Claire McCaskill

I think the grade is not a good grade in terms of the amount of money we have spent and what we have for it in the long run.

It is ironically difficult to figure out how much we are spending and who is in charge.

Right. You cannot prove what you can prevent.

Let us talk about the initial price tag of the road...

I need to make sure that spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on the power grid and the power system in Afghanistan is, in fact, going to translate into defeating the Taliban.

But it is your money. What do you mean you are not deciding it is going to be built? This is money we appropriated to the Department of Defense.

Is it typical that you would have as many subcontractors as you have on this project?

Let us just get an overview here. Approximately how many different contracts does your company have in Afghanistan, Mr. Walker?

But I do think that we have played fast and loose, and sometimes sloppy, with the way we have spent this money.

I am most concerned about the money that was paid on security to folks that there is every indication that they are the bad guys.

Somebody has to be held accountable. There has to be somebody in the whole organization that has primary responsibility and accountability for these projects.

Have you done any projects that would be considered civilian infrastructure projects, electrical plants, health centers, schools, anything of that nature?

We have the front end deciding where the money is going to go, we have the middle portion which is actually letting the contracts in a cost-effective way and overseeing the contracts, and then at the back end, who do we hold accountable if…

I guess what I am trying to figure out here is, we have a $900 million fraud that has occurred at the Kabul Bank.

Well, it is sad to me that we are just now talking about that lesson learned because that lesson was learned many times in Iraq where the security environment changes and billions of dollars worth of investment was blown to smithereens…

I am not quarreling that we have to train the army. I am not quarreling we have to train the police.

How many of these subcontractors are Afghan companies?

But while we are pouring billions of dollars into the infrastructure of Afghanistan, because they have a GDP that is, I do not know, I think it is higher than $2 billion.

There is a disconnect between what the commanders in the field want to have happen and what actually happens.

And who made the decision as to what the level of attacks would be?

I am trying to figure out how much money we are spending and who is in charge.

OK. I have additional questions that I will ask in the next round, but I will now turn it over to Senator Portman.

But it is true that CERP has morphed into a program where we are now doing projects like building roads and building buildings.

OK. Thank you for that and we will have some followup questions on that.

Does the Defense Department have a certification process for sustainability before we spend any American money in Afghanistan?