THE TRIFECTA OF SQUANDER: ‘WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE’: The office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, has updated its report on the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse involving U.S. government funds spent in Afghanistan over the past decade, adding $3.4 billion to the total for the period Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019.
“Of this total, we specifically identified approximately $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds that we believe were wasted, $300 million that were lost to fraud, and $34 million that we believe were lost due to abuse,” said John Sopko, the special inspector general. “The remaining $1.6 billion was allocated to counternarcotics efforts that we believe were wasted.”
ONE-THIRD OF FUNDS WASTED: The report notes that since 2002, the U.S. has pumped nearly $134 billion into Afghanistan to try to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and institutions, with nearly one-third of the money siphoned off by corruption or wasted on ill-conceived or poorly executed projects.
“SIGAR [investigators] reviewed approximately $63 billion and concluded that a total of approximately $19 billion or 30 percent of the amount reviewed was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse,” said Sopko.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Among the examples of wasteful spending, theft, or corruption discovered over the past two years:
- An unused sports stadium in Kunduz province that was not designed correctly and lacked a functioning irrigation system. SIGAR found clear indications of poor workmanship and a lack of maintenance, including falling ceiling tiles, broken drainage. Instead of soccer matches, the stadium was used as a base for military operations during heavy fighting against the Taliban.
- Books delivered to schools as part of the Afghan Children Read program that were not in usable condition.
- An Afghan transport company allegedly cut open containers and removed $14 million in U.S. government property before resealing and transporting containers.
- $1.5 million embezzled from the Afghan Ministry of Police Cooperative Fund.
- An Afghan stole a firetruck and a pick-up truck from a U.S. military base and sold them. The combined value of the vehicles was $801,071.
- For five years, individuals were fraudulently selling U.S. Embassy Kabul meal cards worth between $50,000 and $80,000 monthly for a total loss to the U.S. of $3 million.
- A former translator with the U.S. Special Forces, who with the help of Special Forces members, started up a trucking and logistics company and paid $140,000 in bribes and gratuities to U.S. service members to assist him in obtaining work, worth $70 million.
The updated report was produced at the request of Republican Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Democratic Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont.
Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Victor I. Nava. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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HAPPENING TODAY: House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith D-Wash., will conduct an on-the-record, off-camera call with reporters at 12 noon.
ALSO TODAY: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., meets at 3:30 pm. with Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s nominee for associate justice of the Supreme Court. Barrett is making the rounds of Republicans in the Senate and will also have office visits this afternoon with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.
TRUMP UNHAPPY LAST DEBATE IS NOT ALL ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY: President Trump isn’t backing out of tomorrow night’s final debate with Joe Biden, but he’s once again complaining that the rules are designed to help Joe Biden and disadvantage him.
“This was supposed to be a foreign policy debate. And now all of a sudden, we’re talking about things that are not foreign policy,” Trump said in an interview with Fox yesterday. “They made a change, and it shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have happened.”
The Commission on Presidential Debates says both candidates agreed to the rules months ago, which included a provision that the moderators would pick the topics for each delegate. Tomorrow night’s moderator, NBC’s Kristen Welker, has set aside one 15-minute segment for national security, with the others covering the coronavirus pandemic, American families, race in America, climate change, and leadership.
Trump has complained that Welker is not impartial, and his campaign suggested the topics were selected to limit discussion of Biden’s son Hunter’s involvement with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
“Kristen Welker is terrible. I mean, she is totally partisan,” Trump told Fox. “Her father and mother are big supporters of Joe Biden for a long time … I mean, it would be nice to have a host that can be, you know, not necessarily a contributor to the campaigns and to Democrats.”
Trump leveled similar charges of bias against Fox’s Chris Wallace, who moderated the first debate. “I know you’ll defend him, but so was Chris Wallace, he was terrible,” Trump told Fox host Ainsley Earhardt. “It was like two on one, and that was just fine with me. But, at least they should admit that it was two on one.”
‘I VOTED FOR JOE BIDEN’: Retired Adm. William McRaven, the former U.S. special operations commander who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, says despite being “a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, small-government, strong-defense and a national-anthem-standing conservative,” he voted in Texas for Joe Biden.
McRaven revealed his early vote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which he wrote, “We need a president who understands the importance of American leadership, at home and abroad. We need a leader of integrity whose decency and sense of respect reflects the values we expect from our president. We need a president for all Americans, not just half of America.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, McRaven said, “The world no longer looks up to America …They no longer think we can lead, because they have seen an ineptness and a disdain for civility that is beyond anything in their memory.”
In an interview on CNN, McRaven said revealing his vote for Biden was a difficult decision. “There’s a little bit of an unwritten rule that senior officers don’t come out and endorse a candidate,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “However, I felt that the direction of the country was heading, in such a bad direction, that we needed a new leadership and that Joe Biden will be a much, much better leader than Donald Trump.”
A TWEET IS NOT AN ORDER: It’s a question that has bedeviled the Pentagon since the beginning of Trump’s term. When the president tweets, as he did two weeks ago saying U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be home by Christmas, is that an order or merely an observation?
Enter White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who told a federal court that Trump’s recent tweets related to the declassification of secretive Trump-Russia documents were not declassification orders.
“The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents,” Meadows said in signed court-filing by the Justice Department yesterday.
NATO SPENDING UP 4.3%: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, briefing reporters before the start of tomorrow’s two-day virtual defense ministerial, released the latest figures on how much each of the 30 member nations is spending on their own defense, a key benchmark of NATO readiness.
“They show that this year will be the sixth consecutive year of increased defense spending by European Allies and Canada, with a real increase of 4.3%,” Stoltenberg said, “We expect this trend to continue.”
The latest report shows that as of this month, 10 of the 30 nations have met the goal of spending at least 2% of GDP on defense, a pledge all members have made to reach by 2024. Those countries are the U.S. (3.87%), Greece (2.58%), the U.K (2.43%), Romania (3.28%), Estonia (3.28%), Latvia (2.32%), Poland (2.3%), Lithuania (2.28%), France (2.11%), and Norway (2.03%).
“So, we have a lot more work to do. We need countries to contribute more,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at an Atlantic Council forum yesterday. “Not because it’s some arbitrary threshold, I think it’s a solid floor upon which to build upon because if you have that capability — again, we will deter conflict and we won’t have to worry about the things that we have concerned ourselves about right now.”
Germany, with spending at 1.57% of GDP, and Canada at 1.45%, did not make the list of countries meeting their defense spending obligations.
NATO CALLS FOR EXTENDING NEW START: Stoltenberg said this morning he welcomed reported progress made in the last few days in nuclear arms negotiations between the United States and Russia, including a preliminary agreement that could avert the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, New START, in February.
“We have a long track-record on nuclear disarmament,” Stoltenberg said. “We have reduced the number of NATO nuclear weapons in Europe by more than 90% over the last 30 years. What is now at stake is the future of the New START agreement, which expires early next year. Allies support the extension of New START by the United States and Russia.”
Yesterday Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, and Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, sent a letter to President Trump urging an extension of the treaty, calling it “vital” to U.S. national security.
You can read the letter here.
INDUSTRY WATCH: Lockheed Martin Corporation yesterday reported third-quarter 2020 net sales of $16.5 billion, compared to $15.2 billion in the third quarter of 2019. Net earnings from continuing operations in the third quarter of 2020 were $1.8 billion, or $6.25 per share, compared to $1.6 billion, or $5.66 per share, in the third quarter of 2019.
“In the third quarter, our dedicated workforce and resilient supply chain continued to support our customers’ vital national security missions, overcoming the challenges of the pandemic,” said James Taiclet, Lockheed Martin president and CEO, in a press release. “As a result, we delivered strong results across our key financial metrics and we expect to build on this success through the remainder of the year.”
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Mark Meadows tells court Trump’s ‘Russia Hoax’ tweets not declassification orders
Washington Examiner: How Air Force’s ICBM missileers deal with stress and isolation during coronavirus restrictions in the middle of nowhere
Washington Examiner: US and Russia ‘make progress’ on nuclear arms deal extension
Washington Examiner: Esper urges Indo-Pacific allies to increase defense spending as Quad plans naval drills
Washington Examiner: Education Department warns about ‘national security risks’ posed by Chinese funding on campus
Marine Corps Times: Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa commander fired
Talk Media News: ‘No free riders’ for those seeking to have the US ‘the global security partner of choice,’ Esper declares
Washington Post: Senators urge Pentagon to suspend implementation of Army’s new fitness test
Military.com: The Marines Are Paying A University $2M To Study The Best Way To Run Coed Boot Camp
USNI News: U.S., U.K. Navies Working To Achieve ‘Interchangeability’ In Carrier Forces, Collaboration On Unmanned And AI
AP: NATO To Set Up New Space Center Amid China, Russia Concerns
AP: Greece Asks EU Countries To Halt Military Exports To Turkey
Bloomberg: ‘Xi Thought’ Is Creeping Into Everything From Chinese Sci-Fi To Company Filings
USNI News: Despite Military Improvements, Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Still ‘Highly Risky’ Says Former Pentagon Official
New York Times: Sudan Exults At U.S. Removal Of Terror State Designation
Military.com: ‘Terminal Lance,’ Kyle Carpenter And Mattis Just Made The Commandant’s Reading List
AP: Navy Jet Crashes In California, But Pilot Ejects Safely
Forbes: Get Ready For President Biden To Throw U.S. Security Policies Into Reverse
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 21
5 a.m. Brussels, Belgium — NATO Secretary General Jens Soltenberg briefed reporters ahead of the meetings of the NATO defense ministers, taking place via tele-conference tomorrow and Friday. https://www.nato.int
9 a.m. — Air Force Association Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies “Aerospace Nation” forum with Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chief of staff of the Air Force. Invitation only. Video posted afterward at https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org.
9:30 a.m. — Henry L. Stimson Center webinar: “The Future of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance,” with former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Tom Hubbard, Renato DeCastro, professor at De La Salle University; and William Wise, nonresident fellow at Stimson. https://www.stimson.org/event
10 a.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual media briefing on “U.S. Policy Toward Taiwan,” with Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia at CSIS; and Bonnie Glaser, director of the CSIS China Power Project. https://www.csis.org/events/csis-press-briefing
12 p.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual conference: “International Security at the Nuclear Nexus,” with Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command. https://www.csis.org/events/online-event
12 p.m. — Washington Space Business Roundtable webinar on “the profound strategic impact of China’s space activities on U.S. interests,” with Nicholas Eftimiades, professor at Penn State University. https://www.wsbr.org/events/virtual-program
1 p.m. — Center for Security Policy webinar: “New U.S. Security Threats and America First,” with Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; Harry Kazianis, senior director of korean studies at the Center for the National Interest; and Fred Fleitz, president and CEO, Center for Security Policy. https://register.gotowebinar.com/register
2 p.m. (new time/date) — Center for a New American Security Fireside Chat with Brett Goldstein, director, Defense Digital Service, with CNAS senior fellows Susanna Blume and Paul Scharre. https://cnas.zoom.us/webinar/register
3 p.m. — Blue Star Families and Association for Defense Communities virtual webinar: “COVID-19 6-Months In Review,” with Matthew Donovan, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, discussing lessons learned from COVID-19’s impact on the U.S. military. https://covid19militarysupport.org/event
4:30 p.m. — Intelligence National Security Alliance webinar with Katie Arrington, chief information security officer in the Office of the Defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment. https://www.insaonline.org/event
7 p.m. — Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute book discussion with former national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World. https://www.reaganfoundation.org/programs-events
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 22
6 a.m. Brussels, Belgium — Two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers chaired by the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. https://www.nato.int
8 a.m. — Brookings Institution webinar: “Arms Control and Strategic Stability: Chinese Perspectives,” with retired Chinese Gen. Yao Yunzhu, director of the Academy of Military Science of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Center of China-American Defense Relations; Li Bin, professor at Tsinghua University; Frank Rose, co-director of the Brookings Center for Security, Strategy and Technology; and Lindsey Ford, fellow in the Brookings Center for East Asia Policy Studies. https://www.brookings.edu/events/arms-control
8:30 a.m. — Henry L. Stimson Center webinar: “Multilateralism and Armed Drones: Escaping the Gridlock,” with William Malzahn, senior policy adviser in the State Department’s Office of Conventional Arms Threat Reduction; UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings Agnes Callamard; Maritza Chan, deputy permanent representative of the mission of Costa Rica to the UN; Wim Zwijnenburg, humanitarian disarmament project leader at PAX; and Rachel Stohl, vice president of Stimson. https://www.stimson.org/event
9 a.m. — Northrop Grumman Corporation conference call to announce its third quarter 2020 financial results. http://investor.northropgrumman.com
9:30 a.m. — Washington Post Live virtual book discussion on Undaunted: My fight Against America’s Enemies, At Home and Abroad, with author John Brennan, former CIA director; and David Ignatius, columnist at the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live
10 a.m. — Government Executive Media Group virtual 2020 Genius Machines Summit, with Jane Pinelis, test, evaluation and assessment chief at the Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center; Andrew Brooks, chief data scientist at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; Douglas Terrier, NASA chief technologist; and Eileen Vidrine, chief data officer at the Air Force. https://www.defenseone.com/feature/genius-machines
12 p.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies webcast: “Toward a Stronger U.S.-Taiwan Relationship,” with Richard Bush, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies; Bonnie Glaser, director of the CSIS China Power Project; and Michael Green, Japan chair at CSIS. https://www.csis.org/events/online-event
12:45 p.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual conference: “International Security at the Nuclear Nexus,” with former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. https://www.csis.org/events/online-event
TBA — Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies “Nuclear Deterrence” forum with Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Invitation only. Video posted afterward at https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org.
9 p.m. Nashville, Tenn. — Belmont University hosts the third presidential debate of 2020 with President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
FRIDAY | OCTOBER 23
10 a.m. — Brookings Institution webinar: “The Defense Industrial Base and the Future of Warfare,” with Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md.; Mitch Snyder, president and CEO of Bell; and Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/events
10 a.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies webcast: “Tackling the Pandemic in Situations of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence, with Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations Denise Natali; Franck Bousquet, senior director of the World Bank’s Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence; and James Schear, adjunct senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. https://www.csis.org/events/online-event
TUESDAY | OCTOBER 27
3 p.m. — Heritage Foundation webcast: “The Fight to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine: The Inside Story of the Administration’s Operation Warp Speed,” with Army Gen. Gus Perna, chief operating officer for Operation Warp Speed; and Matthew Hepburn, M.D., head, vaccine development, Operation Warp Speed. https://www.heritage.org/public-health/event
WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 28
9 a.m. — General Dynamics conference call webcast to release third-quarter 2020 financial results. https://www.gd.com/
10:30 a.m. — The Boeing Company releases financial results for the third quarter of 2020, with President and CEO David Calhoun and CFO Greg Smith, executive vice president of enterprise operations. https://investors.boeing.com/investors
FRIDAY | OCTOBER 30
5:30 p.m. — Air Force Association virtual discussion “Airmen in the Fight: AFA Roll Call” with Gen. Stephen “Seve” Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I am fully confident that we would prevail in any conflict today, hands down, no doubt whatsoever … and I’m also equally confident that we are doing that right now in terms of the funding we are putting into things such as hypersonics, directed energy, artificial intelligence, you name it.”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaking Tuesday at the Atlantic Council.
