[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 23753]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN AID

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, day in and day out our soldiers in 
Afghanistan are fighting a resurgent Taliban that directs its 
activities out of the lawless regions of Pakistan. They are fighting 
bravely but are consistently undermined by the poor direction of 
resources meant to aid Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  It is deeply disturbing to hear that the Taliban are successfully 
diverting our own U.S. aid money to fund their insurgency. According to 
recent reports from GlobalPost, the Taliban has extorted as much as $80 
million from American aid contractors in just the last year. Taliban 
insurgents insist on getting a cut before projects are built in areas 
under their control, and then they turn around and use these funds to 
fight coalition forces. Further reports out of Pakistan indicate that 
billions of dollars in military aid from the U.S. was diverted to 
nonmilitary purposes over the course of the last 6 years.
  This region must not become a haven for worldwide terrorism. 
Supporting our troops means that we must do everything in our power to 
root out this corruption and stop our tax dollars from being diverted 
to our enemies or misused by our allies.

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