Political Quotes

“My amendment is pretty simple. It requests that the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense, 120 days after the passage of this bill, submit a plan and execute the plan to develop a coordinated strategy between our intelligence communities and our Department of Defense to go after IED manufacturers and IED transporters between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The majority of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan come from Pakistan. We know where a lot of those IED manufacturers are, but our DOD is not able to execute the strategy of going after those IED manufacturers and the people that transport them across the border on their own. They need the intelligence community and the 16 agencies which make up that community to be on their side. More than 80 percent of the explosive devices used against our U.S. troops in Afghanistan have homemade explosives as the main charge and are almost exclusively derived from calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced in Pakistan. Homemade explosives are also called HMEs. The vast majority of IED components, including commercial explosives, radio-control triggers, and HME precursors are sourced from and/or transmitted through Pakistan. The continued uncontrolled availability of ammonium nitrate and other HME precursor materials smuggled into Afghanistan from Pakistan is the most significant factor contributing to the Afghan IED problem.…”