The Washington Post's Afghanistan Papers, which revealed U.S. lies and misuse of funds, exposed "scathing critiques of tactics employed" by the Obama and George W. Bush administrations and should be investigated by Congress, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., wrote Thursday in an opinion piece for Fox News.
The Post's investigation into the Afghanistan war found U.S. officials misled the public about the Afghanistan War for almost 20 years. The newspaper won the release of the nearly 2,000 documents it studied under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.
Blackburn said the Post's reporting "raised serious questions about the trustworthiness of an agency that has guided policy in Afghanistan for two decades."
"The immediate comparisons made between the documentation of interviews performed by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (or, "SIGAR,") and the notorious Pentagon Papers were unavoidable and jarring, and it will take time to determine if those comparisons are fair," she said.
"Still, it will be time well spent. SIGAR was created by Congress specifically to prevent fraud and excessive spending. For years, lawmakers, congressional staff, and foreign policy experts have relied on SIGAR to guide policy: money, resources, and lethal force are withheld or granted based in part on SIGAR's analysis."