The Washington Post’s “Afghanistan Papers” and U.S. Policy: Main Points and Possible Questions for Congress

Summary: On December 9, 2019, the Washington Post published a series of documents termed "the Afghanistan Papers." The Papers comprise two sets of documents: about 1,900 pages of notes and transcripts of interviews with more than 400 U.S. and other policymakers that were carried out between 2014 and 2018 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), and approximately 190 short memos (referred to as "snowflakes") from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, dating from 2001 to 2004. The documents, and the Washington Post stories that accompany them, suggest that U.S. policies in Afghanistan often were poorly planned, resourced, and/or executed. These apparent shortcomings contributed to several outcomes that either were difficult to assess or did not fulfill stated U.S. objectives. Key themes of the SIGAR interviews include

Summary: N egative effects of U.S. funding. The most frequently discussed subject in the SIGAR interviews was (a) the large sum of U.S. money ($132 billion in development assistance since 2001) that poured into Afghanistan and (b) the extent to which much of it was reportedly wasted, stolen, exacerbated existing problems, or created new ones, particularly corruption. Unclear U.S. g oals . Many of the interviewees argued that, from the beginning, the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, supported by the money noted above, lacked a clear goal. Competing p riorities . The proliferation of U.S. goals in Afghanistan led to another complication: U.S. actions to achieve some of these objectives seemed to undermine others. Organizational confusion and competition. While U.S. efforts in Afghanistan were dominated by the Department of Defense, given the wide array of U.S. interests in Afghanistan, U.S. policy formulation and execution required input from many federal departments and agencies. The problems associated with trying to coordinate among all of these entities was a consistent theme. Lack of e xpertise . Multiple SIGAR interviewees criticized U.S. policies that they claimed failed to generate relevant expertise within the U.S. government or even disincentivized the creation or application of that expertise in Afghanistan. Disorganized m ulti national coalition . Many of the SIGAR interviewees who worked on coordinating U.S. and international efforts discussed what they saw as a disorganized system. Iraq as a distraction. U.S. officials who were working on Afghanistan in the first decade of the war held a nearly universal judgment, in SIGAR interviews, that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 distracted U.S. attention and diverted U.S. financial and other resources. Pakistan 's support for the Taliban . A number of interviewees, particularly senior U.S. officials, attributed the Taliban's resurgence, and the failure of the U.S. to solidify gains in Afghanistan, to material support for the group from, and its safe havens in, Pakistan. Other voices: U.S. efforts as relatively successful. Some of the officials interviewed by SIGAR lauded arguable gains made and facilitated by the international community's work in Afghanistan since 2001, a perspective not generally included in the Washington Post stories.

Summary: The documents, released at a time when the United States is engaged in talks with the Taliban aimed at ending the 18-year U.S. military presence in the country, have attracted significant attention. Some Members of Congress have called for further investigation into U.S. policy in Afghanistan. However, there is debate over how revelatory the SIGAR interviews are: policymakers and outside analysts disagree about whether they contain new and relevant information and, if so, how the information should affect U.S. policy in Afghanistan going forward.

On December 9, 2019, the Washington Post published a series of documents termed "the Afghanistan Papers" (herineafter "the Papers"). The Papers comprise two sets of documents:

Notes and transcripts of interviews with more than 400 U.S. and other policymakers conducted between 2014 and 2018 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), and Approximately 190 short memos (referred to as "snowflakes") from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, dating from 2001 to 2004.

The Washington Post contends that "the Lessons Learned interviews broadly resemble the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's top-secret history of the Vietnam War," although the SIGAR interviews and Pentagon Papers differ in several key ways. Perhaps most importantly, the Pentagon Papers were a contemporaneous recounting of the Vietnam War based mostly on classified material from the Office of the Secretary of Defense; the SIGAR Lessons Learned documents are unclassified records of interviews with a wide array of policymakers carried out as many as 15 years after the events described.

The documents, and the Washington Post stories that accompany them, suggest that U.S. policies in Afghanistan often were poorly planned, resourced, and/or executed. These apparent shortcomings contributed to several outcomes that either were difficult to assess or did not fulfill stated U.S. objectives. The documents, released at a time when the United States is engaged in talks with the Taliban aimed at ending the 18-year U.S. military presence in the country, have attracted attention, and some Members of Congress have called for further investigation into U.S. policy in Afghanistan. However, there is debate over how revelatory the SIGAR interviews are, with some analysts contending that the information they contain was available at the time and remains so today (see " Reactions to "the Afghanistan Papers" below).

SIGAR, an independent investigative body created by Congress in 2008, conducted interviews with hundreds of U.S. and other policymakers as part of a lessons learned project, a self-assigned effort to "identify and preserve lessons from the U.S. reconstruction experience in Afghanistan, and to make recommendations to Congress and executive agencies on ways to improve our efforts in current and future operations." Since 2015, SIGAR has published seven lessons learned reports on topics such as corruption, counternarcotics, and U.S. efforts to reintegrate ex-combatants.

The Washington Post obtained the interview notes and transcripts after submitting a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests beginning in August 2016. In response to an October 2017 lawsuit against SIGAR filed by the newspaper, SIGAR released the first document, a 10-page 2015 interview with Michael Flynn (who had served in several senior military capacities in Afghanistan). SIGAR subsequently released other requested documents to the Washington Post . After federal agencies reviewed the documents to determine whether they contained classified material, the final batch of interviews was delivered in August 2019.

In total, SIGAR conducted 428 interviews with U.S., European, and Afghan officials. Sixty-two interviewees are identified while 366 are redacted; the Washington Post has sued SIGAR to disclose those names because, it argues, "the public has a right to know which officials criticized the war." SIGAR contends that those individuals should be seen as whistleblowers and may face professional or other harm if their identities are made public. As of January 2020, a decision from the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, remains pending.

In reviewing the Papers, which total roughly 2,000 pages and evade simple characterization, several key themes emerge, as outlined below. Dates in parentheses or noted in the text indicate when the interview was conducted. Quotes in this report, unless noted in the text as direct quotes from transcripts, are from SIGAR notes of interviews; CRS cannot independently verify or otherwise characterize the documents and the interviews the documents purport to describe. At least four of the named interviewees have contested the views attributed to them by SIGAR.

The most frequently discussed subject in the SIGAR interviews was (a) the large sum of U.S. money ($132 billion in development assistance since 2001) that poured into Afghanistan and (b) the extent to which much of it was reportedly wasted, stolen, exacerbated existing problems, or created new ones.

Nearly every SIGAR interviewee who discussed the issue argued that Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest and least developed countries in 2001, was unable to make use of the amount of financial resources that the U.S. and its international partners channeled into the country. Variations of the phrase "absorptive capacity" were repeated throughout the SIGAR interviews. One unnamed national security official offered some specificity, saying that Ashraf Ghani, then the Afghan Finance Minister and now President, had said in 2002 that "the Afghan capacity to absorb money was $2 billion a year, max. Everything else was wasted money" (October 1, 2014). The United States alone has contributed over $7 billion a year on average since 2001.

In answering why the United States delivered so much money into Afghanistan, many interviewees pointed to U.S. domestic politics. One U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official said, "How much money was put into political, military, and development [aid] became a proxy for our commitment" (December 9, 2015). This was largely driven by executive branch agencies, according to one unnamed official, who observed that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed reductions between 2005 and 2007 because money from previous years remained unspent (April 13, 2015). However, other policymakers rejected these reductions, arguing that "the political signal by a budget reduction at [a] turning point in the war effort would adversely affect overall messaging and indirectly reconstruction efforts on the ground. The articulation of goals for the purpose of budgeting and programming was largely secondary to the political implications of budgeting."

However, some of those interviewed by SIGAR faulted Congress, not executive branch agencies, for wasteful spending. The same USAID official quoted above (December 9, 2015) said, "The Hill was complicit. They gave more money than was requested. Every year they asked why we weren't doing our jobs, but they gave the same amount of money or more." Douglas Lute, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan under President George W. Bush and President Obama, noted that Congress was subject to the same kinds of political pressures that drove executive branch officials to push for higher budgets in the absence of evidence that the funds would be effective:

In terms of appropriations, Congress appropriated what the administration asked for.... The thought is that if we don't spend, [the Government Accountability Office] or committees on the Hill will stop us from getting more funding. This leads to spend, spend, spend. The reason this is happening: no one is paying attention in an interagency sense to resources.... We were also pouring money into huge infrastructure projects to obligate money that was appropriated to show we could spend it. And we were building infrastructure in ways that Afghanistan could never sustain or even use in some cases.

This approach to resource allocation extended down the chain of command, according to some interview subjects. An unnamed U.S. Army civil affairs officer said that costs kept rising because "We had no reason to negotiate or hold contractors' feet to the fire because the money kept coming no matter what.... We didn't get credit for saving money; in fact, we got credit for spending it" (July 12, 2016). Another said (on June 27, 2016) that because he or she was not given guidance on how to measure the impact of certain projects, "dollar figures were always the metric. No one said that money spent should be our metric, but without guidance, it was the only metric we could use.... We did not stop and look back at what happened and whether it was effective. The emphasis was on completing more projects."

What was the impact of this flow of money on Afghanistan itself? Nearly all SIGAR interviewees contended that U.S. funding improved conditions in the country with regard to health, education, and other human development indicators, at least partly given the low level of the country's development in 2001 (see " Other Voices: U.S. Efforts as Relatively Successful " below). However, some positive assessments were qualified: one unnamed Afghan official said that "Yes, we have made gains, and generally speaking, life is better for people." However, he or she goes on to ask, "When we compare the gains to the resources, were the gains enough? No. ... Were the gains that were made sustainable? No. Most of the gains remain fragile" (October 21, 2015).

For some interviewees, this influx of money also created or exacerbated problems. One of the problems most often raised was the money's apparent role in helping drive corruption, which continues to undermine the very Afghan state that the funds were intended to support. Andrew Wilder, the Vice President of Asia Programs at the United States Institute of Peace, said in his SIGAR interview that, "Giving Afghans so much money actually delegitimized the government, which was either perceived to become more corrupt or actually became more corrupt as a result, and favored specific communities at the expense of others" (January 25, 2017).

Beyond the possibility for Afghans to redirect U.S. aid flows for political purposes, several interviewees argued that U.S. assistance had a structural bias that created perverse incentives for Afghans. Former Afghan deputy cabinet minister Tariq Esmati said (on December 12, 2016) that "all the attention was to the insecure districts. And the districts that were relatively secure also became insecure in order to get some programs." One USAID official put it more bluntly: development programs targeted "worse case scenarios and [the] most insecure areas" which "rewarded bad behavior. Governors in [more secure areas] would come to Kabul and ask, "what do I have to do to get love from [the] Americans, blow some shit up?" (November 18, 2016).

In many cases, interviewees pointed to the grant contracting system to explain why so much money was wasted and to argue that few of the benefits were actually reaped by Afghans themselves. A senior U.S. official said (on December 11, 2015)

We would buy American products, American grain, American consultants, American security experts, and they would implement our aid programsâ¦. The Afghans used to tell me that somewhere between 10-20% actually shows up in Afghanistan, and less than 10% ever gets to a village. So you [the United States] tell us [the Afghans] that you just spent a billion dollars as we see $50 million worth of roads. You [the United States] hire a big contractor and inside the beltway consultant, who then hires 15 subcontractors. The first guy takes 20%, then next level takes 20% who would go hire a bunch of expensive American experts to do [for 10 times the price] what Afghan diaspora refugees or Indian experts could do.... [These Americans we hire] travel to Afghanistan first class or at least business class with five security guys each.... The money you spend doesn't get to the village, doesn't really help the Afghan government.

Beyond the practical effect of enabling corruption, some interviewees argued that ready U.S. money warped Afghan political culture (from a July 31, 2015, interview with a U.N. official):

Afghan perceptions of the US were shaped by the Emergency Loya Jirga and Constitutional Loya Jirga [consultative assemblies held in 2002-2003].... Religious leaders were approached [and they] received nice packages from the US in return for accepting certain measures on women, human rights. The perception that was started in that period: If you were going to vote for a position that the [U.S. government] favored, you'd be stupid to not get a package for doing it. So that even those in favor would ask for compensation.... So from the beginning, their experience with democracy was one in which money was deeply embedded.

Many of the interviewees argued that, from the beginning, the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, supported by the flow of money noted above, lacked a clear goal. One unnamed former National Security Council (NSC) staffer said, "I don't think we had an end state in mind. We kept planning; conditions kept changing. We were solving problems but there was no end state vision that you could point to" (January 5, 2015).

According to many respondents, lack of clarity was a product of how many objectives the U.S. had in Afghanistan. One USAID official (May 18, 2015) described U.S. policy as having "a present under the Christmas tree for everyone. By the time you were finished you had so many priorities and aspirations it was like no strategy at all. If you have 50 priorities then you don't have any priorities at all." This confusion reportedly extended even into specific areas of U.S. policy. An unnamed former United Nations official said in a June 1, 2015, interview that "on reconstruction, there was not a clear understanding of what we were trying to achieve; [there were] no clear objectives." On counternarcotics (CN), a former State Department official said that it was "unclear what the goal of CN was" (June 29, 2015).

The proliferation of U.S. goals in Afghanistan apparently led to another complication: U.S. actions to achieve some of these objectives undermined others. Interviewees repeatedly discussed this dynamic, particularly when referring to the U.S. project as being divided into military and nonmilitary lines of effort. According to interviewees, when U.S. security interests clashed with interests less directly tied to security, the former almost always prevailed.

The two areas that the interviews identified as particularly compromised, given an emphasis on security or other issues, were counternarcotics and anti-corruption. A State Department counternarcotics contractor told SIGAR on September 16, 2016, that "To the best of my knowledge chief of mission [in the U.S. embassy] never carried [the] message about CN to [the] Afghan government. Attitude was 'got so much else on my plate I have no time to deal with drugs.'" A senior U.S. official put it simply: "They [the United States] would payoff â¦ local leaders to not fight them and would turn away when local leaders grew poppy" (March 29, 2016).

On anti-corruption, the contrast may have been even clearer: a USAID official said that the view of senior U.S. officials was "Be patient, we can get back to corruption. We have higher priorities on getting the bad guys" (August 24, 2015). In July 2015, a Treasury Department official attributed the U.S. "failure to be more aggressive" on prosecuting those responsible for the 2010 collapse of Kabul Bank (KB) to the higher importance placed on security objectives: "Petraeus made the point that yes KB is bad, but we're fighting a war here, there are bigger issues at stake." Sometimes even U.S. counternarcotics and anti-corruption goals, which appeared symbiotic according to some interviewees, were at odds: a former U.S. defense official said on May 17, 2016, that U.S. payments to governors to reduce poppy cultivation actually "undermined good governance. People saw us as complicit working with corrupt governors to take out opposition" when those governors targeted the opium cultivation of their political opponents but left alone opium cultivation of their allies.

Some U.S. officials argued that these contradictions were unavoidable, and that the United States had no choice but to pursue security interests over other, and by definition secondary, objectives. A former U.S. official at the U.S. Embassy said (on May 31, 2015) of the U.S. decision to partner with warlords with records of corruption or human rights abuses, "I'm not so sure we should have done it any differently. These 'warlords' equaled the ground force that just defeated the Taliban and al Qaedaâon the ground with US SOF [Special Operations Forces]. ... [T]hese weren't just random bandits running around."

Organizational Confusion and Competition

While U.S. efforts in Afghanistan were dominated by the Department of Defense, given the wide array of U.S. interests in Afghanistan, U.S. policy formulation and execution required input from many federal departments and agencies. The problems associated with trying to coordinate among all of these entities, and with the complex series of bureaucratic structures erected to facilitate that coordination, were another consistent theme of the SIGAR interviews.

By most accounts, interagency coordination was a consistent problem that various structures failed to solve. The performance of the Washington, D.C.-based Afghanistan Interagency Operation Group (AOIG), which was created in 2003, was co-chaired by the Department of State and National Security Council, and met weekly, generally received favorable reviews from interviewees. The State Department's Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (SCRS), on the other hand, attracted particular criticism: various officials stated that it was "expensive and time-consuming ... initially structured to fail and at the end it only made life horrible for everybody else" (June 25, 2015) and "failed at the operation level" (July 10, 2015). The State Department's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP), established in 2009 and closed in 2017, also generally was criticized. One typical critique, from an unnamed State Department official in a December 10, 2014, interview, said that "the model is not sustainable. Desk officers are supposed to develop regional experience throughout their career so they have a couple of languages and they continually rotate back to their area or region of specialization.... The SRAP set up created parallel structures."

Anti-corruption, counternarcotics, and other mission priorities rarely fit neatly under one agency or department's purview. The wide range of actors with equities in programs in these areas arguably bred not just confusion but competition. One former development contractor said about counternarcotics (interview on June 8, 2016) that there was "nobody really in charge, no one on top of the heap and saying to everyone this is what you need to do. Competitive personalities [were] not concerned about what makes sense but could they build their career." That competition, in turn, also presented opportunities for Afghans to exploit. An unnamed former US ambassador described for SIGAR interviewers on December 14, 2015, that "[former Afghan president Hamid] Karzai was trying to figure out how to manipulate the U.S., manipulating different U.S. agencies against one another for leverage. â¦ The mission starts to lose coherence; you have agencies snapping at each other' s ankles [italics original]."

Surveying the numerous problems of interagency coordination, Marin Strmecki, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's special advisor on Afghanistan, recommended (interview on October 19, 2015) a more unified command structure:

When we operate in something like [Afghanistan], there needs to be unity of command, not unity of effort. So if it is a situation [where] there is a lot of lead flying in the air, it makes sense for the general of whatever task force that is deployed to be in charge of both the military and civilian elements. So the ambassador would essentially be his chief political officer. He should be able to give orders to that chief political officer just as he would another subordinate. Similarly, if it is more a stabilization operations and there is not as much lead flying in the air, the military should be put under the ambassadorâ¦. Our current system works if you are lucky and you get a Khalilzad and Barno or a Petraeus and Crocker, where for some reason they all agree on the priorities and work well together. They are in sync. That is basically luck.

Multiple SIGAR interviewees criticized U.S. policies that they claimed either failed to generate relevant expertise within the U.S. government or even disincentivized the creation or application of that expertise in Afghanistan. For instance, regional subject matter expertise was a frequently cited problem. A number of interviewees criticized the United States for not training U.S. staff in local languages. Without knowledge of these languages, U.S. officials were reportedly less able to learn from, build trust with, or effectively partner with Afghan counterparts. Former director of intelligence for the NATO-led military effort Michael Flynn said that

when we get to Afghanistan [in 2009], there is only one officer on the ISAF staff that could speak Dari â¦ but he was only there briefly. The Air Force pulled him out in like July and sent him to Japan.... [W]e laughed about it because this is how insane this [system] is.... Even today, we are still in Afghanistan and you go tell me how many actual U.S. members of the military or policy [community], or from State who speak Dari or Pashto. That is a shame and that is a policy decision.

The most commonly cited problem, regardless of the interviewee's national origin, position in government, or time of service in Afghanistan, was the loss of expertise and trust brought about by short-term deployments. A commonly repeated theme, as one U.S. official put it (April 12, 2016), was that the U.S. did not have one "14 year engagement, [but] had 14 1-year engagements." Numerous interviewees described the problems created by short tours as the greatest detriment to U.S. policy success:

"At the strategic level, the single most disabling factor was our failure to maintain long-term leadership at the Embassy and at our military commands. We should have someone in the job for 3 to 5 years for continuity" (former U.S. official at the embassy in Kabul, May 31, 2015). "If you take away one thing, the one year rotation for USAID, DOS [Department of States] and DOD [Department of Defense] personnel is the biggest obstacle to success and the biggest single factor in our failure" (former USAID official David Marsden, December 3, 2015). "Biggest problem was turnover of people â¦ the result is no institutional memory" (June 27, 2016).

The interview records suggest that there was no consensus on how to solve this problem. One proffered solution was higher pay for government employees deployed to Afghanistan: Strmecki said in his interview that talented staff leave "the government for our contractors and NGOs and our other implementing partners because [they] pay them so much more." However, one unnamed legal advisor who worked in Kabul said (on October 30, 2017) higher pay for some U.S. positions meant that those who filled the jobs "had very little understanding of the cultureâthey came in because the salary was lucrative.... [T]hey saw this as a couple of years of opportunity to get rid of their house mortgages."

Lack of expertise arguably exacerbated many of the other problems facing U.S. policy. At times, Afghans reportedly exploited the lack of knowledge and institutional memory to shape U.S. policy to meet their own ends. In one extreme case, Afghanistan expert Thomas Johnson described how "we were used by the tribes" because suspects taken into custody by the United States as terrorists were actually "traditional tribal enemies that [U.S. partners] claimed were Taliban" (January 7, 2016).

Multinational Coalition: Too Many Cooks?

U.S. efforts in Afghanistan have been aided from the outset by a multinational coalition. From combat, to training Afghan forces, to providing development assistance, U.S. allies and partners have made significant contributions. However, this work has not been without complications, and many of the SIGAR interviewees who worked on coordinating U.S. and international efforts discussed what they saw as deficiencies.

The system that emerged in Afghanistan became known as the "lead nation" system, whereby each policy area was overseen by a different country: for example, Italy focused on developing Afghanistan's justice sector, Germany worked with Afghan police, and the British initially were responsible for counternarcotics. However, according to former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, "With this [multilateral] approach, everyone had small pieces of the sector and it then meant that [their respective policy areas] became everyone's second or third order priority so nothing got done."

Generally, interviewees who observed or participated in the system described it as disorganized: John Wood, NSC director for Afghanistan 2007-2009, said, "Everyone has a piece of the pie but [there's] no coherence.... Each lead nation left to determine how to approach thingsâeach changed frequently. Even if things lined up with the lead nation none of them moving at same pace" (June 17, 2015). The difference in pacing and approach was explained by an unnamed NSC staffer, who argued "tasks were conditioned by what countries were willing to do," which "created some tensions between the coalition and the nation states" (July 14, 2015).

Those U.S. officials SIGAR interviewed who worked on Afghanistan in the first decade of the war held a near-universal judgment that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 distracted U.S. attention and diverted U.S. financial and other resources, allowing the Taliban to regroup.

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns described Iraq as the "higher priority" and Afghanistan as "the less acute theater." According to an unnamed NSC staffer (October 21, 2014)

More specifically regarding why the U.S. and Department of Defense were anxious for someone else to take a robust leading role in Afghanistan, it was so we could have greater resources and capability to prioritize Iraq. ... From early spring 2002, during my time at the Secretary's office, until 2011, Afghanistan has to be looked at with one eye on what is happening in Iraq. Even in the early and tail end (2009-2011) days, either materially or politically, it all seemed to be about Iraq.

It was hard to come to terms with the reality that your whole portfolio is a secondary effort or, at worst, an "economy of force" mission. Your job was not to win, it was to not lose â¦ We are bleeding resources away as things get worse in Iraq, and we were looking for more ways to make do in Afghanistanâ¦. In hindsight, there was a window between late 2002-2003 and early 2005 where there was relative peace in Afghanistan. The Taliban was on its heels and people were not that disillusioned.

One official (interviewed on September 23, 2015) said that between 2005 and 2007, "Iraq was all we could handle." Another said that a "significant pressure in the 2003 to 2010 timeframe was the draw of resources toward Iraq and away from Afghanistan" (April 13, 2015). By the time the United States began to draw down forces in Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan, many observers argued that the damage was already done: the Afghan state's military and governing capabilities (both effectively nonexistent in 2001) had not been adequately developed, allowing for the rise of a new Taliban insurgency that further undermined those abilities. One unnamed U.S. official said in a February 9, 2016, interview, "In all honesty, Afghanistan got neglected when we went to Iraq and when we got back to Afghanistan, we didn't have enough capacity."

The war in Iraq arguably distracted U.S. policymakers from dealing with Pakistan's role in facilitating the Taliban's comeback. Early on, Pakistan "was not seen as bad guys," according to an international aid consultant in an October 9, 2015, interview. A number of interviewees, particularly senior U.S. officials, attributed the Taliban's resurgence, and the resulting failure of the U.S. to solidify gains in Afghanistan, to material support for the group from, and its safe havens in, Pakistan. A good deal of material related to the sensitive issue of Pakistani support for the Taliban appeared to be redacted, but the issue still emerged throughout the interviews.

Most interviewees who addressed the subject argued that U.S. and Pakistani interests in Afghanistan were fundamentally incompatible. One unnamed DOD or NSC staffer told SIGAR in an October 1, 2014, interview, "The belief that Pakistan's national interest aligned with the US because [then-Pakistani leader Pervez] Musharraf joins the [U.S.] effort after 9/11 is a false belief." According to this view, the positive role Pakistan played with regard to Al Qaeda blinded U.S. policymakers to the Pakistanis' support for the Taliban. As Strmecki said in his October 19, 2015, interview,

Because of people's personal confidence in Musharraf and because of things he was continuing to do in helping police up a bunch of the al-Qaeda in Pakistan, there was a failure to perceive the double game that he starts to play by late 2002, early 2003. You are seeing the security incidents start to go up and it is out of the safe havens. I think that the Afghans and Karzai himself, are bringing this up constantly even in the earlier parts of 2002. They are meeting unsympathetic ears because of the belief that Pakistan was helping us so much on al-Qaeda.

With U.S. attention to the issue reportedly low, Pakistan maintained support for the Taliban in order to maintain some of Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan. In at least one account, Pakistani leaders were forthright in private about this strategy. In the transcript of his January 11, 2016, interview with SIGAR, Ryan Crocker, who served as U.S. ambassador to both Pakistan (2004-2007) and Afghanistan (2011-2012), quoted then-head of Pakistan's intelligence agency (ISI, Inter-Services Intelligence) Ashfaq Kayani as telling him

You know, I know you think we're hedging our bets, you're right, we are because one day you'll be gone again, it'll be like Afghanistan the first time [when the United States turned away from Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989], you'll be done with us, but we're still going to be here because we can't actually move the country. And the last thing we want with all of our other problems is to have turned the Taliban into a mortal enemy, so, yes, we're hedging our bets.

Beyond the main themes discussed above, other issues impacting U.S. policymaking in Afghanistan surfaced throughout the SIGAR interviews:

Positivity bias (e.g., Flynn interview on November 11, 2015: "As intelligence makes it way up higher [within the bureaucracy], it gets consolidated and really watered down; it gets politicized â¦ because once policymakers get their hands on it, and frankly once operational commanders get their hands on it, they put their twist to itâ¦. Operational commanders, State Department policymakers, and Department of Defense policymakers are going to be inherently rosy in their assessments.") Not considering greater inclusion of or interaction with the Taliban at the outset (e.g., U.N. official on August 27, 2015: "Lesson learned: if you get a chance to talk to the Taliban, talk to themâ¦. At that moment [2001], most â¦ Taliban commanders were interested in joining the government.") Powers granted to Afghanistan's central government (e.g., unnamed U.S. official, October 18, 2016: "why did we create centralized gov't in a place that has never had one â¦ set us up for failure")

Other Voices: U.S. Efforts as Relatively Successful

Some of the officials interviewed by SIGAR lauded arguable gains made and facilitated by the international community's work in Afghanistan since 2001, a perspective not generally included in the Washington Post stories.

A number of interviewees argued, as one unnamed U.S. official did on June 2, 2015, "There's not enough recognition of the scale of achievements in Afghanistanâ¦. Afghanistan has given a higher return on investment than almost any other reconstruction effort. From 2002-2012, [Afghanistan] made more progress in human development than any other country." Others contended (as referenced above) that one cannot assess the success or failure of U.S. efforts without considering the state of the country in 2002: "We have to remember what we were starting with in Afghanistan. Afghans were starting with nothing. Social and economic development was at the lowest level possible. And that's why Taliban and al Qaeda found a home there, and why we went inâ¦. You must look at where we were, what we tried to do, and where we got to" (unnamed senior State Department official April 26, 2016).

Some officials outside the United States echoed these sentiments in their interviews. A Danish official said on June 30, 2015, despite corruption and all of the other problems, "we'd be worse off without our [Afghanistan] intervention. The development side has had an impressive record." Abdul Jabar Naimee, who has served as governor of several eastern Afghan provinces, said in his March 6, 2017, interview

I am seeing that in the [W]est a thinking is going that they helped the Afghans but it was useless. This is a completely a wrong assumption. In the three provinces where I have been working as governor, in all the three places when I have share[d] programs with the people, or I have participated in the projects['] events, I have seen people are happy with the help they have receivedâ¦. The assumption that people of Afghanistan are not happy with the help that was done for their improvement, this assumption is wrong, people are grateful for the help and they still benefit from the work that was done.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's "snowflakes" (the last of which is dated December 22, 2004), unlike the SIGAR interviews, provide a contemporaneous view into one senior policymaker's thinking over the first several years of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. Because they are brief and relatively informal, there are risks in taking them as representative of U.S. policy as a whole, but their on-the-ground perspective could still be useful in assessing U.S. policy in Afghanistan. They may also demonstrate that various perceptions noted in the SIGAR interviewsâsuch as that Afghanistan was less of a priority than Iraqâhad merit. Many of the approximately 200 snowflakes are minor; some notable excerpts are below.

Rumsfeld apparently did not anticipate long-term U.S. financial support for Afghan security forces. In an April 8, 2002, memo to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Rumsfeld wrote, "The U.S. spent billions freeing Afghanistan and providing security. We are spending a fortune every day. There is no reason on earth for the U.S. to commit to pay 20 percent for the Afghan army. I urge you to get DoS turned around on thisâthe U.S. position should be zero [underline original]. We are already doing more than anyone." Rumsfeld expressed continual concern about not having a plan (e.g., "I am convinced we have to have a plan for Afghanistan and that nobody else in the government is going to do it unless we do. What do you propose?" (October 17, 2002) Rumsfeld expressed an eagerness to reduce U.S. commitments in Afghanistan. In a September 25, 2003, memo to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, he wrote, "We need a good conceptual speech that describes where the responsibility is (and moves the blame if it fails away from the U.S.), namely on the Afghan people and on the international community." Rumsfeld sought greater input over non-Department of Defense equities. He wrote to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card on August 19, 2002, requesting "that I have an opportunity to interview any person who is proposed for Ambassador to Afghanistan, before the selection gets made and before the President is involved. The post is very important for the Department of Defense and I would like to have a good sense of who it might be and why." There is some evidence that Afghanistan, by 2003, may not have been a major focus for Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld received a November 7, 2003, letter from Afghan Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum, who painted a picture of widespread Taliban activity and said "please do not forget the battle against terrorist and extremists in Afghanistan." Rumsfeld forwarded the letter in a memo to CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid on November 18, 2003, describing the letter as "worrisome" and saying "if he [Dostum] is correct that the Taliban are in control of that many areas within Afghanistan, that is news to me."

The Washington Post 's "Afghanistan Papers" have attracted significant attention, though policymakers and outside analysts disagree about whether they contain new and relevant information and, if so, what effect this information should have on U.S. policy in Afghanistan going forward.

In Congress, most of the Members who reacted publicly did so to reiterate previous calls to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Senator Tom Udall spoke on the Senate floor about the Papers on December 12, voicing support for S.J.Res. 12 , introduced in March 2019 by Udall and Senator Rand Paul. The resolution would, among other provisions, mandate the removal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan within a year of enactment. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called for Senate hearings to investigate "these deeply concerning revelations about the Afghan war," and Representative Max Rose said that the Papers demonstrated that "the time to end this war and bring our troops home honorably is now."

Top U.S. defense officials largely defended the U.S. conduct of the war, arguing that the Papers did not constitute evidence that former officials had lied to the American public, and that the Papers, as part of a Lessons Learned project, were structured to invite criticism, in hindsight, of the war effort. Pentagon Spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said on December 12, 2019,

I would quibble with the idea that we weren't providing [accurate information] in the past. I think what we see from the report from the Washington Post is, looking at individuals giving retrospectives years later on what they may have believed at the time ... those statements appeared for the most part to be people looking back retrospectively on things that they had said previouslyâand using hindsight to speak to comments they had made.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper dismissed claims that officials had lied, saying, "For 18 years now, the media has been over there [in Afghanistan]â¦. The Congress has been there multiple timesâ¦. We've had the SIGAR there. We've had IGs there. This has been a very transparentâit's not like this war was hiding somewhere and now all of a sudden there's been a revelationâ¦. So [the] insinuation that there's been this large-scale conspiracy is just, to me, ridiculous." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, appearing alongside Esper, said, "I know that I and many, many others gave assessments at the time based on facts that we knew at the time. And those were honest assessments, and they were never intended to deceive neither the Congress nor the American people."

SIGAR Special Inspector General John Sopko wrote a December 17, 2019, letter to the editor of the Washington Post disputing some of the Post 's characterizations and saying that "the Afghanistan Papers is an important contribution to public discourse about the war in Afghanistan. But it is not a 'secret' history. SIGAR has written about these issues for years, including in seven Lessons Learned reports and more than 300 audits and other products." On January 15, 2020, Sopko testified in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that U.S. policy in Afghanistan has been characterized by "institutional hubris and mendacity" and that "We have incentivized lying to Congress.... [T]he whole incentive is to show success and to ignore failure and when there's too much failure, classify it or don't report it."

Outside observers have offered differing views of the Papers. One concurred with the Post 's assessment that in the Papers, "officials' indictment of policies for which they themselves were responsible lays bare the massive institutional deceit that forms the heart of what the United States has done" in Afghanistan. Other observers have taken a softer line. One wrote, "it is apparent from the documents that many officials in power attempted to 'spin' a spiraling Afghanistan conflict for the public," though they did so because "the U.S. government has every incentive to paint a better picture of progress than is the reality on the ground."

Still others have argued that the Papers contain little that has not already been readily and publicly available for years: "the only new information here is the identity of those making the criticisms." Those making this argument have pointed to reports from SIGAR (including their seven publicly released Lessons Learned reports for which the interviews in "the Afghanistan Papers" were conducted) and other inspectors general, as well as media, academic, and other public accounts. One summarizes, "In short, if you're surprised by the Afghanistan Papers, you haven't been paying attention." Another observer criticizes the Post for "putting sensationalist spin on information that was not classified, has already been described in publicly available reports, only covers a fraction of the 18 years of the war, and falls far short of convincingly demonstrating a campaign of deliberate lies and deceit." Given that there has been evidence of shortcomings in the U.S. war and development effort for years, one observer argues that "Afghanistan is best seen, not as a morality play, but as a classic foreign policy dilemma in which all the options are bad ones":

Reasonable people can debate, with the benefit of hindsight, whether the United States should have accepted these risks as the price of avoiding another two decades of war. But the tragic dilemma of Afghanistan is that there have always been costs of withdrawal as well as costs of continued intervention.

"The Afghanistan Papers" raise a number of potential questions for Congress to consider as Members evaluate the Trump Administration's Afghanistan policies.

U.S. Strategy . What role, if any, has Congress played in compelling successive executive branch administrations to articulate U.S. strategy and/or policy goals in Afghanistan? What are the means by which Congress has attempted to shape or influence those goals? What have been the most and least effective of those means? Congressional Oversight . Members of Congress have conducted oversight of executive branch policy through various means, including appointing a special inspector general, public and closed hearings, Member and staff delegations to Afghanistan, letters to executive branch officials, and public statements. What have been the most and least effective methods of congressional oversight? U.S Aid: Budgeting. To what extent has Congress scrutinized executive branch funding requests? Have appropriated U.S. funding levels differed from those requests and if so, what changes have been made and why? To what extent have congressional budgeting decisions in Afghanistan been made due to political expediency? How, if at all, can Members of Congress insulate budgeting or other policymaking processes from political pressures? U.S. Aid: Conditionality. What conditions has Congress imposed on U.S. aid to Afghanistan and why? How, if at all, have those conditions impacted the delivery of U.S. aid, Afghan government actions, U.S.-Afghan relations, and congressional interactions with the executive branch? What kinds of changes, if any, to the Foreign Assistance Act or other relevant pieces of legislation might make U.S. development assistance more effective? Reporting . What has been the impact of congressionally mandated reporting on policy or outcomes? How, if at all, does Congress use these reports? What are the most and least useful reports that Congress receives on U.S. military and development efforts in Afghanistan? How, if at all, does Congress require agencies to evaluate their programs, and how does this inform reports to Congress? Has there been any evolution in specific monitoring and evaluation requirements? Bureaucracy. How has Congress shaped executive branch structure? Have these efforts been helpful? How direct a role should Congress play in mandating the establishment or nature of offices or other bureaucratic structures within the executive branch that work on Afghanistan? Personnel Issues . To what extent have U.S. efforts in Afghanistan been hampered by the frequent personnel turnover cited by many SIGAR interviewees? How, if at all, have congressional actions improved, undermined, or otherwise affected the ability of federal agencies to train and deploy capable workforces in Afghanistan? What congressional action, if any, is needed to help the executive branch, or individual departments, address this issue? Recommendations . What are the most important things that Congress could have been doing over the past 18 years to ensure U.S. success in Afghanistan? What can (and should) Congress do going forward?


The Budget Control Act: Frequently Asked Questions

Summary: When there is concern with deficit or debt levels, Congress will sometimes implement budget enforcement mechanisms to mandate specific budgetary policies or fiscal outcomes. The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25 ), which was signed into law on August 2, 2011, includes several such mechanisms.

Summary: The BCA as amended has three main components that currently affect the annual budget. One component imposes annual statutory discretionary spending limits for defense and nondefense spending. A second component requires annual reductions to the initial discretionary spending limits triggered by the absence of a deficit reduction agreement from a committee formed by the BCA. Third are annual automatic mandatory spending reductions triggered by the same absence of a deficit reduction agreement. Each of those components is described in further detail in this report. The discretionary spending limits (and annual reductions) are currently scheduled to remain in effect through FY2021, while the mandatory spending reductions are scheduled to remain in effect through FY2029.

Summary: Congress may modify or repeal any aspect of the BCA procedures, but such changes require the enactment of legislation. Several pieces of legislation have changed the spending limits or enforcement procedures included in the BCA with respect to each year from FY2013 through FY2029. These include the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA; P.L. 112-240 ), the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (BBA 2013; P.L. 113-67 , also referred to as the Murray-Ryan agreement), the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA 2015; P.L. 114-74 ), the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018; P.L. 115-123 ), and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 (BBA 2019; P.L. 116-37 ).

Summary: Those laws included changes to the discretionary limits imposed by the BCA that increased deficits in each year from FY2013 to FY2021. Under current law there are no discretionary spending caps in place for FY2022 and beyond. Following enactment of BBA 2019, the discretionary caps in FY2020 are scheduled to be approximately $667 billion for defense activities and $622 billion for nondefense activities, and the FY2021 discretionary caps are scheduled to be $672 billion for defense activities and $627 billion for nondefense activities.

Summary: This report addresses several frequently asked questions related to the BCA and the annual budget.

When there is concern with deficit or debt levels, Congress will sometimes implement budget enforcement mechanisms to mandate specific budgetary policies or fiscal outcomes. The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25 ) was the legislative result of extended budget policy negotiations between congressional leaders and President Barack Obama. These negotiations occurred in conjunction with the government's borrowing authority approaching the statutory debt limit.

Budget deficits in FY2009 through FY2011 averaged 9.0% of gross domestic product (GDP) and were higher than any other year since World War II. Those deficits were due to a number of factors, including reduced revenues and increased spending demands attributable to the Great Recession and costs associated with the economic stimulus package passed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ( P.L. 111-5 ).

The BCA includes several interconnected components related to the federal budget, some of which are no longer in effect. There are five primary components:

1. An authorization to the executive branch to increase the debt limit in three installments, subject to a disapproval process by Congress. (Those provisions were temporary and are no longer in effect.) 2. A one-time requirement for Congress to vote on an amendment to the Constitution to require a balanced budget . 3. The establishment of limits on defense discretionary spending and nondefense discretionary spending, enforced by sequestration (automatic, across-the-board reductions) in effect through FY2021. Under this mechanism, sequestration is intended to deter enactment of legislation violating the spending limits or, in the event that legislation is enacted violating these limits, to automatically reduce discretionary spending to the limits specified in law. 4. The establishment of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (often referred to as "the Joint Committee" or "the super committee"), which was directed to develop a proposal that would reduce the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over FY2012 to FY2021. 5. The establishment of an automatic process to reduce spending, beginning in 2013, in the event that Congress and the President did not enact a bill reported by the Joint Committee reducing the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. (Such a bill was not enacted.) This automatic process requires annual downward adjustments of the discretionary spending limits, as well as a sequester (automatic, across-the-board reduction) of nonexempt mandatory spending programs. In this case, sequestration was included to encourage the Joint Committee to agree on deficit reduction legislation or, in the event that such agreement was not reached, to automatically reduce spending so that an equivalent budgetary goal would be achieved.

2. What components of the BCA currently affect the annual budget?

The BCA as amended has three main components that currently affect the annual budget. One component imposes annual statutory discretionary spending limits for defense and nondefense spending. A second component requires annual reductions to the initial discretionary spending limits, triggered by the absence of a deficit reduction agreement from the Joint Committee. Third are annual automatic mandatory spending reductions triggered by the same absence of a deficit reduction agreement. Each of those components is described in further detail below.

The BCA established statutory limits on discretionary spending for FY2012-FY2021. (Such discretionary spending limits were first in effect between FY1991 and FY2002. ) There are currently separate annual limits for defense discretionary and nondefense discretionary spending. The defense category consists of discretionary spending in budget function 050 (national defense) only. The nondefense category includes discretionary spending in all other budget functions.

If discretionary appropriations are enacted that exceed a statutory limit for a fiscal year, across-the-board reductions (i.e., sequestration) of nonexempt budgetary resources within the applicable category are required to eliminate the excess spending. The BCA further stipulates that some spending is effectively exempt from the limits. Specifically, the BCA specifies that the enactment of certain discretionary spendingâsuch as appropriations designated as emergency requirements or for overseas contingency operationsâallows for an upward adjustment of the discretionary limits (meaning that such spending is effectively exempt from the limits).

Annual Reductions to the Discretionary Spending Limits

Another component of the BCA requires reductions to these discretionary spending limits annually. Due to the absence of the enactment of Joint Committee legislation to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the 10-year period (described above), the BCA requires these reductions to the statutory limits on both defense and nondefense discretionary spending for each year through FY2021.

These reductions are often referred to as a sequester, but they are not a sequester per se because they do not make automatic, across-the-board cuts to programs. Instead, they lower the spending limits, allowing Congress the discretion to develop legislation within the reduced limits.

For information on the spending limit amounts, see the section below titled " 9. How is discretionary spending currently affected by the BCA? "

Because legislation from the Joint Committee to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the 10-year period (described above) was not enacted, the BCA requires the annual sequester (automatic, across-the-board reductions) of nonexempt mandatory spending programs. This sequester was originally intended to occur each year through FY2021 but has been extended to continue through FY2029.

Many programs are exempt from sequestration, such as Social Security, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps). In addition, special rules govern the sequestration of certain programs, such as Medicare, which is limited to a 2% reduction. To see a list of direct spending programs included in the most recent sequester report, see the annual Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report to Congress on the Joint Committee sequester for FY2020.

For more information on the budgetary impact of the mandatory spending sequester, see the section below titled How is mandatory spending currently affected by the BCA?

3. What is a sequester and when will it occur?

A sequester provides for the enforcement of budgetary limits established in law through the automatic cancellation of previously enacted spending. This cancellation of spending makes largely across-the-board reductions to nonexempt programs, activities, and accounts. A sequester is implemented through a sequestration order issued by the President as required by law.

The purpose of a sequester is to enforce certain statutory budget requirementsâeither to discourage Congress from enacting legislation violating a specific budgetary goal or to encourage Congress to enact legislation that would fulfill a specific budgetary goal. One of the authors of the law that first employed the sequester recently stated, "It was never the objective ... to trigger the sequester; the objective ... was to have the threat of the sequester force compromise and action."

As mentioned above, sequestration is currently used as the enforcement mechanism for policies established in the BCA:

For the discretionary spending limits, a sequester will occur only if appropriations are enacted that exceed either the defense or nondefense discretionary limits. In such a case, sequestration is generally enforced when OMB issues a final sequestration report within 15 calendar days after the end of a session of Congress. In addition, a separate sequester may be triggered if the enactment of appropriations causes a breach in the discretionary limits during the second and third quarter of the fiscal year. In such an event, sequestration would take place 15 days after the enactment of the appropriation. If the enactment of appropriations causes the discretionary spending limits to be breached in the last quarter of the fiscal year, the spending limit for the following fiscal year for that category must be reduced by the amount of the breach. As mentioned above, the BCA requires reductions to these discretionary spending limits annually. These reductions are to be calculated by OMB and included annually in the OMB Sequestration Preview Report to the President and Congress , which is to be issued with the President's annual budget submission. The reductions would then apply to the discretionary spending limits for the budget year corresponding to the President's submission. While these reductions are often referred to as a sequester, they are not a sequester per se because they do not make automatic, across-the-board cuts to programs. Instead, they lower the spending limits, allowing Congress the discretion to develop legislation within the reduced limits. A sequester of nonexempt mandatory spending programs will take place each year through FY2029. These levels are also calculated by OMB and are included in the annual OMB report to Congress on the Joint Committee reductions, which is also to be issued with the President's budget submission. The sequester does not occur, however, until the beginning of the upcoming fiscal year.

4. What statutory changes have been made to the BCA?

Legislation has been enacted making changes to the spending limits or enforcement procedures included in the BCA for each year from FY2013 through FY2021. Some of the most significant of these changes are the following:

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA; P.L. 112-240 ) postponed the start of FY2013 sequester from January 2 to March 3 and reduced the amount of the spending reductions by $24 billion, among other things. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (BBA 2013; P.L. 113-67 , referred to as the Murray-Ryan agreement) increased discretionary spending limits for both defense and nondefense for FY2014, each by about $22 billion. In addition, it increased discretionary spending limits for both defense and nondefense for FY2015, each by about $9 billion. It also extended the mandatory spending sequester by two years through FY2023. Soon after the enactment of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, a bill was enacted to "ensure that the reduced annual cost-of-living adjustment to the retired pay of members and former members of the armed forces under the age of 62 required by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 will not apply to members or former members who first became members prior to January 1, 2014, and for other purposes ( P.L. 113-82 )." This legislation extended the direct spending sequester by one year through FY2024. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA 2015; P.L. 114-74 ) increased discretionary spending limits for both defense and nondefense for FY2016, each by $25 billion. In addition, it increased discretionary spending limits for both defense and nondefense for FY2017, each by $15 billion. It also extended the direct spending sequester by one year through FY2025. In addition, it established nonbinding spending targets for Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism (OCO/GWOT) levels for FY2016 and FY2017 and amended the limits of adjustments allowed under the discretionary spending limits for Program Integrity Initiatives. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018; P.L. 115-123 ) increased nondefense and defense discretionary limits in FY2018 and FY2019. In FY2018 BBA 2018 increased the defense limit by $80 billion (to $629 billion) and increased the nondefense limit by $63 billion (to $579 billion); in FY2019 it increased the defense limit by $85 billion (to $647 billion) and increased the nondefense limit by $68 billion (to $597 billion). BBA 2018 also extended the mandatory spending sequester by two years through FY2027. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 (BBA 2019; P.L. 116-37 ) increased discretionary spending limits for FY2020 and FY2021. In FY2020, it increased the discretionary defense cap by $90 billion, to $667 billion, and increased the nondefense cap by $78 billion, to $622 billion. In FY2021, it increased the discretionary defense cap by $81 billion, to $672 billion, and increased the nondefense cap by $72 billion, to $627 billion. BBA 2019 also extended the mandatory spending sequester by two years, through FY2029.

Congress may modify or repeal any aspect of the BCA procedures at its discretion, but such changes require the enactment of legislation. Since enactment of the BCA, subsequent legislation has modified both the discretionary spending limits and the mandatory spending sequester (as described above).

In considering the potential for Congress to reach agreement on future modifications to the BCA, particularly the discretionary spending limits, it may be worth noting the following:

Legislation that would modify the discretionary spending limit would be subject to the regular legislative process. Such legislation would therefore require House and Senate passage, as well as signature by the President or congressional override of a presidential veto. In the House, such legislation would require the support of a simple majority of Members voting, but in the Senate, consideration of such legislation would likely require cloture to be invoked, which requires a vote of three-fifths of all Senators (normally 60 votes) to bring debate to a close. Previous legislative increases to the discretionary spending limits have been coupled with future spending reductions, such as extensions of the mandatory spending sequester. For example, BBA 2013 extended the mandatory spending sequester by two years (from FY2021 to FY2023). Previous legislative increases to the discretionary spending limits have adhered to what has been referred to as the "parity principle." In essence, this means that some Members of Congress have insisted that any legislation changing the limits must increase each of the two limits (defense and nondefense) by equal amounts. For example, BBA 2015 increased discretionary spending limits for both defense and nondefense for FY2016, each by $25 billion. In addition, it increased discretionary spending limits for both defense and nondefense for FY2017, each by $15 billion.

6. Which types of legislation are subject to the discretionary spending limits?

Although the budget resolution may act as a plan for the upcoming budget year, it does not provide budget authority and therefore cannot trigger a sequester for violation of the discretionary spending limits. Nevertheless, budget resolutions are often referred to in terms of complying with, or not complying with, the discretionary spending limits.

Even if a budget resolution were agreed to that included planned levels of spending in excess of the discretionary spending limits, this would not supersede the discretionary spending limits stipulated by the BCA. While Congress may modify or cancel the discretionary spending limits at its discretion, such changes require the enactment of legislation.

Authorizations of discretionary appropriations, such as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), do not provide budget authority and therefore cannot trigger a sequester for violation of the discretionary spending limits. Although authorizations often include recommendations for funding levels, budget authority is subsequently provided in appropriations legislation. It is, therefore, appropriations legislation that could trigger a sequester. Nevertheless, authorizations (the NDAA in particular) are often discussed in terms of whether or not the authorized level of funding, if appropriated, would comply with the discretionary spending limits.

Even if an authorization bill were enacted that authorized appropriations at levels in excess of the discretionary spending limits, this authorization would not supersede the statutory discretionary spending limits stipulated by the BCA. While Congress may modify or cancel the discretionary spending limits at its discretion, such changes require the enactment of legislation.

Regular, Supplemental, and Continuing Appropriations

Appropriations legislation that provides budget authority for discretionary spending programs in excess of the discretionary spending limits can trigger a sequester for violation of the discretionary spending limits. This includes regular appropriations legislation, supplemental appropriations legislation, and continuing resolutions (CRs).

Any appropriations legislation enacted into law that provides budget authority in excess of the levels stipulated by the BCA would trigger a sequester, canceling previously enacted spending through automatic, largely across-the-board reductions of nonexempt budgetary resources within the category of the breach.

The statutory limits established by the BCA as amended apply to budget authority and not outlays. Budget authority is what federal agencies are legally permitted to obligate, and it is controlled by Congress through appropriation acts in the case of discretionary spending or through other acts in the case of mandatory spending. Budget authority gives federal officials the ability to spend. Outlays are disbursed federal funds. Until the federal government disburses funds to make payments, no outlays occur. Therefore, there is generally a lag between when Congress grants budget authority and when outlays occur.

7. Is some spending "exempt" or "excluded" from the BCA?

Some spending is regarded as "exempt" from the BCA. A distinction should be noted between categories of spending that are "excluded" from the discretionary spending limits and spending programs that are "exempt" from sequestration.

Some categories of spending are considered "exempt" or "excluded" from the discretionary spending limits, meaning that when an assessment is made as to whether the discretionary spending limits have been breached, they are not counted. (In precise terms, the BCA does not "exempt" such spending but allows for an upward adjustment of the discretionary limits to accommodate such spending.)

For example, spending designated as emergency requirements or for OCO/GWOT is effectively excluded from the discretionary spending limits up to any amount (meaning that the designation of such spending allows for an upward adjustment of the discretionary limits to accommodate that spending). The BCA does not define what constitutes this type of funding, nor does it limit the level or amount of spending that may be designated as being for such purposes.

Similarly, "disaster funding" and spending for "continuing disability reviews and redeterminations" and "healthcare fraud and abuse control" are effectively exempt up to a certain amount (again meaning that such spending allows for an upward adjustment of the discretionary limits to accommodate that spending), as are other programs.

Some programs are exempt from a sequester, such as Social Security, Medicaid, CHIP, TANF, and SNAP. In addition, special rules govern the sequestration of certain programs, such as Medicare, which is limited to a 2% reduction. These exemptions and special rules are found in Sections 255 and 256 of the BBEDCA, as amended, respectively.

It may also be helpful to review OMB sequester reports detailing programs that have been subject to sequester. To see a list of both discretionary and direct spending programs subject to the FY2013 sequester, see the OMB report to Congress on the Joint Committee sequestration for FY2013. To see a list of direct spending programs included in the most recent sequester report, see the annual OMB report to Congress on the Joint Committee sequester for FY2020.

8. How does the "parity principle" apply to the BCA?

The "parity principle" refers to the equality between changes made to defense and nondefense budget authority through some deficit reduction measures established by the BCA. While there has never been a statutory requirement to uphold the parity principle, budget parity has followed from deficit reduction measures imposed by the BCA and some of the subsequent amendments to its deficit reduction measures. The specific type of parity in each law evolved over time.

The BCA and ATRA reflected parity in the budgetary impact of changes to defense and nondefense budget authority across both discretionary and mandatory spending categories . Subsequent BCA amendments in BBA 2013 and BBA 2015 reflected parity between defense and nondefense budget authority for discretionary spending only , as those laws also extended automatic mandatory deficit reduction measures that had larger budget reductions for nondefense activities than for defense programs.

BBA 2018 reflected yet another type of parity, as the amended discretionary cap levels in FY2018 and FY2019 were increased by an equivalent amount relative to the initial BCA levels as established in August 2011. As compared with the caps after the automatic reductions took effect, BBA 2018 included larger increases to the defense caps than to the nondefense caps. As with BBA 2013 and BBA 2015, BBA 2018 also included an extension to the automatic mandatory spending reductions with a larger set of reductions for nondefense programs than for defense programs. BBA 2019 did not include increases that reflected any definition of the parity principle: as with BBA 2018 it imposed larger increases to defense programs than nondefense programs for FY2020 and FY2021, but the difference between the nondefense and defense caps in each year was smaller than the gap initially established by the BCA.

The BCA provides for upward adjustments to the discretionary caps, sometimes called spending "outside the caps," for budget authority devoted to OCO, emergency requirements, and other purposes. Budget authority for BCA upward adjustments has not reflected parity between defense and nondefense activities in any effective year of the BCA to date, as upward adjustments have allowed for more defense spending than nondefense spending in each year from FY2012 through FY2017 and FY2019, while upward adjustments were larger for defense spending than nondefense spending in FY2018.

The BCA includes annual statutory caps that limit how much discretionary budget authority can be provided for defense and nondefense activities. These limits are in effect through FY2021 and are enforced by sequestration, meaning that a breach of the discretionary spending limit for either category would trigger a sequester of resources within that category only to make up for the amount of the breach.

A second component of the BCA makes automatic decreases to these caps annually. In the absence of the enactment of a Joint Committee bill to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion, the BCA required downward adjustments (or reductions) to the statutory limit on both defense and nondefense spending each year through FY2021. While these reductions are often referred to as sequesters, they are not technically sequesters because they do not make automatic, across-the-board cuts to programs. The reductions instead lower the spending limits, allowing Congress the discretion to develop legislation within the reduced limits. These reductions are to be calculated annually by O MB and are included in the OMB Sequestration Preview Report to the President and Congress , which is issued with the President's annual budget submission.

The BCA stipulates that certain discretionary funding, such as appropriations designated as OCO or for emergency requirements, allows for an upward adjustment of the discretionary limits. OCO funding is therefore sometimes described as being "exempt" from the discretionary spending limits. The BCA does not define what constitutes this type of funding, nor does it limit the level of spending that may be designated as being for such purposes.

The BCA as enacted was estimated to reduce budget deficits by a cumulative amount of roughly $2 trillion over the FY2012-FY2021 period. Subsequent modifications enacted through ATRA, BBA 2013, and BBA 2015 lessened the level of deficit reduction projected to be achieved by the BCA in selected years. ATRA postponed FY2013 spending reductions and made them smaller. In contrast, BBA 2013, BBA 2015, BBA 2018, and BBA 2019 limited the deficit-reducing impact through increases in the discretionary budget authority caps in FY2014-FY2021.

Table 1 shows the evolution of discretionary spending limits established by the BCA from August 2011 through August 2019. The discretionary caps in FY2020 are currently scheduled to be $667 billion for defense activities and $622 billion for nondefense activities, higher than their totals of $647 billion and $597 billion, respectively, in FY2019. The combined discretionary limit in FY2020 ($1,288 billion) is $45 billion higher than its FY2019 value.

10. How is mandatory spending currently affected by the BCA?

The absence of an agreement by the Joint Committee triggered automatic spending reductions (as provided for in the BCA) for all mandatory programs that were not explicitly exempted from FY2013 through FY2021. Notably, Social Security payments were exempted from the automatic reductions, and the effect on Medicare spending was limited to 2% of annual payments made to certain Medicare programs. Extensions of the mandatory spending reductions were included in BBA 2013, BBA 2015, BBA 2018, and BBA 2019 and are currently scheduled to remain in place through FY2029. A recent OMB sequestration report estimated that such measures will reduce mandatory outlays by $20.7 billion in FY2020, with $19.86 billion of that total applied to nondefense programs and $0.84 billion applied to defense programs.

11. Why do discretionary outlays differ from the spending limits established by the BCA?

The limits on discretionary spending established by the BCA apply to budget authority, which is the amount that federal agencies are legally permitted to obligate. Outlays, meanwhile, are disbursed federal funds: In other words, they represent amounts that are actually spent by the government. There is generally a lag between when Congress grants budget authority and when outlays occur, and that lag can vary depending on the agency and specific purpose of the obligation. Furthermore, the budget may classify certain types of spending in a certain way when measuring budget authority and another way when measuring outlays. For example, much of the spending attached to the Highway Trust Fund is classified as mandatory spending when measuring budget authority and as discretionary spending when measuring outlays.

12. How has federal spending changed since enactment of theÂ BCA?

Budget deficits declined for much of the 1990s due to decreased spending, rising revenues, and an improved economy. The federal budget recorded surpluses from FY1998 through FY2001. Prior to that, the last budget surplus occurred in FY1969. Budget deficits returned starting in FY2002 and slowly increased over the next several years due to reduced revenues and increased spending. Net deficits peaked during the Great Recession from FY2009 to FY2011, as negative and low economic growth coupled with increased spending commitments provided for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ( P.L. 111-5 ) contributed to real deficits averaging 9.0% of gross domestic product (GDP) in those years.

Real deficits have declined since FY2011, due to the modifications made by the BCA, increased revenues, and the winding down of stimulus programs. However, the FY2019 deficit (4.3% of GDP, or $665 billion) remains higher than the average deficit since FY1969 (2.9% of GDP).The CBO baseline projects that real budget deficits will increase in future years.

13. How do modifications to the BCA affect baseline projections?

Modifications to the limits on discretionary spending, established by the BCA, change authorizations levels, which in turn affect outlays. CBO provides estimates of both discretionary spending effects and mandatory spending effects in its legislative cost estimates. Whether proposed legislation affects discretionary or mandatory spending may have ramifications for congressional budgetary enforcement procedures, however.

CBO's baseline projections assume that the discretionary limits imposed by the BCA as amended will proceed as scheduled through FY2021 and that discretionary spending levels will grow with the economy in subsequent years. Such methodology uses the discretionary spending levels in FY2021 as the basis for discretionary spending projections for the remainder of the budget window.