20-year U.S. effort in Afghanistan "marked by many failures," new oversight report finds

Incoherent strategy. Politically motivated timelines. Unchecked cash spigots. As the Taliban takes control in Afghanistan after 20 years of U.S. involvement, a new watchdog report outlines what went wrong. 

It may be true, as President Biden said Monday, that the U.S. trained and equipped an Afghan military force of 300,000, that we paid their salaries, maintained their air force and equipped them, and that what the key thing we could not give them was "the will to fight" for their future. But in the eyes of the special inspector general for reconstruction in Afghanistan, the U.S. still fell short in its 20-year-long effort, one that was largely obliterated in a few short months. . The report "What We Need to Learn: Lessons from 20 years of Afghanistan Reconstruction" details how over $145 billion spent on reconstruction efforts added up to only minimal progress.