John Garamendi: “We've had a lot of discussion here in the last several minutes about Afghanistan. This amendment follows along the same…”

“We've had a lot of discussion here in the last several minutes about Afghanistan. This amendment follows along the same line, but it's actually far greater in dollars. Last year, we appropriated $5.1 billion to the Afghanistan National Army for their support. In this year's budget, an additional $2.6 billion was added for--who knows what? It was $2.6 billion of American taxpayer money for something--airplanes? supplies? support equipment? trucks? It was unspecified, unknown, to be used by one of the most corrupt governments--no, excuse me--the most corrupt government in the world. $2.6 billion of American taxpayer money for something, unspecified, to be used somewhere, somehow--I suspect, more likely, in some bank account in Bahrain. What are we doing? What justification is there for $2.6 billion of additional expenditure for the Afghan National Army? Have we lost our minds? No. We're just going to lose our money. What is going on here? What are we doing? What is this all about? This money should never be spent for some unspecified purpose. We take our Department of Defense, and we hold them to a very tight account. We don't let them spend money without a contract, without reviews by the inspector general, without reviews by our committee, but here is $2.6 billion, unspecified. Oh, Mr. Karzai, use it wisely. Come on. Come on. Let's not do this. This amendment would simply say, You can't have that money. I reserve the balance of my time.”