On the recordJuly 23, 2013
Don't want to. Thank you for the clarification. Mr. Chairman, by any measure, we won't and have not and will not fail those people because we have sacrificed so great a measure of treasure and loss of life. We have met every obligation to the people of Afghanistan. And look, our principle and primary and exclusive obligation, of course, is to the American people. The best indicator of future performance is past performance. We have not demonstrated competence, as much as we've tried and good people have given their all. In fact, some of our civilians at USAID, as we all know, have given their life in this effort. But we have not demonstrated a competency to advance these projects, and here are the facts on the economy. The entire revenue stream for the Afghan government is about a billion dollars a year. We've raised up a military operation there, the Afghan army and police, the largest employer by far in the country, that has an annual expenditure of about 7 or $8 billion. Look, the math doesn't work. We've created a structure here that's going to require, absent some difficult decisions, a sharp reduction of expenditures there. I yield back the balance of my time.
