The Media Line: SIGAR Watchdog Final Report: 2 Decades, $145 Billion, and a Failed US Bid To Rebuild Afghanistan  

SIGAR Watchdog Final Report: 2 Decades, $145 Billion, and a Failed US Bid To Rebuild Afghanistan  

By Arshad Mehmood/The Media Line Staff  

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported on Wednesday that “close to $30 billion in US funds were wasted, stolen, or mismanaged,” during nearly 20 years of American involvement.  

In its final forensic report summarizing US reconstruction in Afghanistan, SIGAR said it had documented 1,327 instances of waste, fraud, and abuse from 2002 to 2021, amounting to between $26 billion and $29.2 billion—most of which it classified as wasted funds.  

SIGAR noted that the mission promised to bring stability and democracy to Afghanistan, yet ultimately delivered neither, with Washington’s $145 billion state-building project yielding only limited and fragile results.  

The SIGAR report also highlighted that multiple factors contributed to the failure of the US effort to transform a war-torn, underdeveloped country into a stable and prosperous democracy.  

For example, early and ongoing US decisions to ally with corrupt, human-rights-abusing power brokers bolstered the insurgency and undermined the mission, including US goals for bringing democracy and good governance to Afghanistan.  

Efforts to improve Afghanistan’s economic and social conditions also failed to have a lasting impact. And, despite nearly $90 billion in US appropriations for security-sector assistance, Afghan security forces ultimately collapsed quickly without a sustained US military presence.   

This report summarizes, for the first time in one report, the totality of SIGAR’s work overseeing the US reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.  

Created by Congress in 2008, SIGAR will officially wind down on January 31, 2026, as required under last year’s US defense policy legislation.