Political Quotes

“All right. So one of the proposals I have had--I think it is a modest proposal and you would think it would be a no-brainer and should have been adopted unanimously, and that is to have an inspector general oversee the money. We have been doing this in Afghanistan for 20 years, but we still spent nearly $2 trillion in Afghanistan over 20 years. But at least there was someone trying to watch because in times of war, a lot of things happen. You talk about the fog of war? Sometimes there are atrocities, sometimes there is killing of civilians--almost always--but there is also a lot of stealing. They have a name for it. It used to have a bad connotation--``war profiteer.'' But it happens. In Afghanistan, there was a hotel being built, and it was being built across the street from our Embassy. It was framed out. It was halfway-- it was at least started. You could tell it was going to be a hotel. As it was being built, somebody said: Wow, looks like they will look right down into the courtyard of our Embassy. Somebody said: Wow, wouldn't that be a safety risk? The other one said: Yes, I think you are right. So the construction slowed down when they evaluated the possible safety risk of building a tall hotel looking down on our Embassy. Meanwhile, the guy who had the money fled to Jordan with $60 million. It was going to cost $80 million, and they put about $20 million into it. It was left there as an eyesore. My understanding is that it was eventually torn down.…”