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$19 Billion Of Taxpayer Money Spent In Afghanistan Lost To Waste, Fraud, Or Abuse, New Report Finds

(Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Dylan Housman Deputy News Editor
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$19 billion of taxpayer money that the United States has spent in Afghanistan since 2002 has been lost to waste, fraud or abuse, according to a new government report released this week. 

Congress has appropriated almost $134 billion for use to rebuild Afghanistan since 2002, according to the new report from the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The watchdog analyzed $63 billion of that money and found that $19 billion had been lost to waste, fraud, or abuse. (RELATED: Biden Says He Won’t Completely Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan And The Middle East)

About 90% of the instances of lost funds were due to government waste, the report says. SIGAR claims to have saved the United States government more than $3 billion due to its investigations and recommendations on spending up to this point. Still, the report concludes that “Endemic corruption, widespread insecurity, and lack of accountability over on-budget assistance continue to make any investments made in Afghanistan vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse.”

There were still 8,600 American troops in Afghanistan as of late August, with a plan underway to get that number to 4,000 by election day. The Trump Administration has been working to establish peace in the country with the Taliban, while the nation is still plagued by instability and violence.