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June 9, 2011

Senate Panel Questions Afghan Spending 
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has released a report warning
U.S. development programs in Afghanistan are unlikely to survive a U.S.
withdrawal. The warning comes as veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker appeared
before the committee in his confirmation hearings to become the new U.S.
ambassador to Afghanistan.

Ryan Crocker: "There is no intention that I see in any of my
consultations here, I certainly come with no intention to produce the
perfect society, we can't, but I think with judicious use of resources,
and conditions based redeployments, and transfers of responsibility as
will begin this July, we can get to that sustainable stability."

Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana was among those to question
U.S. spending in Afghanistan.

Sen. Richard Lugar: "Despite 10 years of investment and attempts to
better understand the culture and the region's actors, we remain in a
cycle that produces relative progress but fails to deliver a secure
political or military resolution. In Afghanistan, measuring success
according to relative progress has very little meaning. Undoubtedly, we
will make some progress when we are spending more than $100 billion per
year in that country."



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