[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6990]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE OF AMERICAN RESOURCES IN AFGHANISTAN NEEDS TO 
                                  STOP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I am again on the floor--I don't know how 
many times I have been on the floor--to talk about the waste, fraud, 
and abuse in Afghanistan. It just keeps going on and on.
  Last week there was a great article--I don't think it was really 
great, but a very disturbing article--in The Washington Post, and the 
title was ``Afghanistan Paid 11,000 Militants to Lay Down Their Arms. 
Now the Money Has Run Out.'' It was the American taxpayer who paid the 
militants to stop fighting and killing Americans.
  Somewhere along the way this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. 
We, the American taxpayers, have been paying fringe Taliban fighters 
not to fight for years. The article explained that there is little 
accountability of how that money is spent and where. We do not even 
know if paying fringe Taliban fighters not to fight is working. 
Further, committed Taliban fighters get money from other sources and 
still get money from the American taxpayer, and they are there to kill 
Americans. Somewhere along the way this just makes no sense at all.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record my letter to Speaker Ryan about 
the great work of John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan 
Reconstruction.

                                     House of Representatives,

                                   Washington, DC, April 14, 2016.
     Hon. Paul D. Ryan,
     Speaker of the House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Speaker, During the Easter District Work Period, I 
     read an Associated Press article about your support for 
     numerous spending cuts to the FY 2017 budget in order to 
     secure additional votes. While I support such efforts, it 
     remains difficult for me to comprehend why congressional 
     leadership continues to support the waste, fraud, and abuse 
     in Afghanistan.
       After over 14 years, and over $800 billion dollars, the 
     waste is more obvious today than ever before. I have enclosed 
     two articles for your review that detail the severity of the 
     situation. First is a USA Today story regarding Mr. John 
     Sopko's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee 
     that details the mysterious case of ``Schrodinger's goats,'' 
     in which $6 million was spent on nine male goats meant to 
     start a cashmere industry in Afghanistan, and whose status as 
     dead or alive cannot be confirmed. Second is an NBC story, 
     ``12 Ways Your Tax Dollars Were Squandered in Afghanistan'' 
     which, unfortunately, is only a small sample of the waste.
       Surprisingly, many in the Republican Party question why the 
     American public is so frustrated with our leadership. A 
     cursory look at the multitude of reports of the wasted 
     billions of dollars in Afghanistan should easily rationalize 
     the American people's frustration. Adding Afghanistan 
     spending to the chopping block will go a long way toward 
     gaining the support of the American people and restoring 
     fiscal sanity to Washington, DC. Nothing is changing in 
     Afghanistan--it continues to be the graveyard of empires and 
     with a growing debt surpassing $19 trillion, I believe that 
     America is heading for the graveyard.
       Mr. Speaker, I also encourage you to personally meet with 
     Mr. John Sopko, the Special Inspector General of Afghanistan 
     Reconstruction (SIGAR). The valuable work of SIGAR has 
     uncovered billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse in 
     Afghanistan, which we must stop.
       Thank you for your continued leadership and consideration 
     of this request. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Walter B. Jones,
                                               Member of Congress.

  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, in the letter to Mr. Ryan, I ask him, the 
Speaker of the House, if he would find 45 minutes in the very busy 
schedule that he has to meet with John Sopko. I have been in meetings, 
both formal and informal, with John Sopko, and other Members of 
Congress have, and his group, known as SIGAR, have given full reports 
every year for the past few years to talk about the failure of our 
policy in Afghanistan. I don't know why we in Congress continue to fund 
Afghanistan. It is nothing but a waste of life and money, and it needs 
to stop.
  Mr. Speaker, it is true now that we have fewer Americans killed in 
Afghanistan, but they still are being killed and wounded. I have a 
poster beside me that I have carried down to my district in North 
Carolina, as well as here in the House. For every one American that 
dies, I write a letter to the family. I have sent over 11,000 letters 
to families in this country. I started this when we had the war in 
Iraq, on which I failed to vote my conscience. I bought the 
misinformation from the Bush administration, and I voted to send our 
troops to Iraq.
  This picture is of a little girl standing there with her hand holding 
her mother's hand, with her finger in her mouth kind of wondering why 
her daddy is in a flag-draped coffin. This will continue to go on. 
There will be families across this Nation until we pull out of 
Afghanistan. Let Afghanistan take care of its own problems. We cannot 
buy friendship in Afghanistan.
  I close with this, Mr. Speaker. It was said many, many years ago 
about Afghanistan that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. With 
our $19 trillion debt, there will soon be a headstone in Afghanistan 
that says: ``USA.'' It is time to get out of Afghanistan.

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