Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
"Congress has appropriated $126 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction since Fiscal Year 2002," wrote Special Inspector General John F. Sopko in testimony delivered in May to the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management. By 2014, he added, inflation-adjusted appropriations for that purpose "had already exceeded the total of U.S. aid committed to the Marshall Plan for rebuilding much of Europe after World War II."
An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released this past week revealed that a Department of Defense task force to support economic development squandered hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars. The audit of the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations was first requested in 2016 by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and then-Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., after it was reported by SIGAR that the TFBSO had spent over $40 million to build "what is likely to be the world's most expensive gas station" in Afghanistan, as Special Inspector General John Sopko put it.
A leader of the GOP's non-interventionist wing says it's a "terrible idea" to send any more American troops to Afghanistan. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky issued a statement ahead of a prime-time address by President Donald Trump to unveil his updated Afghanistan policy.
A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators visiting Afghanistan on Tuesday called for a new strategy from the Trump administration to turn the tide against an increasingly strong Taliban insurgency and end the longest war in U.S. history. KABUL: A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators visiting Afghanistan on Tuesday called for a new strategy from the Trump administration to turn the tide against an increasingly strong Taliban insurgency and end the longest war in U.S. history.
A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators visiting Afghanistan on Tuesday called for a new strategy from the Trump administration to turn the tide against an increasingly strong Taliban insurgency and end the longest war in U.S. history. The delegation led by Senator John McCain was in Kabul on a regional trip that included two days in neighboring Pakistan.
Afghans who worked for the U.S. military and government are being told that they cannot apply for special visas to the United States, even though Afghanistan is not among the countries listed in President Donald Trump's new travel ban, according to advocates for Afghan refugees. As of Thursday, Afghans seeking to apply for what are known as special immigrant visas were being told by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the capital, that applications would no longer be accepted, according to U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Officials at the embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.