Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

Watchdogs Differ on U.S. Troops’ Handling of Afghan Child Sex Abuse

Government Executive: It takes an array of inspectors general offices to monitor the U.S. efforts to pacify and rebuild war-torn Afghanistan. So it’s not surprising that differing audits are produced by the watchdogs at the State Department, USAID, the Pentagon and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

This month, the Defense Department IG released a report on the effectiveness of U.S. troops in avoiding enabling the common and ancient problem of Afghan military service members’ sexual abuse of Afghan boys. It came just after a Government Accountability Office report saying the Pentagon watchdog and SIGAR need to better document and clarify their roles in Afghanistan to reduce duplication. And on Sunday, The Washington Post reported a story—the gist confirmed by Government Executive—that the Pentagon was keeping wraps on an earlier SIGAR report on the same sex abuse issue, allegedly because it is tougher than the one from the Defense IG.

Read article