- A new Pentagon audit had determined that the war in Afghanistan was an expensive failure.
- After spending $145 billion to create a self-sustaining government and rid the nation of terrorists, the experiment failed.
- “The United States sought to build stable, democratic, representative, gender-sensitive, and accountable Afghan governance institutions. It failed,” said the report.
- For emphasis, SIGAR promoted this quote from Chris Mason, associate professor of national security at the U.S. Army War College: “U.S. efforts to build and sustain Afghanistan’s governing institutions were a total, epic, predestined failure on par with the same efforts and outcome in the Vietnam war, and for the same reasons.”
