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Washington • Fresh off a trip to the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rep. Jason Chaffetz says he questions whether the billions America is sending in aid is achieving its purpose or ending up in the wrong hands.
Chaffetz, R-Utah, and chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee over Foreign Operations, says the aim of the official trip to the region was to root out waste, fraud and abuse, and he came away with a list of things to investigate further.
"My concern is we're pouring literally hundreds of billions of dollars into Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, and yet I worry that our aid packages are fruitless," Chaffetz said from Madrid, Spain, his last stop before flying back to the United States.
"I'm off the charts proud of our troops and what they're doing, but the aid package [spending] is very questionable," Chaffetz added. "You just wonder if it's doing what it's supposed to do."
Chaffetz was joined on the weeklong trip by Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and GOP Reps. Todd Platts of Pennsylvania and Raul Labrador of Idaho as well as Democratic Reps. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Brian Higgins of New York.
The group met with leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, along with Gen. David Petraeus, the allied commander of troops in Afghanistan.
Chaffetz previously had called for either vastly increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan or removing all military forces. He said Thursday he backs Petraeus' work in the region but still wonders how the war will ever be considered victorious.
"I do question the long-term viability of what we're doing and our ability to sustain it and make some fundamental changes that need to happen in Afghanistan," Chaffetz said. "There are some metrics that make the situation very dire," such as education levels in the country and access to essentials such as electricity.
This trip marked Chaffetz's second time in Afghanistan and Iraq. The congressmen were supposed to travel to Egypt, but that leg was canceled because of the uprising there.