On the recordFebruary 24, 2016
I have been coming to the floor for weeks and months to complain about the waste of money and life in Afghanistan. In the last couple weeks, I had an opportunity to read two articles. The first is titled, ``This is How the Pentagon Wasted $17 Billion in Afghanistan,'' by Emily Leayman. I would like to quote a couple of examples of the Pentagon's waste that she describes in her article. The Pentagon spent ``$8 billion for a failed drug war: Despite a 14- year effort, Afghanistan now leads the world in heroin production.'' The Pentagon also spent ``$486 million for useless aircraft: Speaking of planes, 20 planes could not be flown, and most were sold for scrap . . . Legislators like Senators John McCain and James Lankford are fed up with the lack of accountability in spending.'' Senators McCain and Lankford have joined me in bringing to the public's attention the lack of accountability in Afghanistan. It is astounding, to say the least. Mr. Speaker, last month John Sopko, the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services about a recent report he wrote on the waste in Afghanistan. In that report, he exposed that the Pentagon paid $6 million to buy nine male Italian goats--the reason they bought the goats from Italy was because they are blond in color--to send to western Afghanistan to set up a farm and try to boost the cashmere industry there in Afghanistan.…
