Transparency & Accountability in Americas Afghan WarPresented by Project for the Study of the 21st CenturyWashington DC21st July 2015Panel DiscussionJohn F. Sopko: Special Inspector General for Afghan ReconstructionAndy Wright: Founding Editor, Just SecurityChair:Ian Wallace: Senior Fellow, International Security Program at New America

Wallace: Okay, everyone, lets get cracking. First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Ian Wallace. By day, I am a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at New America. But today, Id like to welcome you here on behalf of the Project for the Study of the 21st Century. Were having a discussion today on Afghan Reconstruction, facts versus fancy. And this discussion, there are few better people to be joined by than John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and Andy Wright. John, who was appointed as the Special Inspector General in 2012, immediately prior to that he was a lawyer in private practice, but hes had 30 years of experience of oversight investigation in various different guises, from being an organized crime prosecutor to being a Hill staffer on both Houses, and applies that to the federal government. And, Andy himself has also done his time in DC as a Staff Director on the Oversight Government Reform Committee of the House, and as an Associate Council in President Obamas White House, and as an Assistant Council in Vice President Gores office during the Clinton administration. First question, just to get us started. And I will, just to explain, Im going to ask a few questions myself. Firstly, John, bringing Andy in for his expertise on oversight. And then once weve had a little bit of a conversation, Ill open it up to questions from people in the room and indeed those who would like to tweet in their questions, and well also have a chance to answer those questions. My first question is really just to ask John, what does SIGAR do? Whats your purpose, and how do you go about doing it?

Sopko: Thats a good question. Many that dont know, particularly many people from foreign countries to really have an experience with the Inspector General, particularly a Special Inspector General, doesnt mean Im that qualified. They call me Special, but its almost like the British Serious Crimes Office. Theres no regular crimes, its all serious organized crimes, Serious Crimes Office. Im an Inspector General, and as an Inspector General in the United States, we have both criminal investigative powers, we can make searches, arrests, issue warrants, et cetera. Plus, we have an audit function. Whats unique about us, there are a couple of things that are unique. First of all, were temporary. We go out of existence when the amount of reconstruction assistance falls below $250 million authorized appropriated that gets spent. Right now, theres $15 billion in that bucket, so we should be around for a while. The other thing that makes us special is that were not housed in any government agency. Most Inspectors General are located in a specific agency. Theres a DOD IG, a State Department IG, AID IG. When Congress created this in 2008, it was because of the immense and unique amount of money spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan. More money has been spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan than was spent on the Marshall Plan. Basically, the largest reconstruction project that our government has ever undertaken. Congress realized that the normal oversight mechanisms would have been overwhelmed, so they wanted to create a Special Inspector General looking at it. So, we are not housed in any agency, we have the unique authority to look at any U.S. government agency that spends money in Afghanistan on reconstruction. So, whether its the Department of Defense, State, Aid, Agriculture, Commerce, EPA, Energy, we can look at what goes to international organizations, which is the U.N. and World Bank. So it makes us a little unique.What also makes us unique is that we are the only agency in the U.S. government empowered to look at, actually required to look at, the whole-of-government approach. Because when we look at reconstruction money from whichever source, we are also looking at the whole of government approach to issues like reconstruction. The reason I think this is important is as we proceed with other operations, O co-operations, overseas contingency operations, its going to be a whole-of-government approach. All the U.S. government agencies will get involved. Likewise, were now to look at cooperation with other governments. So, we again, are the only little agencyand its only 200 of uswho are required in and empowered to look at our cooperation with our allies in Afghanistan. The reason I mention that is because of the lessons we need to learn from the 13 years, or 14 years, weve been in Afghanistan, are going to deal with how we worked with our allies, and how we worked with the whole-of-government approach. So thats us in a nutshell.

Wallace: That is a lot to keep you busy.

Sopko: Yes, it is.

Wallace: Youve just come back from Afghanistan, is that right?

Sopko: Yes.

Wallace: The obvious question is, how is it going? And I mean that, but in terms of the campaign itself, but also in terms of the oversight. I imagine as things draw down, it gets tougher for you. How confident are you in continuing to hold peoples toes to the fire?

Sopko: Its hard to answer that question, and I almost feel like Dickens, the Tale of Two Cities: its the best of times, and its the worst of times. The worst of times, lets start with that, is that the fighting season, were halfway into the fighting season. And its been bloody, and the Afghan National Security Forces have been bloodied. And the insurgency has taken the fight not only to Kabul and other major cities, but its taken the fight all around the country. The bad thing is that we still have a problem of narcotics, still have a problem of corruption. We also have a problem of waning interest by the allies, including the United States, in continuing to support Afghanistan. And, the one thing I can say for sure, and I can guarantee you this, is if we cut off aid to Afghanistan, Afghanistan will fall. Simply because, you look at the money, Afghanistan raises $2 billion a year. It costs $8 to 10 billion to keep that government afloat. That means paying for the teachers, paying for the roads, paying for the clinics, and paying for the military. So, thats the bad side, thats what worries me. The security situation has deteriorated. Just three years ago, I could travel around the country. Now, I cant even drive a mile and a half from the embassy to the airport. I have to be flown back and forth. And its not just me, not just me they want to kill. Its basically anybody under the Chief of Mission.The best of times, and the good part of it, is we have the new National Unity Government. And, for the first time in 30 years, I am cautiously optimistic. As a matter of fact, I think I was quoted recently saying, I am the most optimistic Ive been in three years. Because we have a government who really cares to do something about it. And they want to fight corruption, they want to change the procurement system, and make certain it isnt corrupt anymore. They want to do a lot of things. The problem is, theyre a Unity Government, a very tenuous hold on the situation there. They still dont have a Minister of Defense, they still dont have an Attorney General, which is really difficult when youre in the middle of the fighting season and you dont have a Minister of Defense, and you want to fight corruption, you dont have an Attorney General and all the other interesting things you need. Im very pleased that Ive had the opportunity to meet the President and CEO multiple times. My last trip I met both of them, I actually sat in a four-hour long meeting, CEO and the President, co-Chair, where they review nature contracts, which is fantastic that theyre doing that, although it slows the process down, obviously. Like President Obama and Joe Biden would have to sit down and review every U.S. government contract, you could imagine, it does slow the process down and that causes some concern. But, theyre spending four hours every week going over major contracts because they are concerned about the procurement process. And that, on the one hand makes me real optimistic. And Ill cite one more exampleI dont want to filibuster the answerbut, one thing Id like to cite is an example of the change. In January, my staff, my investigators in Kabul, or in Afghanistanbecause the number of cities, we have 40-some people in the countryuncovered a conspiracy to basically fix the price on a billion-dollar fuel contract that the Afghanistan government was going to lend. We actually had information about where the contractors met in Dubai, and the hotel room where they connived to fix price, to elevate the price of the contract by over 200 million USD. We uncovered that information, and in the past, we would have nowhere to take it. Now, we would take it to the prior regime, and they werent interested in doing anything about it. In this case, we took that information which we had developed, took it to General Campbell and his team in Resolute Support, which is the high staff equivalent. They were outraged, they wanted to do something, they took it to the Palace with my investigators. Ghani and Abdullah wanted to do something about it. They stopped the contract, they fired the generals, and they opened an investigation. Now, that is significant. We have never been able to get that type of response before. But, here we have an administration that wants to fix this, and actually did, they had the investigation, and my people briefed them. And on top of that, they started sharing information of other suspicious contracts that they had, and we had, and wed been working with the Unity Government, with the Palace on a number of issues. To me, thats extremely positive, and we hope it continues. So, thats why Im sort of, the worst of times, the best of times, but overall, I am cautiously optimistic.

Wallace: Im going to dig a little bit more into how SIGAR does its business, and Im going to bring that up in a moment. Just before that, in your latest quarterly report, you wrote a letter where you make that example. You also included in there your concerns, one of which being the quality and accountability of the Afghan National Security Forces. Thats going to be key to the success of the Afghan government. How confident are you that the $62 billion that theyre investing into this is going to give Afghanistan the force that it needs?

Sopko: Well, Im an Inspector General by nature, we trust but verify. The Afghan army and the police are holding their own. Its very bloody. But, we dont know how many Afghan police and military there are. We dont have theby we, I mean the U.S. governmentthats what our reports talking about, we were concerned about ghost police, ghost soldiers, because there is no database, we have no knowledge. And to be quite honest with you, I was warned about this by President Ghani before he became president. He was concerned about it, that we dont really know whats going on. We also know they have a problem with logistics, and a problem with the tailend, the backend of war-fighting. They can fight, the question is where to get the bullets, the boots, the other weapons, and all of that can get there. I can only tell you, time will tell. Well see what happens. Were halfway through the fighting season, its not over. Its not going to be over until October or November, although some people say the fighting will no longer end like it used to because last, when I was there I think in January, speaking with the Afghan General who ran a hostel down in Kandahar where they have soldiers, and he actually told me at that time that he had more causalities in the winter than he did in the summer. So, there used to be a direct, you could tell the difference when the fighting season ended, everybody went back over the mountain passes. Apparently now, and again Im not an expert on war-fighting, but Ive been told by a number of people who are, that theyre staying, theyre not going back, so the fighting continues, and thats extremely worrisome to the Afghans, as well as the U.S., and the coalition.

Wallace: We will come back to that. We have with us Andy here, a student of oversight. SIGARs been running since 2008, there was in fact an IG, a Special IG, in Iraq and a tradition of the Inspector General before that. How important is the work that SIGAR does, and how well supported do you think is it within the wider U.S. community?

Wright: Well, you know, having been there when we were working in Congress at the time, we were trying to pass SIGAR authorities. I think its hugely important, especially when war-fighting has become, you know the watchwords of the government approach using all the implements of national power, and the idea that you can have sort of a jurisdictionally, geographically-based visibility into all the different pieces that are important together, or not well together, as the case may be, is essential to future success. So I think the lessons we learned from that, and I worked for an oversight committee that also had inter-agency jurisdiction, and so I, you know, sort of watched this problem with the stove-piping habit in the executive branch, and the stove-piping habit in the congressional committee structure, et cetera. And I think SIGAR really helps give us a better window into whats happening. I think, you know, youre always going to have sort of jurisdictional tug-of-war between agency IGEs and Special Inspector Generals that maybe have some concurrent authorities over certain types of things. But I think, overall, the work that SIGAR did, really established this model in some ways well, and I think it can improve upon SIGAR, and especially since John took over, its been under incredibly solid leadership. So I think its established itself as a valuable tool going forward, if that makes sense.

Wallace: How does your relationships work with other IGs, or departments that are involved?

Sopko: Well, we have coordinating mechanisms, which have worked and continued to work up until now, where we de-conflict on audits, so we dont audit the same things, sort of divide the world up. And we dont, we also de-conflict on investigations. We coordinate that with all the other investigative bodies, including the FBI, when we have an interest in there. So, it works quite well. What is a bit confusing now, is because, as many of you may have read, there was a statute passed where they had lead IGs but only lead IGs for State, AID and DOD on contingency operations. And to the surprise of everybody, DOD decided to set up this lead IG in Afghanistan, which I think Senator McCaskill, who wrote the bill, said that wasnt the intent. And thats caused a bit of confusion because the lead IG from State, AID, DOD, you know, it doesnt really affect us too much, but its caused a little bit of confusion. And again, this isnt, its just the reality of the situation .With the other contingencies, back in Iraq and in Syria, Ebola even is a contingency, you have other IG needs and demands. So, whats turning out is, were it basically in Afghanistan, to a great extent. And this isnt meant as a criticism, its just that the other IGs have other duties, which is understandable, I think thats why they created SIGAR because, you know, well do Afghanistan, and we have people there to do the things that will continue. And a key element of that is the ability to have people in-country who have that expertise, particularly if they can move around and get information. We get a lot of leads by being in-country. And, ironically, I think were better known by the Afghans, they know what SIGAR is

Sopko: We get a lot of stuff from the Afghans who, obviously, have an interest in protecting their money, which is partially provided by us. So, its good to have that presence there. Im not absolutely certain it works when you have people coming in on TDY. Who come in for five days and maybe come in for thirty or forty days. You really need people who are there. Were one of the few agencies where our people serve at least two years in country. Some are three years.

Wallace: How many people do you have in country?

Sopko: We have about forty in country and about two hundred in total. We have a lot of people coming back TDY. It really is key. The Afghans know that and appreciate it. When they see a colonel come in and sixty days later another colonel comes in, or they see an AID officer and ninety days later somebody else comes in, they know theyre getting the run-around. They really want somebody who is going to be there for a while. By the time a guy knows where the DFAC is, thats where you eat, and the latrine, an in the embassy where the duck-and-cover is, as soon as he learns those three things, hes gone.

Wright: Isnt that also a challenge for the subjects of your oversight? The lack of continuity on projects and the formal deployments of soldiers?

Sopko: Absolutely. Youre right on. People who want to steal know that. Weve actually talked to people who are over in Afghanistan and the crooked contractor or sub-contractor knows that the contracting officer or contracting officers rep in in for sixty or ninety days so hell wait until that guy leaves and a new guy comes who has no idea what he signs off. They can play the game. Thats why you need continuity. You need somebody over there who knows, well we already built a bridge over that town. Why am I building a second one? Which never existed. Or building a clinic. We already built one. I was here. But, if youre only there every sixty days, or ninety days, or six months or whatever, you dont really appreciate Afghanistan, I think, to work there. I think that applies to any contingency.

Wallace: That is a nice segue into just taking a step back and looking at the campaign with the benefits of this institutional experience that the organization brings with it. What would you say have been the reconstruction successes and the flip of that is where do you think mistakes were made?

Sopko: I cant say a particular program was a success or not a success. Obviously, there has been a lot of success. There are more kids going to school. Healthcare is improved. Fewer women are dying in childbirth. The big question is: Could we have done more with less? Thats the issue we face. I think if you want to look at programs in general, they are more likely to succeed if they meet our strategic goals, the Afghans know about the program and want the program, there is buy-in from the community, you build the program that in coordinated, not only inside the U.S. government, but also with our allies. Make certain you arent building a bridge that the Italians are building or the Japanese are building, or if youre not going to build a bridge, dont let the Italians just come in, you know. Make certain the program is designed to take into consideration sustainability. Why build something if the Afghans cant sustain it? We have instances of that all the time. I just met with the Minister of Health. We were talking about one clinic that the fuel consumption in the new clinic is equal to his entire provincial healthcare budget. He basically said, What am I going to do with it? Another example talking about coordination is the Health Minister was talking about the NGOs operating in Afghanistan and said, I dont even know what some are doing in the provinces. So there is a little lack of coordination. Hes an honest guy. Hes trying to do his best. How is he going to maintain and sustain things if he doesnt even know where they are and what they are? Because those NGOs are leaving and theyre going to turn over the facility to the Afghan Minister and he has no budget to sustain and maintain that. The other thing you have to consider is corruption. You have to build program that realize were not in Norway. Were in Afghanistan: a country that has been racked with thirty years where we opened up the spigots and poured millions of dollars and totally distorted the economy. So design programs that take that into consideration. I remember Ghani telling me, Everybody thinks this is cultural corruption. When I was in New York, I remember a Brinks armored truck collided, went over, the doors opened and money fell out, fell from the sky. A whole bunch of New Yorkers went and picked it up. Does that mean New Yorkers are corrupt? When money falls from the sky, you grab it. As a matter of fact, I think I saw in the New York Times that there was another incident where a truck fell over and now you have forty eight hours to return the money or theyre going to indict you. Success is more likely to happen if we dont pour too much money in that we totally destroy and distort the system.

Wright: Id like to follow up on that. We wrote the Warlord, Inc. report that was about protection payments for the fuel trucks and other trucks going through Afghanistan to the military outposts. It was a four billion dollar contract. One of the things we found was this distortion effect. If youre the commander of a Marine outpost, and the food is showing up on time fairly consistently, they didnt want to hear that $3,000 got paid along the way to get that truck to the forward operating position. When you think about a place that has had forty years of war-torn economic stagnation and subsistence sales and things, thats a huge amount of money that washing along the system. One of the things we learned was that, in counterinsurgency, the supply lines are the front lines. In a system that was working fairly well with delivering services, you still had a massive distortion of the economic incentives just along the road that you were sending the trucks. This goes toward the scale point that John is making.

Wallace: This goes to the core of the long-term implications of your work. Its one thing to observe the challenges. Its another to investigate the corruption as its happening. The real challenge is to try to institutionalize these lessons so that the next time this happens, and it surely will in one form or another, we're not wasting resources and money and even lives that come from that. How do those lesson get institutionalized? Thats a lesson for both of you. How confident are you that the theory is happening in practice?

Sopko: Thats the $60,000 question. In Afghanistan, the 140,000,000 question. The military does lessons learned all the time. Theyre used to that. Theyve been doing that since the first inspector general probably come over from Germany, von Steuben and convinced George Washington that he needed an inspectors general. The military has a history of culture after every event, and its the same in England and any other military body, you always do an after-action report which explains what happens and sometimes makes recommendations about how not to get the platoon killed. Do this next time. Dont go straight up the middle. Go around. The military does those. Civilian agencies dont, normally. If they do, its a rarity. I think we talked to USAID to see if they were doing lessons learned and they didnt really know what they were and if they did, they werent sharing them. State Department, however, has a new program, and I must say its fantastic. They are doing a real honest-to-God lessons learned program, not just in Afghanistan, but on the entire world. Its tied into, and this is the key, youre educational program, youre training, and its got to become doctrine. The military is used to doing that and they have a whole process. Its not a pretty process, but they take the lessons observed and then they coordinate and try to get buy-in and put it into doctrine. Training and Doctrine Command out in Fort Monroe is very good about that. NATO does that. Working with NATO, theyre trying to build integrity and work it in. Its a very long involved process. State Departments just starting that and actually the woman who is running that is used to be in Afghanistan for about four years and did a number of tours there, Karen Decker. Ive used to get the chance to talk to her and I encourage everybody to support that type of approach. Theyre trying to take the lessons observed, put it in to training, and then it becomes lessons learned. What General Allen told me, we had breakfast about a year ago, John, he says, thats great. The military will do it. We may even do something purple, among all the military branches. No one is doing it doing it between State, AID, and DoD. No one is looking at State, AID, or DoD in the international community. He said, Youre the only agency with the statute to do that. Thats one reason why were doing this, because General Allen encouraged it. If were doing a good job, and I dont know if were going to do a good job. Ive hired a good team, some smart people. Some of you may know them: some come from AID, come from State, some from DoD. Were putting them together and are going to come out with a series of discreet reports: Lessons Learned from Afghanistan. Its going to deal with corruption. Were going to deal with procurement. Were going to deal with narcotics. Were going to deal with planning and strategy. Coordination and cooperation. What are the lessons we have learned from that thirteen year experience. I hope it works. I think thats the biggest legacy, the best legacy, of my little agency. If we can come up with these reports and people will actually adopt them and accept them. I dont know if its going to happen. We can only try.

Wallace: Are we doomed to repeat the failures of the past thirteen years or do you think some of the lessons could have become embedded in a way that makes a difference.

Wright: I think we certainly learned from our mistakes. With some of them, the problem are kind of intractable. Sustainability problems are hard to overcome. For example, take the Afghan National Security Forces. That seems like a really good policy option for a country that is trying to reduce its military footprint, but when you think about police, think about what they do. They arrest people. You have to have all the other rule-of-law sustainability things: detention facilities, detention and correctional officers. You have to have some sort of deposition system for them, a court system. Some of the sustainability problems are going to be intractable whenever we get into a nation-building exercise. There are other ones we can do. I think we can do all sorts of accountability things: trying to do early census activity, GPS tracking stuff for project sites, and biometric stuff. As that gets more cost effective, getting a census of the population early so we have some sort of identification and get a handle on the numbers. Subcontractor visibility for the U.S. government, I think, is a critical thing. You cant have this old model where you hire a prime contractor and they deal with the subcontractors so we dont have to mess with them. In an environment like this, I think its very important for us to learn how to have better visibility of who is involved with these entities and subcontracted entities. Who are the personnel? Is it foreign governments who are infiltrating that or people that may not share our strategic interests or tactical interests? There is definitely some stuff that we could learn and take away and take to the bank coming out of this.

Sopko: Can I just add one thing to lesson learned and lesson observed? Many of the problems were identifying are not new. I think you indicated that. Actually, theyre real old. I used to work for former Senator Sam Nunn for fifteen years and I remember talking to him and asked, Senator, what do I have here? It seems like I have a tiger by the tail. He said, Lets bring the kitchen cabinet back together again and so John Hamre from CSIS, Arnold Punaro, all those guys together. We chatted and he brought in a couple of people from the Pentagon and a couple of former colleagues on the Hill, including a couple of comptroller generals. Arnold reminded me. He said, Everything youve identified has already been on high-risk lists for years. This is a list of dangerous, risky government activities that the GAO started in 1991. DoD procurement has been on that list and there are a bunch of other things. What were identifying in Afghanistan are problems the GAO, the Hill, other IGs have identified for twenty or thirty years. The problems of rotation of troops has been a problem in the U.S. government since the Korean War. Some would say even going to WWII. The problems of not having a dedicated procurement corps, I recall, going back to the days of Ronald Raegan. I thought we fixed that. Nunn, Goldwater-Nichols, all those senators said that we needed to have a dedicated national procurement corps in the military. We actually created one. Where you could go in and advance through your career in procurement. You became an expert in procurement. Over the years, they disappeared. Thats what you got. The contracting officers reps were created at that time, but now, some buck private or some sergeant whose main job is to kill people and then is told, Oh by the way, youre the contracting officers expert on electricity or plumbing, or hydroelectric. He doesnt know what hes doing, but he has to sign these forms. A contractor will come up and say, Here, just sign right here. And dont worry, the last guy was a crook. Dont listen to him. Thats the problem. Those problems have been identified for years. People think Im negative. Im always the supreme optimist. I hope we can do it. But, realize what were up against. I will say this to all of you. Im making a pitch here. Where are the only agency who doesnt have to get our recommendation cleared by the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State or AID, or OMB. There are many many many good ideas, good suggestions that have come out of all those government agencies who have been quashed by the internal politics of each agency. I got a really good briefing by AID people who came up a way to fix the whole HR problem, but it never got out of the building. Ive talked to people at State who have come up with a great idea to do this. Never got cleared by the inter-agency process. I offer to you, any of you, who are interested, or have friends who are contractors or subcontractors, or worked in the military, who have good ideas: were open for business. Send them our way. Im making my little pitch here. We are the only little agency, the little agency that could with 200 people, who can take those ideas, trust but verify, Im a Reaganite to some extent, and see if we can get by them. Were looking for good ideas. Just like were looking for a few good analysts to help us in this thing. Thats the unique thing about SIGAR. No one else has this. Actually the Europeans are very interested in what we can produce, because they've got the same problem of stone piping. It's just the way the system works and this is what makes it difficult.

Wright: One just quick follow up. The role of IGs is this independence of IGs and how much independence is there. You know, there's both this sort of concern about the criticism of your policies and that can create, you can react to that two ways as a commander or a leader. You can either sort of accept it, and try to improve your program and work constructively, or you can say we don't want to hear that story because it's getting in the way of what we want to do. The other thing though, is there is a little bit of a strange relationship, having worked in the White House counsel's office, with the IGs and in between agencies because there is a concern at OLC. Obviously, people at the department of Justice That on one hand there is a recognition of independence for IGs, but there is a concern that there is a sort of Congress is trying to use IGs as a back door to get information that the executive branch might consider a certain privilege over, a way to open investigative files and agree with the IG. But, maybe other underlying information that you know they find as a deliberate executive branch in congress wanted and they think that if they squeeze IG hard enough that information will come out. So independence I think is incredibly important and you don't want to see good ideas getting squashed and it's good that cigar has that, but I just want to point out sometime the reason are a little bit resistant to giving information to IGs is because they are concerned about the position IGs are when they have the hot potato in their hand and that's a very tough way to be wedged in between two political branches and IG and maintain that sort of workmen like professional

Wallace: 21st century example is where it is making it easily spread. The fact that you are fighting against and have access to try.

Sopko: Well yeah, but what we're talking about in procurement. I doubt, I remember somebody telling me, criticizing me for some of the reports and he said well I don't think some terrorist is sitting in some cave reading the latest GAO or cigar report to try to determine how to attack the procurement system. You know, so I'm not worried about that. If its classified we don't release it for sure. If it's sensitive information that could harm anybody we don't release it. If it's information that otherwise violates law, like personal privacy information we don't release it. But, if its not one of those three we believe in, I believe in transparency to the American people have a right to know how their money is being spent and Congress has a right to know. So you print those reports, you publish them and if they are worth publishing, they are worth publicizing. And my massive public relations team, of two people, will get the message. I had an open mic presentation at the embassy last time I was there. It was very nice about 60-70 people in the audience and I remember somebody saying well why do you have to publish things and I said well why not. What's wrong with telling the truth? You have to speak the truth. That's what IGs do. I said remember many times when we send the letter we're basically identifying a problem that we're not going to have time to look at, but its a shot across the bow and you're more likely to have a secretary, an undersecretary, or a member of congress read the front page in the Washington Post or in the New York Times and say, Hey, what's going on here? I think a classic example is promote. It goes that you follow Afghanistan to promote program. Its a very worthy cause to helping women in Afghanistan who need all the help we can give them. Our initial briefings from AID is we had no idea they had to work hard. I went through a number of briefings and my staff did. Look, I may not be the brightest guy in the world, but as you know I went to an Ivy League school, I was a lawyer, you know, I didnt come out from under a rock. You know, speak to me in English and I usually understand what you're talking about. I walked away from reading and I had no idea what the heck was happening. Great idea, again we're concerned about the ability to implement. This is a very big program. $250 million US, potential 200 million from our allies. I went to talk to our allies and I said you guys know you don't need 200 million. I went to the ambassadors and they said, What? No one ever approached us. So, we had some concerns and we talked to some people in aid who had concerns and we talked to some people in state who had some concerns and we talked to a lot of Afghans who had concerns. We brought those concerns together trust and verified and sent the letter to the aid administrator and said look we have some concerns. Now I've been told since we sent that letter, which is public, the program is improving. Now we may not be able to revisit that for a while. I got only a few people and not much time and a lot of things to look at, but we think we assisted aid by raising senior political officials in the administration concerns that, probably were buried because they were off message in the house and state and that's part of my job is to take valid concerns and elevate it. How many people have bosses who never want to hear a bad thing? Or how many people have bosses who if you bring something bad back to him you're going to get fired? Now Im the guy who brings the bad news to your boss and usually its congress or the New York Times that gets someone to fix it. Thats the role of the IG.

Wallace: One quick and then Im going to open it up.

Wright: One thing I want to comment on is I was reading, prepping some articles about things and there was some quotes that criticized him for being blunt. I thought his tone was right on. You know, I love that the government accountability office does. But, I sat through countless meetings with them. You could predict what the headlines is going to be, you know, progress made on all these issues and you know there is a very sort of antiseptic wedge that is used by GA reports and members of congress in that situation was elevated, being the political elite. Now its necessary to get people's attention in the executive branch. But, I feel like when you're in IG it's important to not spill over into the policy decision space of the elected folks but, to be able to breathe life into these stories. To be able to call something big big. Not just have sort of mind-numbing numbers but say, you know, this is material, this is big. Use some language that is relatable to people. So, I think that's a really good, a good tone to come out with.

Wallace: we might come back to whether cigars is the future of oversight. There's a lot of expertise in this room and I want to give people a chance to ask some questions. Theres also some people online if you want to tweet in we can put those up as well. I'll take 2 questions and then we'll get to them. Here and then here.

Question 1: Don Brooks, formerly with the national stability operations association representing a lot of the contractors that you write about. From the contractors perspective the big, we look at the waste fraud and abuse by far are the biggest issues we're going to waste them and they see it all the time, you mentioned all this stuff. Duplication services, building facilities, I know they are not able to maintain according to US standards. Stuff that there's no way for them to be able to maintain or argue about. The problem from a contractors perspective is you never criticize your client. The last thing you ever do is make a bad report saying this is pointless, or worthless, or whatever because you'll never get another contract and it's only game some way that make sure that your company loses the game. Is there any way to get around that?

Sopko: Actually, just talk to us. I mean we've done that. I did meet with a contracting organization, I remember meeting with and saying go call your members at your trade association, what are the issues. We gave in and it wasn't you know criminal. But, they were dead against it. Many of our best audits have come from contractors who have talked to my people, met my people, or I meet them here and they say, Oh man, this is ridiculous! You should see what we had to do. You should see what we had to do in this book. I mean it was a contractor who came to me and said you're building roads to U.S. specs or European specs, but those assume you have weight restrictions that are enforced. You know in Afghanistan you will never see a truck that's underway. So what do you think happens and then there was another contractor who chimed in and said well what do you think the New jersey turnpike would look like after six months if there were no weight restrictions and you start blowing up roads and you also had no maintenance way. What do you think is going to happen? I asked him a question. Why don't roads fall apart? And the guy said the contractors are doing what they are told. But, they don't take into consideration where their doing.

Wallace: I mean is there an institutional answer to that question though? If the answer is simply talk to the IG, that strikes me as building a failure in the long term.

Sopko: No it isn't. I think that's actually a way to try not to. I talked to the Afghans, we'll carry the big stick for you. You speak softly. It's the old Teddy Roosevelt thing. And that's why Ghani and Abdula, they're using that. Our audits, our reports to beat up their own ministers. They dont have to. They'll just say the cigar found this, what are you going to do? You know he's going to go to the hill. You have to do something. You know, I'm happy to be used for that and I have contractors. That is part of our job as inspector generals, but we have to listen to you. We have to go out and talk to you. I don't want to toot my own horn, but my staff goes out listens to contractors. I joke about contractors. Everyone blames the problem on the contractors. 90% of the time the contractors are just carrying out a dumb contract. It's not their job to say this makes no sense. Okay, we are kind of putting the onus on them. You know I gave a speech once and I said contracting out is always criticized, but is you look at that famous picture, I don't know who its by, of George Washington crossing the Delaware, the guys rowing Washington were probably contractors. So it goes back to the earliest part of our republic. So I agree with you, 100 percent and if your constituents have issues they want to talk through, we can get anonymity, unless they've murdered somebody. We may not turn a blind eye to that. But, that's how we get a hold on a lot of the information. Question 2: I'm a visiting scholar from John Hopkins Political Science, as someone who co-ordinated donors and have been in Afghanistan for several years, would you say you have someone that can tape things and listen is a good step forward because I remember at the beginning of the previous government also there were some steps which was similar, but they were never institutionalized into the systems. So, the systems were just falling short. What's your view about that? How do institutionalize in the presence of people who do not have time to that? The second thing is that there is a new government strategy about pushing people to work in the budgets. So the USAID and the UN aren't the only donors, so that is the oversight arrangement that given the capacity of governments saying that there is a great range even in Afghanistan now we can make a capacity for it. So that's something, I don't know if its in your recorder how you would like to touch base in that.The third thing is one of the challenges that Afghanistan has had is the co-ordination within itself. You talked about a holistic approach. The government has its own approach for the procurement law which its government has its own laws. There's lack of synergy and challenges that adds to the challenge of the government, the government has a limited capacity. How does that update your work of over sighting in Afghanistan?

Sopko: I got 4 questions here, so let me talk about institutionalizing reforms. Obviously, the new Unity Government or National Unity Government needs to institutionalize these reforms. It's going to take help, we will help. We're working closely with CSTCA, which is the combined security transition command - Afghanistan. General Semonite and his team are trying to institutionalize some of these reports. I think its a difficult task, I am not certain they are going to be able to do it in time. You know, we are trying to do things in eighteen months. That's before the troops go down, we haven't done it in fifteen years and its tragic in a way, we now have a government that's very interested and very eager to do these things and we have a time constraint. So, I have no guarantee. We just hope that we can institutionalize reforms.

On budget assistance, yes President Ghani is very insistent on budget assistance. The whole debate when we were talking about UNDP and their run in with WAFPA, we're the ones who figured out that WAFPA wasn't doing a good oversight job, but as bad as the UN was, it was better than the ministry of interior, so we made it clear in the testimony that we thought it was very risky to kick WAFPA out. Reform WAFPA and give time for capacity building inside the ministry of interior. The ministry of interior has a lot of problems and we have very great concerns whether they can handle that money without capacity building. We're glad to see that I think an agreement is coming, and I think that's going to be in every eighteen months. You went out, but I think they just signed an agreement, if I'm not mistaken, recently. It's going to be an eighteen month project, process to remove the UN and have ministry of interior take over and I think there is a number of conditions that the Afghan Ministry has to meet and we're glad to see that. We're strong believers in conditionality and actually I should tell you our next quarterly report I gave my two colleagues here copies of last quarterly report. At the end of this month we have the new one coming out and there's usually a theme to it. The theme is conditionality. I think you had talked about capacity building. I talked about that, we need to develop the capacity of the Afghans.

Donor co-ordination is a big issue. It's not the U.S. that lacks co-ordination, but the donors don't always co-ordinate very well and that really overwhelms the Afghans, when every donor has a different kind of conditionality, a different kind of requirement and all of that. You know the poor Afghans are drowning in requirements. So you should try and harmonize all the votes, but I'm not certain it's going to happen anytime in the near future.

Wallace: That's a bigger question. So is there something that could come back?

Sopko: I haven't looked at outside. My jurisdiction is Afghanistan. Maybe my colleague can speak about that. But, I've heard people tell me it's a problem in other contingency operations.

Wallace: have any of the lessons you have sorted in Afghanistan have led to changes in their approach to co-ordination?

Sopko: I don't know, I can't speak to that. I think that some of the things that we have harped on and read about and written about in our report have resulted in affirmative changes for the better. I think this whole issue of conditionality, originally I think everyone kind of concluded we can't do it, but CSTCA really turned around and its a better track. If you read our current report, we interview General Semonite in the end and he talks about how very few conditions, DOD had for years and years and years, well till I came on board and started beating that drum all of a sudden they got tons of conditions now and the new Unity Government, specially President Ghani says I believe in conditionality and he will accept reasonable conditions. He sounds like, you know knock on wood, that he's going to make certain areas his ministry's area. We have seen some improvement on donor co-ordination and that I'm not certain I can speak about.

Wallace: More questions, I encourage people to ask quick questions so that we can go around. So we will go around in a circle, start at the far end please.

Audience Question: Thank you, Mr. Inspector General, my name is Im an Afghan. So the Afghan quote that we have a shaky report in this will be really important for the accountability and of course the facility Afghan government, however on the other hand, do you not think focusing on this negative narrative will really put at risk the overall mission and will also cause problems for the Afghans? Like now you see significant number of Afghans are leaving because of, definitely because of growing insecurity, but also because of this report that is clearly concerned. You mentioned some of the positive stories, I mean its not really the time to focus on some of these practices and share them with the Afghans, instead of really making media headlines and kind of publicizing this negative finding.

Sopko: Do you really think people are leaving Afghanistan because of one of my audit reports?

Audience: Its hard really to answer, I mean its definitely people are getting concerned

Sopko: Every Afghan Ive talked to knows about the corruption. Every Afghan Ive talked to knows about the bridges that fall down, the schools that are abandoned, the money thats been wasted. The Afghans know about these problems. They know real well. The only people that dont know about these problems are Congress. I work for the US people, they have a right to know. I really dont believe, this goes back to the thing, I dont think Osama bin Laden was hiding in a cave reading GAO reports and SIGAR reports. The Afghans need to know more about how their government works and I apologize if Im being blunt on this, but, if you look at my statute, there is nothing in this statute that says I report on whats good and happy. My brief, and you as a British citizen will know, every lawyer gets a brief, talks about I have to inform the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and the Congress about problems and deficiencies. This is my authorizing statute, I also have the 78 Act. I dare any one of you to read it and see where Im supposed to report successes. I dont report successes. The USAID has 60-some people in their PR shop, they should be recording successes, State Department has the same number, the Pentagon could probably balance their budget by firing all their PR people. They should be talking about the positives, its not my job. Clearly, there have been successes there. But you are saying that the SIGAR should be recording successes? You know why I control, I would say control, why I have so many people read out reports and publish them? And I think many of you are reporters here. Were one of the few agencies who dont gloss over things, who dont spin things, we tell it like we see it. And I think theres a role for somebody there, and my little agency has that role its not to do happy talk. Happy talk is not going to win the war in Afghanistan. Balloons and kites are not going to win the war in Afghanistan. Happy talk, if anything, is going to lose Afghanistan. Reality is what the Afghan people want and demand. And I think the new Unity Government is providing that reality and Im glad about that. Im sorry but I have to disagree with you. Its not my job to do positive press in Afghanistan. Now, where we find successes we actually issued some audits this week and we found successes - where we find them we will report them, when we do an audit we dont deep six the audit or inspection, well report it, but thats not my job. And in our country, I gotta follow the law. Im a strong supporter of the mission, but Ive gotta follow what my brief was from the President of the United States.

Wallace: (to audience) Im going to cut you off, by all means come and talk to John after we finish but I want to give everyone a chance to ask a question, and in order to do that Im going to group the questions, so Im going to take three questions, so short quick questions.

Question 1: Im from Afghanistan, thank you for your support, if you look at 2008 to now we see the changes because of the report, but my question is about you talked about the political world that you see in the government on the Unity Government side, and just a few days or weeks back, there was a report about the ghost schools. We havent seen any action against that now from the government side, so the question will be in the trust that we have or the Unity Government, if they have the political will to implement or actually prosecute those who are involved in those corruptions? And also another question, will you give the number of your staff in Afghanistan?

Question 2: Im James Bruton thank you very much for your talk. In post conflict settings, civilization settings for a lot of diplomatic corps even the word corruption is very sensitive and they want to back off of it for the sake of stability. At a previous talk I sawfrom a senior State Department official, he was suggesting that the DOJ is actually an effective tool to attack corruption because it is technical. It sounds like what youre saying going through SIGAR to get the facts and then report that to say well were a technical organization we have a mandate I a way to broach that. Do you have any recommendations that that might be a way to broach a corruption and instability situation, or is there advice you would have, based on your experience, that we should be more tactical in training for these solutions?

Question 3: Good evening everyone, Im from Voice of America so youve been working in Afghanistan ever since 2008, but a lot of people in Afghanistan only came to know about SIGAR after you released your latest audit report that said around 700 million dollars had been embezzled on ghost schools in the ministry of education. A lot of people are saying operating simultaneously with the various projects, maybe we have had less money being embezzled, maybe 200 million. And the second question is, what can happen now? Ok we found around 700 million dollars being embezzled, now what? There is American money being sent to Afghanistan for Afghans. Now will the US in cooperation with the Afghan government take any measures to recover that money? Because the people that are accused of corruption, they are still at large. And one more thing, right now in the media, the blame is put on the Afghans all the time. Do you think there are traces of foreigners and international people being involved in corruption as well?

Sopko: Let me try to answer all of these. First of all, yes, of course there is foreign involvement in corruption. Its obvious, if you read our reports, anybodys reports youll see it. The question about the Afghan schools, I really highly recommend you read, not the press releases, but you read what we did. Your Minister of Education allegedly, and this was reported by the Afghan press, appeared before your parliament and said there were ghost schools and ghost students and ghost teachers. Now all we did in SIGAR was send a letter to USAID and asked what do you know about this? We did not say there were 700 million dollars stolen, nor did you Minster for Education say that, or 200 million. He just reported that the data he got from his predecessor was false about the schools and students and all that. The 700 million comes in because in the letter we remind USAID that you have spent 700 million, and the amount of money is based upon the amount of schools and students. So therefore we are concerned, can you tell us whats going on? So your question about why did we say 700 million? We didnt, we just decided that how much was appropriated; we had no idea what was stolen or not stolen. As to what have the Afghans done about it? Well, we sent the letter only three weeks ago, my understanding is theyve opened up a parliamentary investigation. Ive spoken to your Minster for Education, who says theyve opened up an investigation. They are actually trying to find out how many schools there are, how many schools theyre supposed to have and where the schools are located. So as far as I know they have started that inquiry, I dont think they are anywhere near identifying defendants, or people who are involve in stealing and all that or what theyd do if they find them. But this is really more an instance where the Minster and the Minster of Justice and the Attorney General have to work on this. This is an Afghan issue, we provided the money and direct assistance, once the money leaves the United States Treasury and hits the Minister of Finance, I lose criminal jurisdiction over the money, the US Justice Department loses criminal jurisdiction over the money, and thats the real problem. Thats why its so important with the new Unity Government sound like theyre actually trying to do something about it. And thats the critical thing, I dont have jurisdiction over that money. This is Afghans stealing money from Afghans, although were the original provider of the money.

The question on the Justice Department I didnt really understand that, DOJ will obviously investigate anything we turn over, we actually have prosecutors, but I may not have understood that question there.

Audience: It was just from another conversation that didnt quite connect, basically the former State Departments point was DOJ can go after a corrupt official overseas if the money winds up in a US bank account because its a criminal act

Sopko: Oh thats true. We can do that also but you gotta prove an underlying offence. And if the money hits the US banking system then we can proceed against it

Audience: I think he might have been saying that he wanted State Department diplomats to sort of use you as a shield so they dont have to use the word corruption, right?

Audience: And using technical bodies to spare political alliance is that the recommendations you have for them

Sopko: Use me, I dont care. Everyone else does, why dont you? Ok, the other questions, but all Im saying is read what we said, all we did was ask the questions. Its amazing, we just ask questions and all of a sudden the sky falls. But, when I talk to officials, Afghan officials and US officials, everybody agreed, there are ghost schools, ghost teachers and ghost students, so its a problem that people know about.

Wright: Well I kinda want to go back to that original question about the sort of the use of bad news narratives - if thats alright - just to say, you know, one of the things that has been happening from the get go is that weve had some policy ambivalence and certainly debate from the beginning of this conflict: is this a long-term nation-building effort? Is this a counter-insurgency fight? Is it a counter-terrorism mission? Different types of tools are required to do all that.

I couldnt agree more though that the news, the sort of technical expertise and actual facts development that the IGs other oversight [recording muffled] when its not classified or otherwise damaging. And, you know, are some people that are gonna try and argue that thats a justification to pull out of Afghanistan tomorrow or yesterday? Absolutely. They did it with our Warlord Inc. report six years ago and were still there but I think getting that information out of those who are backing the policy either side of that debate needs the information if we are going to have the kind of informed debate our policy makers need to have and hopefully the success narratives coming out of the country team and [recording muffled] that are stewards of our programs are going help, you know, give a better snap shot holistically than just the IG narrative.

Sopko: And Andrew Im certain you went through the same thing and, you know, I read your report when it came out It was a fascinating report Still one of the best reports on that whole issue and people still cite it around the world Im certain you were criticized for not supporting the mission. Your boss was criticized - he was a politician and hes always worried about that. Politicians are always worried about that. [Recording muffled] Boys and girls Fighting over there and, you know And thats You know, that threat happens all the time. But we do support the mission by speaking the truth.

Wright: Yeah I mean Walter Reed Services get better healthcare now because we told a bad story about...

Sopko: Classic example Classic example.

Wright: You know: Faulty body armor. Thats oversight. Bring it out. So You know.

Sopko: Heres the thing and its a slippery slope: when I stop Where do I stop? Im only going to withhold information now but it just keeps going. And a good examples the Walter Reed. A better example: I heard Senator Johnson give a speech - actually to CIGI (Council of Inspectors General) - and he described a story: he says, I have a constituent (hes a senator from Wisconsin) So theres a young lady Took her elderly father, a World War II veteran to a hospital A VA hospital (Veterans Administration hospital) The VA hospital killed her dad through incompetency and just the filth and disgust. He got an infection and died. The IG had issued a report Had done an investigation on a hospital and identified all those problems. What did he do? He classified it. It was never released. It was only after the fact they found out the IG had identified it and what Johnson was saying is: If you had published the report, Mr. Inspector General, that man would be alive. So theres the problem. If I withhold things If I withhold a report I gotta have a reason to do it, otherwise people are going to get hurt. And I grew up a child of Vietnam and I had friends who died in Veterans Administration hospital and their filth In Cleveland Because there was no aggressive Inspectorates General highlighting those problems. And I dare you If nobody would have cared about [the OPM scandal] unless it hit the Washington Post and New York Times. The OPM scandal, we all know, is the fact that anybody who has ever gotten a security clearance in the United States The Chinese now have all your background information. There are multiple Inspector General reports But they never saw the light of day. We could have planned for that. Congress could have planned for that. And that is why we publicize. The truth will set you free. The truth is important and its just as important in Afghanistan as it is here And I beg to differ if anybody is leaving Afghanistan because of an IG report Or a GAO report Or a newspaper article. There may be a culminating You know There may be a time in which, hopefully, the Afghan press and the Afghan Attorney General and the Afghan Inspectors General (there are Inspectors General over there) will be doing this work for you and we dont have to do it But, until then, Ive gotta publicize the reports.

Wallace: Very shortly Im gonna circle back and give you chances to make last comments Now, specifically, Im gonna ask what [Interruption from speakers.] Yes I was going to say I think you may have answered my questions But whats the one lesson that you want to learn from this? But, before we do that, were just going to take one last round of questions (but thought Id give you a chance to think on that). So we have one at the back and one just here. Is anyone else bursting to ask a question? Okay, one at the back and one just here.

Audience: Hey Im Katie Watson. Im an investigative journalist at the Daily Caller News Foundation So its been many years since my reporting days in California but Ive written about kites But I wanted to thank you first of all Its really helpful And then my question, for you Inspector General Sopko, is: How do How does the US get to a point where an Inspectors General has as much independence as you do Are as aggressive as you are. What are the steps that need to be taken to get there (cos thats obviously very important)?

Wallace: Thank you.

Audience: Hi. My name is My question is that: There have been public opinion polls in Afghanistan and a lot of people are as much concerned for corruption as their own security. So youre doing the anti-corruption work for the international [recording muffled] but, inside the country, do you think the Afghan government has the administrative and judicial capacity to fight corruption in Afghanistan in the long term or do you see Sort of a hybrid justice entity Like the need for a hybrid justice entity in Afghanistan with judicial capacity for cases of corruption, because most of the time its the brother of the [prisoner] whos involved Its the cousin of the [prisoner] whos involved And most of the time they are warlords and they have They have a lot of power in the country. Do you see something like that possible in Afghanistan? Like, the one in the Guatemala [state]?

Sopko: OkaySo Those two? Okay, real quickly. I may have been [recording muffled] Never be an opportunity like this.. They probably made a mistake by passing that statute that appointed me, so I dont know. Every Inspector General can do this Every Inspector General can do this And, you know, I think they should: I think the 1978 Act gave tremendous power. I dont think the IGs have, as a body, lived up to the 1978 Act. I took an oath to do this and I think every one of them do. They cant be fired. You know Okay, so they dont get invited to the office Christmas party. Who cares? You know Its not gonna They should be doing this.

Whens the last time you saw the DODIG talking about procurement? Whens the last time you saw the VAIG talking about issues of the cleanliness in the hospitals? Whens the last time youve seen any of them out there? Whens the last time youve seen the OPMIG? You know You dont even know there is an OPMIG. What Im saying is: everyone of em can do this. The reason why Im doing this is because I was lucky. I had the opportunity to learn about oversight from Sam Nunn, Bill Roth, Carl Levin, John Glenn, John Dingell and Henry Waxman And I did it for 25 years. And they taught me: youre not going to change the government unless you publicize it and repeatedly publicize it And thats how I do it.

When I worked for John Glenn I mean for John Dingell - famous congressman (hes probably the father of modern oversight) - I put on 15 hearings on food safety just to (And youre from California - you understand about all those crises what led us You know Leafy greens and all that) Just to change the way we protected the American people on eating leafy greens. 15 hearings! Thats what Sam Nunn did. Thats what Henry Waxman did. Thats what your boss did. You got to repeatedly do it. Anybody can do it. Whether theres going to be another person like me I hope there are. There are some more people being appointed by IGs who I think are By the President Who I think are very effective IGs but we havent lived up to the 78 Act.

Question on corruption: yeah I cant really say for sure. Its so difficult And who am I to tell the Afghans how to set up their system? I can only tell em (and I dont have the time Im happy to talk offline Ive spoken about it) Looking at the history of how we fought corruption in the United States, maybe they can learn something from it. You have to have independent police, independent judiciary and you have to have an independent press. You are never going to win the war against corruption and win the war against drug dealers and win the war unless you have those. I worked with the organized crime and racketeering section - at least they actually teach the history of organized crime in the United States up at American university (actually it was the most popular course there because for the final exam we had to blow up a car But thats Thats a joke Thats a joke. We didnt blow up anything Nobody No animals died in my class) - but you gotta look at our history and that was the only reason. And we fought a very bloody fight against organized crime. We talked to the Italians. They still are fighting fights against organized crime and corruption and there are many other countries doing it Its not easy and its not quick. And narcotics is horribly difficult. And Afghanistan has a horrible narcotics problem. And its not just affecting the Russians and the Uzbeks and the Pakistanis and the Iranians... Its affecting the Afghan people and they have to address that. And yeah, the bad thing is Only when the government and the people of Afghanistan realize that narcotics are an inherent and serious threat to their ability as a state will they be able to fight and win the battle against the narco-traffickers. My biggest fear now is: Afghanistan will become a narco-trafficking state And that could be a serious concern unless they eventually address that. But only the Afghans are going to be able to do that Based upon our history with Columbia and other countries [recording muffled].

Wallace: And the last thoughts Should every [recording muffled] and, based on the work that SIGIR has been doing, what is the one thing that we need to make sure has resonance for the future?

Wright: Sure. I mean. I think Constructive oversight (and I use the word constructive, not just breathless, oversight but constructive, meticulous, fact-developed, fact-supported oversight) is critical both to the policy decisions about what your outcomes you want and also whether or not youre going to be able to achieve them, so I think its just a critical piece that has to be embedded at the design phase and in the after-action phase. So thats my general take and the one takeaway from sort of the SIGIR experience is We need to find more ways to have our oversight structures have that inter-agency, inter-operability sort of perspective, and tie it to geographic regions that allow them to be outcome-focused rather than sort of output focused So those would be my general sort of takeaways.

Wallace: Thank you. John? Last thoughts? If one thing sticks from the work that SIGIR has done

Sopko: You know I think if we can develop some really good lessons learned that are adopted by the various agencies and get buy in. Now thats my goal and that I think is the lasting legacy. People we indict will hopefully stay convicted and in jail The money we collect - that will happen But its the lessons learned.

Wallace: Thank you: Andy Wright John Sopko Everyone who has joined online and in the room - thank you very much. On behalf of the Project for the 21st Century, we very much appreciate you joining us And thanks again to these two gentlemen.

Transcript by Amanda Blair, Crisa Cox, Christopher Stephens, Rhea Menon and Claire Connellan22