MSNBC - Transcript

Interview

MR. SCOTT: Our partnership with Pakistan, the subject of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing underway right now. This comes as we're getting word that the U.S. has given as much as $2 billion to Pakistan's army with virtually no strings attached. The funds are meant to reimburse the country for its counterterrorism expenses. But according to a newly released government audit, there are millions of dollars in sort of questionable costs.

Joining us now, Senator Robert Menendez, he's a Democrat from New Jersey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has stepped out of that hearing to talk to us right now. He's also the chair of the subcommittee that oversees foreign assistance programs.

And senator, I guess your complaint is that the number is even larger than $2 billion, right?

SEN. MENENDEZ: We've spent, Jon, nearly $6 billion since September 11th for the military in Pakistan, $10 billion overall and we've seen two critical reports from the Government Accountability Office, one issued about a month ago that said that notwithstanding all that money, we don't have a comprehensive plan and strategy to deal with the terrorists' challenge along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in this tribal area. And secondly, the one that just came out that said despite this money being spent, we have a series of circumstances where, for example, 200 odd million dollars was established for an air defense system where there's no real challenge in that regard, $45 million for roads and bunkers that haven't been built, $19,000 a day, I mean, a month per vehicle for a series of vehicles for the Pakistani navy, $19,000 per month per vehicle.

So there's a lot of money being misspent here and we still don't have the ability to deal with that tremendous challenge to the United States.

MR. SCOTT: Well, whose job is it to keep an eye on that money?

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, certainly, the Department of Defense and that's why the assistant deputy secretary was before the committee today because they're the ones who had the accountability responsibility to make sure that the monies that the administration asked for and that Congress approved was going for the appropriate purposes, and because so many of us began to question whether or not that was being done effectively, we asked for the Government Accountability report that now has given us the open window into how, in fact, this money was misused.

MR. SCOTT: Your fellow senator, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Republican, is saying, gave us a statement or issued a statement at the hearing; you probably heard it yourself. He's talking about the fact that, you know, nobody likes to see money misspent, but he had this to say and let me see if I can get the quote up in front of me. "The United States," he says, "should make clear to the people of Pakistan that our interests are focused on, focused not on supporting a particular leader or party, but on democracy, pluralism, stability and the fight against violence and extremism. These are values supported by a large majority of the Pakistani people."

Is this a Republican-Democrat issue? I mean there doesn't seem to be great divide between what the two of you are saying.

SEN. MENENDEZ: No. I agree with Senator Lugar in that statement. The reality is that Pakistan is critical to us in fighting the resurgence of al Qaeda along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where Osama bin Laden is hiding, the perpetrators of September 11th.

So we are in common cause here. The question is: Let us not spend our money in a way that doesn't achieve the goal. When the Government Accountability Office says that $10 billion later between military and development assistance, we don't have a strategic plan as to how we achieve success in defeating al Qaeda in that region and, secondly, when it says that money being spent on the military side is being spent in ways that don't pursue our goals then that is fundamentally wrong and there's a difference between misspending money and achieving our national goals.

MR. SCOTT: But you would agree with Senator Lugar, wouldn't you, that continued investment in countries like Pakistan is important? That if you can get jobs and companies and things like that and get an economy going, you provide work for, you know, peace-loving people and you sort of take away the high ground that some of the terrorists have?

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, if we spend our money right, the answer is yes, Jon. The question just before I stepped out of the hearing asked the administrator from AID, which is our international development assistance agency, well, how are your preparing to spend any future money in the context of a counterinsurgency situation? We just can't look at development assistance in the normal way in this region. This is a region where tribal leaders very often are engaged with al Qaeda, either because of fear or cooperation.

We've got to look at our development assistance in a way that accomplishes the goal of creating stability and friends and allies to the United States in pursuit of al Qaeda in that region. If we're not doing that, then we're misspending the taxpayers' money.

MR. SCOTT: New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat. Thank you.

SEN. MENENDEZ: Good to be with you.

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