Because it is hard work and not everything is gotten right the first 

time, and we need help. We need help in helping them. So all help 

is appreciated in doing this. 

We are committed to doing that in a transparent way. I think 

that is important for our forces, and it is important to the American people to know how we are doing it. So we are going to continue pressing that forward. And, again, we appreciate the work. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Sopko? 

Mr. SOPKO. I would just like to conclude by saying that the importance of the records issue that we have spent so much time talking about is not so much whether the SIGAR got the records; the 

question is whether the records were used and have been used and 

will be used to hold the Afghan Government and this program accountable so we don’t have fraud, waste, and abuse. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Gentlemen, I appreciate your commitment and your work to this 

country, the patriotism and the dedication you bring, but also those 

men and women, particularly who are serving overseas, who are 

doing the hard, difficult work away from their families and doing 

what their country is asking them to do. So please, if nothing else, 

share that message with them. 

I appreciate you spending time before the committee. This is part 

of the process. It is how our Constitution is set up. And I do appreciate your participation here today. 

The committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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