Trump Discovers Obama Spending $300 MILLION On Fake Army...
Apr 25, 2017 18:31:34 #
Don G. Dinsdale
Loc: El Cajon, CA (San Diego County)
Trump Discovers Obama Was Spending $300 Million On Fake Afghan Soldiers, Gives Pentagon New Orders
By Ben Marquis ~ Apr 25, 2017 ~ Conservative Tribune
Millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars were being foolishly wasted paying for the salaries of non-existent “ghost” soldiers and policemen in Afghanistan under the Obama administration, but no more.
According to the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, who recently sat down for an interview with Sharyl Attkinson of Full Measure, the ongoing problem may have been worse than anyone realized, but was being addressed by President Donald Trump’s Pentagon.
“We’ve been raising this concern about ghosts going back a number of years,” Sopko said. “Actually I want to say we heard about it from (Afghan President) Ashraf Ghani years ago, before he became president, he warned me about ‘ghosts,’ so we started looking three years ago.”
“What we’re talking about are policemen, Afghan policemen, Afghan military, Afghan civil servants who don’t exist or they have multiple identity cards and we’re paying their salaries,” he explained. “By ‘we’ I mean the United States and the international community. And we started finding out that we had no capacity to measure the number of soldiers, teachers, doctors, military people who we are paying their salaries.”
Fox News reported in October that the fraud could have amounted to more than $300 million annually.
Asked if this indicated fraud had been taking place, Sopko replied: “Major fraud. And what’s happening is the commanders or generals or other higher officials are actually pocketing the salaries of the ghosts.”
“And I remember President Ghani again, at that time he wasn’t president, saying, ‘John, you the United States government are paying the salary of an Afghan who’s a teacher, he’s a civil servant, he’s a doctor, he is a policeman, and he’s a soldier. And it’s the same Afghan. And he doesn’t exist,'” Sopko explained.
“It’s not just the salaries,” he added. “But we’re funding schools based upon the number of students, so if you invent or inflate the number of students, you’re going to be paying more money. On the soldiers and the police, we’re paying for extra boots, for food, for everything else, logistics for numbers that don’t exist.”
Sopko had alerted the Pentagon on numerous occasions to what he had discovered in 2016, but little was done to address the issue by the administration of President Barack Obama, though Fox News reported that the Pentagon had stated at the time that they would soon implement certain measures to try and combat the rampant fraud bilking U.S. taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Guided by the new no-nonsense leadership of the Defense Department under Trump, it would appear that those measures, among many others, were being implemented in Afghanistan with measurable results.
According to the Independent Journal Review, Attkinsson noted that the Pentagon had implemented a biometric system that checked such things as fingerprints, photographs and even blood type in an effort to obtain “proof of life” of Afghan service members in order to weed out the non-existent “ghosts” that have cost taxpayers so much.
In fact, the Pentagon claimed that it had already enrolled in the program “up to 95 percent of the Afghan police and 70-80 percent of soldiers” in the Afghan National Army.
While it is highly doubtful that any of the taxpayer dollars lost through this fraud will ever be recovered, at least steps have been taken to ensure more dollars aren’t similarly wasted in the seemingly never-ending bid to reconstruct Afghanistan.
http://conservativetribune.com/trump-obama-spending-afghanistan/
By Ben Marquis ~ Apr 25, 2017 ~ Conservative Tribune
Millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars were being foolishly wasted paying for the salaries of non-existent “ghost” soldiers and policemen in Afghanistan under the Obama administration, but no more.
According to the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, who recently sat down for an interview with Sharyl Attkinson of Full Measure, the ongoing problem may have been worse than anyone realized, but was being addressed by President Donald Trump’s Pentagon.
“We’ve been raising this concern about ghosts going back a number of years,” Sopko said. “Actually I want to say we heard about it from (Afghan President) Ashraf Ghani years ago, before he became president, he warned me about ‘ghosts,’ so we started looking three years ago.”
“What we’re talking about are policemen, Afghan policemen, Afghan military, Afghan civil servants who don’t exist or they have multiple identity cards and we’re paying their salaries,” he explained. “By ‘we’ I mean the United States and the international community. And we started finding out that we had no capacity to measure the number of soldiers, teachers, doctors, military people who we are paying their salaries.”
Fox News reported in October that the fraud could have amounted to more than $300 million annually.
Asked if this indicated fraud had been taking place, Sopko replied: “Major fraud. And what’s happening is the commanders or generals or other higher officials are actually pocketing the salaries of the ghosts.”
“And I remember President Ghani again, at that time he wasn’t president, saying, ‘John, you the United States government are paying the salary of an Afghan who’s a teacher, he’s a civil servant, he’s a doctor, he is a policeman, and he’s a soldier. And it’s the same Afghan. And he doesn’t exist,'” Sopko explained.
“It’s not just the salaries,” he added. “But we’re funding schools based upon the number of students, so if you invent or inflate the number of students, you’re going to be paying more money. On the soldiers and the police, we’re paying for extra boots, for food, for everything else, logistics for numbers that don’t exist.”
Sopko had alerted the Pentagon on numerous occasions to what he had discovered in 2016, but little was done to address the issue by the administration of President Barack Obama, though Fox News reported that the Pentagon had stated at the time that they would soon implement certain measures to try and combat the rampant fraud bilking U.S. taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Guided by the new no-nonsense leadership of the Defense Department under Trump, it would appear that those measures, among many others, were being implemented in Afghanistan with measurable results.
According to the Independent Journal Review, Attkinsson noted that the Pentagon had implemented a biometric system that checked such things as fingerprints, photographs and even blood type in an effort to obtain “proof of life” of Afghan service members in order to weed out the non-existent “ghosts” that have cost taxpayers so much.
In fact, the Pentagon claimed that it had already enrolled in the program “up to 95 percent of the Afghan police and 70-80 percent of soldiers” in the Afghan National Army.
While it is highly doubtful that any of the taxpayer dollars lost through this fraud will ever be recovered, at least steps have been taken to ensure more dollars aren’t similarly wasted in the seemingly never-ending bid to reconstruct Afghanistan.
http://conservativetribune.com/trump-obama-spending-afghanistan/
Apr 25, 2017 18:39:41 #
pickmeup
Loc: Mid Michigan
I read there were all kinds of unaccounted contractors over there. Maybe they getting some of the " mullah"
Apr 25, 2017 20:00:31 #
Lets demand Obama be prosecuted for this theft and fraud!
Apr 25, 2017 21:22:09 #
When I was there, we had a pallet break open,,, 6 duffel bags full of american $100 bills,,, tac marked US STATE Dept,,,,
under hitlery clinton
under hitlery clinton
Don G. Dinsdale wrote:
Trump Discovers Obama Was Spending $300 Million On... (show quote)
Apr 26, 2017 11:45:17 #
Don G. Dinsdale wrote:
Trump Discovers Obama Was Spending $300 Million On... (show quote)
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That is just a tip of the iceberg Don. Here is another one.
Team Obama has spent $500M to train ‘four or five’ Syrian rebels
By Jonah Goldberg
September 18, 2015 | 8:02pm
"The news that the Obama administration has spent $500 million to put “four or five” fighters on the ground in Syria adds an almost comic irony to what is ultimately a tragic farce."
It ended up that the rebels left had joined ISIS.
Recently HUD Sec. Dr. Carson ordered audit review of HUD accounting mess. Audit reported $520 billion messing, no proper accounting, no supporting documents, and no trail of transactions. What happened to the $520 billion?
And I believe every federal departments, bureaus, and agencies during the Obama administration have similar problems.
Apr 26, 2017 12:18:06 #
Ve'hoe wrote:
When I was there, we had a pallet break open,,, 6 duffel bags full of american $100 bills,,, tac marked US STATE Dept,,,,
under hitlery clinton
under hitlery clinton
There you go, lying again.
Apr 26, 2017 13:58:10 #
Don G. Dinsdale
Loc: El Cajon, CA (San Diego County)
Your Arrogant Dumb A$$ Has Finally Made It To My Ignore List, Good F@@king Buy Jerk Off... Don D.
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3jack wrote:
There you go, lying again.
Apr 26, 2017 18:11:11 #
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