During an interview with the “Fox News Rundown” podcast released on Wednesday, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) stated that he isn’t surprised that Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko testified that he cannot guarantee American taxpayer money isn’t going to the Taliban because the Taliban stealing U.S. aid probably happened when the U.S. was in the country and now there’s even less supervision.
Moulton said, [relevant remarks begin around 7:30] “I’m not surprised. I mean, this is what happens. Let’s put this in perspective, for 20 years in Afghanistan, there was a lot of graft. There was a lot of aid being siphoned off and sent to the wrong sources. I’m sure there were Taliban in Afghanistan even when we were there who were benefiting from U.S. aid. But, of course, it wasn’t the majority. We had troops on the ground. We had State Department officials on the ground…Americans on the ground in country to supervise this distribution of aid as much as possible. And that’s simply not possible anymore. But let’s also recognize that this is an unbelievably difficult problem that would have existed had Trump pulled us out, just as it exists now with Biden. We don’t want poor Afghan kids to starve, so we want to give them a chance at getting this aid, and that’s why we’re providing it.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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