Tehran- IRAF- The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as SIGAR, has declared that the agency will officially cease operations on January 31.
This decision comes after years in which SIGAR consistently published reports showing that the Afghanistan reconstruction program was among the most expensive yet least successful U.S. foreign interventions.
In a statement posted on the social platform X, SIGAR announced the end of its mission and expressed gratitude to those who had cooperated with the agency over the past 17 years.
Established in 2008, SIGAR was founded to oversee the billions of dollars in U.S. military and civilian expenditures in Afghanistan, funds that, according to official reports, were largely wasted due to widespread corruption, mismanagement, and inefficient Afghan and American administrative structures.
According to published reports, between 2002 and 2021, the United States spent over 144 billion dollars on rebuilding Afghanistan, an amount that even exceeded the cost of Europe’s post–World War II reconstruction.
Nevertheless, this vast investment failed to prevent the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
Analysts believe that the closure of SIGAR, alongside the hasty withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, represents an indirect acknowledgment of Washington’s policy failure in the country—policies that not only failed to create stability but, as many experts argue, contributed to the expansion of insecurity and the humanitarian crisis.
With the end of SIGAR’s mission, one of the few oversight bodies that challenged U.S. performance in Afghanistan will disappear.
However, fundamental questions remain unanswered—particularly concerning the fate of the billions of dollars spent and the accountability of U.S. officials involved.
