Pentagon Wastefulness in Afghanistan

Floor Speech

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Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I have been coming to the floor for weeks and months to complain about the waste of money and life in Afghanistan. In the last couple weeks, I had an opportunity to read two articles. The first is titled, ``This is How the Pentagon Wasted $17 Billion in Afghanistan,'' by Emily Leayman. I would like to quote a couple of examples of the Pentagon's waste that she describes in her article.

The Pentagon spent ``$8 billion for a failed drug war: Despite a 14- year effort, Afghanistan now leads the world in heroin production.'' The Pentagon also spent ``$486 million for useless aircraft: Speaking of planes, 20 planes could not be flown, and most were sold for scrap . . . Legislators like Senators John McCain and James Lankford are fed up with the lack of accountability in spending.''

Senators McCain and Lankford have joined me in bringing to the public's attention the lack of accountability in Afghanistan. It is astounding, to say the least.

Mr. Speaker, last month John Sopko, the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services about a recent report he wrote on the waste in Afghanistan. In that report, he exposed that the Pentagon paid $6 million to buy nine male Italian goats--the reason they bought the goats from Italy was because they are blond in color--to send to western Afghanistan to set up a farm and try to boost the cashmere industry there in Afghanistan. Now, the Pentagon doesn't even know where the goats are. And the sad thing is, as Mr. Sopko said to the Senate, ``We don't know where the goats are. They might have been eaten''--$6 million. Mr. Speaker, American people could do a lot with $6 million, I assure you. And they wouldn't be spending $6 million for nine goats, that I am certain.

The report that Mr. Sopko made reference to is titled, ``Report Cites Wasted Pentagon Money in Afghanistan.'' Mr. Speaker, the waste goes on and on and on, and yet we in the House every year will send more and more money to Afghanistan. We have already been there 14 years. We are going to be there another 8 years because President Obama signed an agreement with Mr. Ghani to be there for 9 more years. We have already been there 1 year, and that means 8 more years. That is 22 years.

General Campbell, who has been the leader in Afghanistan, but is leaving, says that we need more years to train the Afghans to have a security force. I guess we are going to be there 30 years. I will be dead and gone, for sure, by then.

What a waste of life and money in Afghanistan. It is time for this Congress to meet its responsibility and put pressure on the administration and stop funding Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, I have a poster here. The reason I bring this poster to the floor is to show the sad tragedy of war. There is a wife and a little girl. The husband and daddy is in a flag-draped casket.

The reason I bring this matter to the floor is that I have signed over 11,000 letters to families and extended families who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last Sunday I signed one letter for an Army sergeant who died in Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, I thought: How sad. How sad it is for that family. It is just so sad.

It doesn't have to happen. We need to debate bringing our troops home from Afghanistan, and we need to debate stopping the funding for the war in Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, before closing, I want to remind the House that this is the longest war in the history of America. I don't know who said it, but they said it right: Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.

I know there is going to be a headstone that says that the empire known as America spent so much blood and money in Afghanistan. It is financially broke. We are $19.1 trillion in debt right now.

Let's bring our troops out of Afghanistan. Let them fight the civil war themselves and decide what they want for Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, I ask God to please bless our men and women in uniform, bless the families of our men in uniform. And, God, please continue to bless America.

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