with the significant iranian influence over the fight against isis, sir? >> that's a tough, a very tough situation. when i was once complaining about my job, as i did routinely, in the last -- as a matter of fact, i once was asked by the vice-president jokingly, do you know why you got the job, jim. no, because we couldn't find anybody else dumb enough to take it. i was complaining about it one time and a former prime minister in europe said if you can't ride two horses in the circus, then get out of the mid east circus. one of my last visits to iraq, i heard the same message from a number of people in the government and it was help us avoid the suffocating embrace of iran. so i think there is a way to work with iraq, where we do not decide to just cast iraq off, because we've all read about it

enough, heard about it enough, it has enough complexity, just be done with it. i think in this case, what we're doing right now in iraq, while it may not be sufficient, is certainly on the right path. >> i saw a hand all the way on the aisle at the end. yes, ma'am. >> thank you. question about u.s. presence in the region. you seem to indicate that more of a naval presence would be the way to go to reassure allies. i would just like you to elaborate on that and when you look at increasing a u.s. presence, whether at sea or on the ground, combined with more u.s. weapons going to allies in the region, where do you see that heading?

what is the -- really, what's the worst possible outcome? >> yeah, well, let me also add least address the best possible outcome. i can do it with an example. several years ago, i was reading again all the reports coming out of tehran, mining the gulfs. remember that word? we have coastal defense cruise missiles. it was about mining. i called my fleet commander and i said u.s. fifth fleet. i want you to put together an international anti-mine exercise. not an anti-iran exercise. here is why i want to point out why a maritime strategy is a way to stabilize an area, not bring it lowser to crisis. if you have forward deployed forces. if you have to send them in, that can be destabilizing.

we have the fifth fleet out there. i thought we would get the usual suspects, france, britain, italy, saudi arabia, kuwait, something like this. in fact, the first year we ran it, we got 29 nations. 29 nations including nations like estonia, singapore, japan, not all bella coast nations. remember what i said earlier, a coalition has two elements, political and military. everyone of those navies, as a matter of fact, i was even looking for antarctica, i got all the continents aligned here, you know. basically, all those navies worked together under the command and coordination of the only navy in the world that could have drawn all those nations together. and they all work together practicing clearing mines from the persian gulf. the end result was that after a couple of years, about a year later, they realized, i think in

tehran, they were creating an international coalition against them. how much have you heard in the last year, ma'am, about mining in the waters out of tehran? now no, i haven't either. had gone up 39 nations, in the anti-mine exercise. to answer your question, use that example and then you can apply it where ever, so long as what we're doing is trying to stabilize the situation. >> time for one more question. yes, sir. right there, yeah. >> yeah, mark thompson, time magazine. general, it's been more than three months since iran seized ten of our sailors and held them overnight a lot of americans have forgotten. the sailors came home safe. iran, of course, has used it for

prove ganda purposes. who won in that clash? >> well, i don't know. i don't know. i don't think it's clear either way, and i think the question is a valid one. because out of such small incidents, comes an imagine of either stability or instability of compatibility for to be calling on, for example, our partners in the region, to find a way to share the neighborhood with iran, when the united states state department has declared a iran a state supporter of terrorism. it puts you in a difficult position when an incident like this happens, to determine just where we stood at that moment

and where we stand as a result of what came out of that moment. i think it would be speculative on my part, but obviously, it was not something that i could just chalk up to a win on the united states side. >> thank you very much. please join me in thanking general mattis and wishing him safe travels. [ applause ]

saturday, april 23, 400th anniversary of william shakes pair's death. washington, d.c. has the largest collection of shskespear, his life and impact on our light tur, language, politics and history. book tv will be covering that event live. it begins noon eastern time. afterwards, we'll have a live nationwide calling with shakespeare well. standard oil company and shk

shakespeare, so join us on april 23rd rktsz live at noon, from the folder library for 400 years of shakespeare shakespeare on book tv. c-span continues saturday with bernie sanders. he'll be holding a campaign rally with supporters in wilmington delaware, where w that state holding its primary tuesday. 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. american history tv on c-span three, this beak end, 6:00 eastern, discussing his book, the myth of the lost

cause, why the south fought the civil war and why the north won. post war arguments, seeking to justify their split from the union and their defeat. myths of the civil war. >> explain why it was that this devastation had occurred, and that for example, 25% of southern white men between the ages of 20 and 45 were dead. not just cash tualties, they we deed. >> sunday morning, rewind. the 1988 campaign of democratic candidate gary hart. the former colorado announcing his candidacy in new hampshire. a news conference where he faced questions about an affair with donna rice. his announcement to withdraw from the race. sunday evening at 6:00, on american artifacts, smithsonian

on the live of civil rights activist, delor lor he is -- delores huerta. >> she was at the forefront for a reason. >> which is interesting, you know, because among many of the participants of the farm workers movement, when you interview them and hear about them, they always talk about sessa. >> and on the presidency. >> he kind of tensed up and said those son of bitches. did any of them invite me to play golf. did any of them invite me to their clubs, and just goes on and on. >> god dam, his lip was give

gi quivering. >> i was so dloes to him, he was a disciplined man, and he knew how to keep this in. but he erupted then when he was talking to don and he was just saying, oh, not a god dam time. >> former nixon assistant, an washington reporter bob woodward, from water gait to vietnam. tv weekend schedule, go to c-span.org. last week, john sopko, the inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction outlined several issues for the task force for stability operations program. that program is aimed at spurring economic development in afghanistan. house armed, this is about 1:40. welcome, i'm deleted to

convene this hearing. overseeing taxpayer dollars is extremely important. one of the correspondence abilities we assume as representatives of the people. i know ranking members speer and others of km committee find this obligation equally significant. in the year since september 11th, 2001, the department of defense has been in the fight against em boldened terrorists. security demands by significantly enhancing the base budget and contingencies to address new threats. since 2010, congress has slushed spending by $1.3 trillion however. today, we are realizing significant negative impacts within the department of defense based on those decisions. readiness of all our armed forces is at an all-time low. our air force is smaller and older than when it was conceived in 1947. our navy has fewer ships to meet an ever increasing operations

tempo. our ground and forces of the army and marine corps still have yet to at that point lies and reset. combat operations and most unfortunate is that our standing among our partners and allies leaves many questioning u.s. commitment and resolve to navigate through the emergency security challenges we face as i nation and leader of the free world. china is rising. russia is resurgent and lack of checking its power. iran is beginning to flourish military from the good deal they got from our nuclear negotiations. north korea consistently acts out as it tries to achieve nuclear capability and ideologies spreading through the middle east and other parts of the world at alarming rates. i'm privileged to serve on the house budget committeement i'm the only member of my party to sit on both. many members are concerned about

the emerging threats and the desperately low levels of the funding we are devoting to defense against thee current and developing national security threats. the picture is clear. these threats cannot go unaddressed and the national defense is in need of more resources to common defense is secure. at the same time, it would be very difficult for anyone in this room to dismiss our country's current $19 trillion in debt and as representatives of those who are ultimately on the hook for that debt, the taxpayers, we would be neglectful not to investigate and scrutinize how their tax dollars are being spent. we need to be able to look our colleagues and our constituents in the eye to sincerely assure them we are doing everything we can to oversee wise investments. that brings us to the heart of our hearing today. we are here to examine a number of cases coming from the later stages of operations in iraq and

afghanistan to investigate how taxpayer dollars were spent, and determine what if any changes need to be made going forward to assure the people their tax dollars are being spent responsibility. nation building is not a correspondencor correspondencore responsibility, the department shouldered much of the hostility responsibility. primarily, because it is large enough and has the ability provide immediate resources and capabilities. consequently the department of defense established the task for business, stability operations first in iraq, and then again in afghanistan in 2010. with similar and parallel goals to support the transition away from war. what is known as phase four and phase five efforts. the task force case studies we plan to discuss today include the afghan compressed natural gas infrastructure project, the

italian goat import project, and task force personnel utilize while deployed in afghanistan. but not all prudent spending decisions occurring during contingency operations. for example, as the department of defense inspector general previously reported, there have been some problems with the pair parts supply chain logistics agency. extremely important that we scrutinize the department's purchases to ensure they are smart and reasonable, it is just as important that we use all means necessary to get our taxpayers money back or exchange parts from vendors that may have supplied parts that did not meet contractual requirements or technical specifications. if our airmen received the wrong or defective parts, we must make it right by the taxpayer. we live in a world of vast and expanding threats that require a robust and full response.

if we are going to use hard earned tax dollars to fulfill our obligation provide for the common defense, we owe it to those taxpayers to rigorously scrutinize how the dollars are spent and the qualifications of those making spending decisions. i look forward to exploring and learning about the high profile case studies, which as department of defense have recently reported may have benefited from more exacting standards how the investments were made and so before i introduce the witnesses, i turn it over to the investigation sub commitdy ranking member for any opening remarks she wishes to make. >> thank you, madam chair. i thank or witnesses for being here today. i want to especially thank mr. sopko for the service that you provide to our country and to the taxpayers of this country. today's hearing includes discussing a heard of cashmere

goats. yes, goats. dod spent millions of dollars on a project involving shipping male italian goats to afghanistan to be mated with female afghan goats, in order to make cashmere. too bad many of the female goats were already infected with a disease that could have wiped out the entire heard. too bad that only two of those fancy italian goats are still usable in the project. i think we can safely say that manufacturing warm fluffy sweaters are not the key to economic recovery in afghanistan. nor is it in dod's expertise. but that's not all. dod also wasted money on an unused cold storage facility, unsustainable business incubate tore and one of the most expensive gas stations in the world. special inspector general for afghan reconstructs estimates

the gas station alone costs $43 million. now we can quibbel about how much it really cost, but it cost over $43 million. and a gas station in pakistan, similar to the gas station in afghanistan, cost only $200,000. today, we are going to discuss two dysfunctional programs that are desperately in need of over sight. the first is dod's ill-conceived and badly executed usid knockoff. the task force forebusiness operations. tfbso for short. starting in afghanistan in 2010, tfbso was supposed to economic development in support of the military. but according to cigar, they have received more complaints, more complaints about fraud waste and abuse over the last two years than any other

organization operating in afghanistan. even compared with the old boon doingles, the short sidedness and the sheer absurdity of these projects is mind-boggling. nation building, misadventure here. we will also discuss poor practices at the defense logistics agency which put our service men and women at risk. at the core of this hearing is what do we have to show for our money. for tfbso, i can say the answer to the question is not much. here is what we got for the nearly $1 billion, nearly $1 billion spent at tpso activities. a defunct cashmere goat farm. private villas for staff, outragely ex expensive gas station. is that it? we don't know, since the pentagon no longer possess the expertise to answer the

question. were there any accomplishments from tbs f, or left economic development to usiad and the state department instead of using the military as untrained aid workers. as ig sopko recently said, tasking dod to do development is like giving the postal service the mission to run our drones in afghanistan, unquote. the dod ig's report is equally damming on aviation. the problems associated with defective parts. for example, the dod ig found that defective tie-down straps used to attach oxygen hoses to pilot's helmets remained in the inventory even after they reported that had they should be he recalled. the tie cdc not hold the oxygen hold to the mask, which could have caused cause the oxygen to air crew during flight. these defective ties may still

be in dla inventory. this and other poor over sight and procedures are projected to have cost taxpayers $12.3 million in unrecovered funds in just six months. unfortunately, this is old news. past reports have shown that the dla has regularly overpaid for spare parts and badly managed their bloated inventory. today, i would like to know what the dod has learned from the ig reports, has over sight accountability been improved, or will it be improved as a result. or does the dod intend to go on wasting taxpayers money on goats and spare parts. we have many competing uses for funding and wasted funds hurt our troops and their readiness. this is the kind of stuff that belongs on last week tonight with john oliver. not as a subject of a

congressional hearing. on behalf of the department of defense, i apologize to the american taxpayers for the wasteful spending that's gone on. with that, i yield back. thank you, mrs. speer. i am pleased to recognize our witnesses, and i want to thank them for for taking the time to be with us. inspector general sopko for afghanistan reconstruction. weiss carver, inspector general for auditing from the department of defense, and mr. charlie lily, the deputy director of aviation, and head of aviation contracting activity from the defense logistics agency. thank you for about with us today. we'll begin with your opening statements, mr. sopko. >> thank you very much. chairwom chairwoman, ranking member speer and members of the subcommittee, i'm pleased to be here again to discuss cigar's activities in

afghanistan and particularly, our review of dod's task for for business stability operations. commonly know as tfbso. and three specific aspects that the chairman asked me to look at or to comment on. the first one dealt with the construction of a compressed natural gas program in afghanistan. tfbso spent approximately $43 million to construct such a gas filling station and share afghanistan. the project was intended to take advantage of natural gas reserves and reduce the country's reliance on important gas. sigar has been unable to find any evidence that they considered the myriad of potential obstacles to the project, including the lack of a natural gas transmission and distribution infrastructure, the

cost of converting gas powered cars to run on natural gas as well as the lack of a market. as a result, the project failed. the second project you wished us to discuss has to do with tfbso spending of $150 million, or approximately 20% of their overall budget, on providing private villas, and security for their staff while in afghan staff. to date, again, sigar, as well as the office of the secretary of defense policy shop, have been unable to find any evidence that tfbso conducted a cost benefit analysis of quote-unquote living on the economy, rather than in u.s. government facilities in afghanistan. in fact, in a memo from june 2011, then tfbso director paul

brinkley directed all tfbso personnel in afghanistan to move back to us military base s. it remains unclear as to why mr. brinkley's directive went unimplemented for another two years. the third issue, you wished us to address has to deal with goats. and as i think ranking member speers and congresswoman has mentioned, you may wonder why i'm talking about goats in the armed services committee and not the agriculture committee. but they spent millions of dollars to bolster the cashmere industry. the purpose was to bring lighter haired afghan goats which would yield a higher price on the international market. to do so, tfbso paid to have nine italian goats and ten tajik

goats imported to afghanistan. ultimately, this program also failed. because it was overly ambitious, poorly staffed, poorly managed what they tried to do in a couple of years would normally have taken decades. it also as i said was a failure. tfbso in these three instances apparently lacked effective oversight, project development and execution. in addition, our comprehensive review of tfbso operations in afghanistan have identified three boarder challenges. they did not have a clear strategy. secondly, it lacked a focus and consistent management and leadership team. lastly, it did not coordinate its efforts with other u.s. agencies. one may ask why does any of this matter now. tfbso has closed its doors. the money has been spent. to be quite honest with you, i doubt if we'll recover any of

that nearly billion dollars. however, you have to remember there is $12 billion still in the pipeline. this is money that's been authorized and appropriated to be spent in afghanistan. we have also promised a decade of support at 6 to $8 billion a year in afghanistan. despite these commitments, management, the management available to oversee these massive efforts has decreased. this means that learning from past experiences is more important than ever. if we are to protect future taxpayer dollars. before the u.s. contemplates similar endeavors, either in afghanistan or elsewhere, several years must be answered. and the most fundamental being should dod be tasked with development operations during contingency operations. sigar will do its part to help

answer the questions about the task force as well as other questions about our operations in afghanistan and i'm happy to answer any questions at your pleasure. >> thank you, mr. sopko. ms. weiss carver. >> thank you and good morning. ranking member speer and distinguished members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our audit of the defense logistics agency aviation process to obtain rest tugs for contractors that provided defective spare parts. we audited dlas product reporting process, a product quality deficiency report identifies problems in parts design, workmanship, specifications, material, and other nonconforming conditions. our first two audits focused on the dla, aviation supply chain. ongoing audit is on the dla land and maritime supply chain.

today i'll discuss the second report on dla's processes to obtain restitution from contractors for defective parts. i request the report be submitted for the record. based on the results of our finding for 65 sample items we projected for 269 stock numbers contractor supplied defective parts, and dla did not recover at least $12.3 million in rest tu tugs for those defective parts. poor performing contractors accountable, and for dod to receive the appropriate restitution, it left defective parts unaccounted for in dod inventory, negatively impacting more fighter and safety and readiness. to pursue and obtain appropriate contractor restitution, the dla needs to complete four steps,

either independently or with assistance from our designated personnel, such as users or defense contract management agency. let me go into further detail. dla did not ensure that contractors responsible for defective parts were contacted, and that restitution was pursued. dla did not adequately search dod inventory to remove and to identify and remove defective parts. while dla usually searched its own depots for defective parts, it rarely searched their inventory for defective parts. dla did not return them to contractors to receive replacements, or provide instructions to dod customers or dla depot holding defective parts. and did not follow-up that the instructions provided were properly implemented. finally, dla did not properly track and maintain defective

parts, return to contractors to ensure appropriate restitution was received. in most cases, failure to successfully complete any one of these steps prevented or limited dla's ability to pursue restitution. i would like to share two examples. one which congressman speer already talked about where the fighters were jeopardized. first, the air force base, california, issued deficiency report on tie-down straps, stating that the straps broke, causing loss of oxygen to air crew member during flight. these tie-down straps valued at $1 100 straps, were critical application items, and used to attach oxygen hoses to pilots' helmets. the deficiency report and determined that the contractor was responsible for the defect. the contractor had delivered

52,314 tie-down straps on the contract. in response, dla searched its depots and located 16,700 one of the defective tie-down straps. remaining 36,313 of the tie-down straps were unaccounted for in the supply system. the second example. we reviewed a deficiency report investigation for the c-5 aircraft that had defective co-pilot control wheels valued at about $36,000 each. the 436 maintenance squadron in delaware initiated the deficiency report and stated that the in properly manufactured parts prevented the control wheel assembly from being properly installed. the deficiency report further stated that continuously changing the component caused a work stoppage, hampering the ability to complete the required maintenance. the deficiency report investigation determined that

the contractor had proved -- had provided 30 defective control wheels. the contractor replaced three control wheels and agreed to replace the other 27. upon receipt. although dla instructed its depot to ship the control wheels to the contractor, it could not produce any evidence when asked that the control wheels were ever shipped or the restitution was received. for both examples, dla did not notify other customers who purchased the remaining defective parts, and requested a search for dod inventory. we made five recommendations in the report to d will. a to address the deficiencies identified during this audit. the director dla agreed where the recommendations and stated dla would complete them by march 31, 2016. we did not receive formal written response outlining the status of the corrective actions, however, a dla official informed us that several actions were either planned or in progress.

this concludes my statement, and i would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding this audit. >> thank you. mr. lily? >> good morning, chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee. i'm charlie lily, the deputy commander of the defense logistics agency aviation headquartered in richmond, virginia. it is a field activity of the defense logistics agency of the department of defense's combat logistics support agency. dla's mission is provide effective global solutions to war fighters and our other values customers. 5.1 million lines through nine supply chains, every consumable item to our military forces, food, medical supplies, uniform items and weapons systems repair parts. dla is the lead for more than 1,340 aviation platforms and

systems and acts as the u.s. military manager for 1.2 national stocked numbered items. last year, we delivered repair parts valued at roughly $4.2 billion, procuring items for unique suppliers. on average, we received about 2,400 deficiency reports annually, and of those, about 20% or 480 reports represent defective material. we take seriously our responsibilities to identify and prevent defective parts from entering into the supply chain and to ensure we are good stewards the of the taxpayer dollars. we look forward to discuss the findings of the ig report and inform you of the actions we have taken, and will take to improve our processes to obtain restitution from contractors that provide defish sent spare parts. we recognize the items in the report and concur with the

recommendations. we agree that the over sight and management control of this program needs to be strengthened and have taken action. our first priority is that defective parts are removed from the supply chain to mitigate on our war fighters and readiness safety. to that end, we immediately reviewed the entire population of product deficiency reports received at dla aviation over the last 24 months. we've taken the necessary action to seg -- segregate. the potential for defective parts and provided them with disposition instruction. as a result of our findings in the draft report published in october, we updated our desktop guides based on best practices across dla enterprise. these guides provide step by step procedures to ensure that material is dispositioned as

required. we conducted training with all personnel involved in the proper processing of deficiency reports. and the new procedures implemented in the updated guides. we developed a plan to pursue restitution of any material or funds the government is entitled to, and will execute that plan over the next six months. finally, we are establishing both first line and senior level oversight procedures, corporate metrics and a surveillance program to enable us to more effectively manage this program in the future. as an enterprise, the director of logistics operations, initiated a review of all dla supply chain deficiency reports discovered since january of 2014, to validate the removal of deficient items from inventories. in addition, dla has established an enterprise wide supplier restitution working group, consisting of cross functional team members who will thoroughly

evaluate the requirements foreign hansed oversight to the process, examining from a process and systems perspective, what changes would be required to improve visibility and to facilitate the resolution of these cases. madam chairwoman, distinguished committee members, we have gained valuable insight from the dod and we look forward to any feedback to our war fighter and strengthens our management controls. as a retired flight officer, father of two daughters, both naval officers, one currently deployed in the middle east and the father-in-law of a marine corps v 22 pilot, i assure you that no one takes this issue more seriously than i do. thank you for the testimony to testify today. and i welcome your questions. >> thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony. this is very, very important to not only national security, but certainly to the lives of our service members. i want to start with ms. wise

carver and mr. lily, because we are talking about two separate instances of potential waste and inefficiencies in the department of defense that we want to look at. so that we can address and get better. one was from the past, as mr. sopko indicated. the program dealing with afghanistan, reconstruction, has ended, but we have a lot of lessons learned there. i want to start with you, because this is something that is currently going right now, as we have pilots in the air and we have planes flying. we want to make sure the parts that are no those planes are up to the specifications they need to be, and no war fighter is in danger. so ms. weiss carver, it is apparent the defective parts made it into the services supply chain. did your team find any instances in which any of the defective parts were installed in any

items als replacement parts or returned to service? >> madam chairwoman, we did not find a result of this, but we do know they're in the supply chain, because they left 36,000 plus straps in the supply chain, and we know that they're there. we don't know if they've been on a flight, put in customers were not notified. but i believe that they are in the supply chain, and should be pulled. >> so mr. lily, what are you doing to try to find these 36,000 parts that are potentially out there on pilots' helmets. >> the way we go about identifying customer's inventory to provide what we call a supply alert. each has a screening activity which is responsible for working with their individual service customers to alert them to the deficiencies of the potential deficiencies of the parts. and then work to have them notified and then coordinate the return of those materials to our defense depots.

as a result of the audit, when we were alert today incident, we went back and ensured that the notification was sent and we sent an additional notification to, once again, reenforce the fact that we have this potential. it will be dependant now, though, and will continue to work with the services to try and identify parts that are in the inventory and pull them back. in addition to all of this, in 2008, this particular -- it is a zip, they call it a tie strap, but it is a zip tie, a small, about 2 inch piece of plastic zip tie that you put on, hold the host of the helmet. so those zip ties were identified with several other sizes of zip tie-in 2008, as a potential problem. in 200 8, the inventory was frozen and it has been frozen since that time, and in 2008, those particular zip ties were included in a larger suspension

where our customers were notified. so we've back in 2008, and those by the way, those particular products are re -- they've remained in litigation since 2008, that litigation was finally cleared in 2014. the result of that litigation was that the customer representative that faced the department of defense for that company was disbarred. he is no longer available, or allowed to do business with us. and we received $400,000 back for the deficient material. >> that's good. didn't you just complete your audit fairly recently, ms. wi wisecashier. >> you just released this in february. i understand you've only had a couple of months to take corrective action. we appreciate your, you know, commitment to do doing that and

the steps you've taken. what procedures will you do to track the 30,000 ties that are defective. you've sent the alert. how will you know whether they have turned them back in, they've recovered them. is there a checklist? how will you have assurance that this has been taken care of? >> as a result of the audit, we've taken several steps to improve and strengthen our processes. one of the steps we've established is the creation of a position we call the product deficiency report coordinator. we have now assigned one person an individual who is going to be responsible for monitoring pdqrs from the day they're established in the system to the day the material is actually returned back to the system as repaired or refunneled to us. and so this person will be responsible in this particular case for now picking up that tracking to ensure that number

one, any material that is identified in the inventory system is returned to us, and that we then send it -- well, in this case, because of the low dollar value, and the unability of a manufacturer to repair the ties, they'll be destroyed and we'll get a refund. >> i understand you've only had two months to get started on it, but how much of the $12.3 billion -- million dollars. >> million. >> $12.3 million estimated restitution is recoverable from defective parts, how much of that do you anticipate we'll be able to get? how will we know as members of congress how much of that has been recovered? >> we are conducting a comprehensive review of all of the qpdrs we have on file. currently we've gotten through half of them. there are 1,077 total over the

time period. we have determined that for those, we've recovered $3.5 million as apart of our normal process. so those are things that have been recovered before the audit. that's not to say that there is a lot of material out there we completely we completely agree that where our process broke down was after the alert, we didn't have a good mechanism to track, as has been pointed out in the hearing, to refer to the supply system and back to the vendor. we have 500 right now pdrs that we're working as a result of our comprehensive review, we have a line by line, step by step procedure. for each of those 500, we have inventory in the system. what it will require is to discuss the suppliers that have provided them a restitution plan that will ship those 500 items back to the supplier for repair and then return to us, whether they'll pay us and fix them internally in our organic depos

or whether they'll credit them back. we plan to complete those 500 pdrs by august of this summer. >> very good. i know i have questions for all of you, mr. sop ko, but then we'll move on. jackie speier? >> thank you. m we have 16 reports we've issued over a number of years on the parts and inventory area. >> and in your estimation, has dla been responsive to these

reports? >> we actually did a statistical sampling so we could get our arms around, if ul, so we could audit. we try to do it in a timely manner so we can subject across the whole parts. >> so 5 million lines of parts, you took 65, and of those 65, you were able to determine that at least one in particular was so defective that it could put at risk those pilots flying planes because this part had been determined to be defective when? these straps. >> i don't recall. i would have to take that for the record exactly when the

edwards air force base maintenance group found it. i would have to take that back. >> was it a year ago, three years ago, do you think? >> 2012. >> in 2012, mr. charlie says. >> in 2012, you were made aware this was a defective part, that it could place our pilots at risk, and by happenstance, deputy general wicecarver does an exam and finds out it's still in the supply chain. how long have you been there? >> three years. >> so it was already deemed defective when you came into your post, correct? >> correct. >> and nothing had happened relative to this item until the inspector general did a report, and now you are taking steps. do we need a report from the inspector general to get the department of defense, dla, to

take defective parts out of the supply chain? >> no, ma'am, we have procedures in place. >> why didn't these get removed? >> in 2008, all these parts were frozen in inventory -- >> what does frozen mean? >> it means we code them. it's a code in our distribution system computers that presents any issuing of that material, so if a company requisitions it, it's from dla stock, it's not allowed to be issued. there is no way it can happen. so what i mentioned earlier was that in 2008, this part, along with several other parts manufactured by this company, was frozen in stock. there was 50,000 of those ordered before they were received. those were in the customer inventory. we alerted in 2008 all the supply customers of the fact

that these straps and other sizes in addition were potential defective parts, and at that time that material was screened and the material should have been returned back. if a sailoregon or a soldier mi it in the bin, that's possible, maybe the material stayed in the supply system. but again, as a result of the audit, we reissued those notifications to ensure that, and asked our service partners to search their inventory to ensure this material would be removed, if possible. >> mr. lilli, i don't have a lot of confidence in dla's response generally. i think the fact that the inspector general has done all of these reports and there are still problems should make us all pause. as it relates to the $12.3 million that is due the taxpayers in restitution for

these faulty parts, i would like for you to report back to this committee on a regular basis until we know confidently that restitution has been sought and received for all these defective parts. inspector general sopko, you said in previous congressional testimony that data was missing from the hard drive and you were determining if data had been manipulated. has that review been concluded? >> yes, it has. and although we can't tell if it was manipulated, we think we don't have all the data. and it could just be that the records are so poor at tpso that they just don't have the data. >> when the tbeso program wasn't

doing well for a number of years, and yet it was on auto pilot based on your report, how do we prevent the wasteful spending of almost a billion dollars on a program like tfbso when a quarter of the way through, half the way through, it's clear that it's not working? >> you know, that's a very good question, and i don't have a great answer for it. reports were filed with congress. i'm not certain that those reports were accurate and were truthful and really reflected what was going on. and i'm certain, having worked in congress myself as a staffer, you are inundated with reports. i don't even know if anybody even noted those reports. i think a critical problem you had with tfbso was it was a new mission for the department of

defense and nobody planned for having extra oversight over that new mission. they reported to the secretary of defense's office. the secretary of defense has many things on his plate, but operating a billion-dollar program is not usually something he or she is going to focus on. later they moved it down to the deputy secretary of defense for reporting. again, he doesn't really run day-to-day operations, so it was reporting to the wrong spot in dod. lastly, they moved it down to report to the policy shop, the undersecretary defense for policy. again, maybe very good in policy, but normally the policy shop does not oversee day-to-day operations of an agency. and i think that was one of the critical problems. and nobody really read the

reports, and the warning signs -- the house armed services committee raised concerns about this program early on, and then some legislation raised some concerns. but apparently it fell through the cracks. >> well, we somehow sometimes think we're doing our job when we put report language in, and then they don't report to us, and nothing transpires. this gas station that cost $43 million, the one in pakistan cost between 2 to $3 million, we then equipped some afghan vehicle so they could take cng, correct? >> that is correct, ma'am. >> but what a harebrained idea when to retrofit these vehicles is equivalent tie salao a salarn

afghani for a year. >> that's correct. again, do a cost benefit analysis, and it doesn't seem like anyone did a real cost benefit analysis on this program. you would have seen there were inherent problems. everyone had written you have to have an infrastructure in place. there is no infrastructure in afghanistan. you have to have a market. there is no market. and that is just the repetition we've seen through almost all of the tfbso programs. >> my last question. in your comments you said this is one of the worst programs that you have investigated in afghanistan, i believe you said, the most waste, the most fraud. when were you first made aware of it? >> i think i started to hear complaints almost when i started the job four years ago. but it was a relatively small

program in comparison. remember, we've spent 113 billion here, so we had put it on our audit schedule a couple years ago, and we came out with our first audit, i believe, on the mineral section, and we did two audits on that. so it's been in our view for at least two or three years. >> again, thank you both, inspector general sopko and deputy inspect or wicecarver for your great service. i yield back. >> mr. lilli, thank for you straightening out what i was discussing with mr. conaway here, at a penny apiece, it sure sounded like a zip-tie that most of us probably have, you can

walk down to a walmart or cvs, so $523 worth of zip-ties by my class, 52,314 at a penny apiece. i'm sorry that you're getting browbeaten over a zip-tie, or 52,000 of them to be honest with you. i wonder how much money -- this has gone over the zip-ties since 2008. is that right? >> correct, sir. >> we have five members of congress staff, three of you here, and we're talking about zip-ties. i mean, if i put one on something and it breaks, i would simply put two of them on the next time if it wouldn't hold. i mean, the people i know that work in the air force that are pilots that get our men and women our aviators ready to roll, they're smart enough to know if one zip-tie won't work, maybe you use two. maybe you use a different sized one. how much -- is it possible to calculate how much money the

government and taxpayers have spent over $523 worth of zip-ties? in trying to find them? >> i can't answer that. we can probably come up with an estimate. it's a lot of money. >> would you agree with me you could buy a zip-tie at any hardware store out there? >> well, sir, you can get those zip-ties at any hardware store, but because of the regulations, and the processes we have to do to enforce that, we buy them from qualified sources, we probably wouldn't go to lowe's, but you're right, it's the same type of zip-tie that's out there. >> i just wonder, you know, how much as a private business owner, i would never spent $10,000 or $100,000 or however much money has been spent from

2008 to 2014, over $523 worth of zip-ties. i'm somewhat taken aback we're even discussing zip-ties. anyway, mr. sopko, the full function audit for tfbso activities, has it begun? and if so, when can we expect it to be complete? is it going to identify parts that are a penny apiece and maybe how much money was spent trying to find zip-ties? >> well, i -- i don't think we're going to be looking at zip-ties form the full financial -- >> would you agree obviously someone has spent an awful lot of money -- more money has been spent searching for the zip-ties than the zip-ties cost? >> it appears that way, sir. remember, i'm not doing the zip-tie investigation.

>> i'm glad of that. >> on tfsbo we were asked by senator ayotte on the senate side to conduct a financial audit as well as a program audit. the program audit, i believe, has where we're putting that together, if it hasn't started. it's about ready to start and we're going to just, you know, a program audit is alternately different than the financial audit. the financial audit, i don't believe we have start that had yet. we've also been asked by senator grassley to conduct both of those, so there's a lot of interest on the other side. >> i look forward to seeing that. i'll yield the remainder of my time. >> thank you, gentlemen. now we go to ms. graham. >> thank you all very much for being here today. my question is in the category of lessons learned.

inspector general sopko, you mentioned in your written testimony that a major source of tfbsos issued in afghanistan is that it didn't implement any changes based on the experience in iraq. >> that is correct. >> is there now a formal system for capturing lessons learned and what are your recommendations for ensuring they are incorporated into future protocol? >> some agencies of the government have a formal structure to capture lessons learned. the department of depending is probably the best one for doing that. and the army, marines will be doing their lessons learned and hopefully that will be applied. the biggest problem we see, congresswoman, is that there's no whole government approach to

lessons learned. if there's one thing we learned in afghanistan and iraq, it's not just that the dod will be there, state department will be the there, aid and our allies, and no one is doing that. actually the -- we are doing that at the recommendation of general allen. i remember him coming over and laying that out to me. he says dod will do a pretty good job, but the next time we do this, when you go to a provimplal reconstruction team there would spots, but nobody has that jurisdiction. we're stovepiped. dod will do their lessons but nobody is doing the whole of government. we're actually embarking upon that at the suggestion of general allen and other people. and we're hoping to do that. the other thing i would seriously consider is neither state or aid have the system of doing lessons learned in their budget as well as the staffing to do it like dod does. and that's going to be an

inherent problem. >> i would agree with you. in every facet of life, you need to learn from the past and do better in the future. well, thank you, i guess. mr. lilli. i would ask the same question of you. it's not your fault, by the way, i understand the inspector general. is there a formal process by which dla has incorporated lessons learned into its processes and procedures? >> as a result of our audit, we learned a lot. and we have five recommendations that we're implementing. as i mentioned earlier in dla aviation, we've taken and reviewed all the pdrs to make sure we recorded all the money, and we'll report back as asked. we've also frozen and made sure that stock is frozen so it can't be issued and alerted our customers. we've also established some new

procedures as a result of that. so what we'll be doing is creating that position called a pdr coordinator that will track to the end to make sure we, number one, alert our customers as fast as possible, but then ensure that material is received and sent back to the suppliers for restitution. we've also established some first line supervisor and senior leader oversight to include checklists that have to be signed as we go to ensure that that process is done correctly. in addition to that, we have some corporate metrics now that we track the opening and closure of each one and the total number and age of those pdrs. that report is provided by the coordinator to myself and the commanding general each week. so we'll be tracking that to make sure that doesn't happen again. on a broader scale, the lessons we've learned as a result of the audit and this review has been provided to the daily headquarters.

and as i mentioned earlier in testimony, the dla director has established a working group to take a look at the entire process across dla, and through that working group, we'll take the lessons we learned, incorporate them into the overall review, and then come up with a total revision of the process that will hopefully be better and will allow us to have tighter control and execute our responsibilities for stewardship in a better manner. >> thank you for that. i hope, mr. inspector general, that we can learn from these lessons. we need to be working together so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. i don't know where to start with putting that in place, but it seems to me that when we're working -- as the united states of america is working overseas in various countries, all aspects of our country need to be working together to make sure we're doing it efficiently and

effectively. i'm out of time, but if you want to respond. >> i agree wholeheartedly with you, and hopefully our lessons learned program will help in that process. but remember, there is a difference between lessons observed and lessons learned. there are a lot of reports on the shelves, but very few people sometimes read them and they're not put into doctrine and put into the training, and before somebody goes back out to afghanistan, there whether it's foreign service officer, an aid officer or a captain in the marines, he should be given a document telling us what we learned from iraq, what have we learned from afghanistan, what have we learned from these other experiences? we do reports, and i have been approached from many people in the administration and on the hill saying, what does it mean and how do we do it? i understand this frustration, and that's why we have the lessons learned program we put together, brought in some very

bright people and trying to get buy-in from the various agencies. that's what general allen encouraged us to do, so we're following his guidance. hopefully it will help. >> great. i remain ever hopeful. i appreciate it. thank you. i yield back what time i do not have anymore. >> the lady's time is expired. that's one of the reasons we're having the hearing as well today, mr. sopko, so we can flush out the concerns that we've had and learn as we go forward. now, mr. conaway from texas. >> thank you. just to make sure, i'm a cpa and my license is still current. i'm one election from being back in public practice. i spent a lot of years auditing. mr. sopko, when you come to a circumstance like this filling station, gas station that just absolutely makes no sense in hindsight, did you have access to the documents that were prepared and put in place and

the decision-making processes that were there to come to these conclusions? when you have a circumstance, it doesn't make much sense. we typically don't have all the facts available to figure out the decision makers. unless you want to project malfeasance on them, we're working to do the right thing. did you look at how they got there, what their rationale was for it? >> to be honest with you, we did not have full access to the records. >> so the billion dollars spent, all of it was wasted? is that your conclusion? >> not all of it. we did build a gas station. >> that's a waste. >> but it was built, and there are -- >> how well is it functioning today? >> well, the -- i'm sorry. >> i'm just trying to figure out if it was 100% era, great, but did you find any successes whatsoever in the deal? >> we found a few successes. the problem is, you know, we measure inputs, outputs and

outcomes. the output was you got a gas station. the output was you actually got 400 taxi drivers, i believe about 400, got their cars converted at u.s. taxpayer expense. they're very happy. >> i'm not trying to defend this deal. i'm just trying to make sure we understand the circumstances. ms. wicecarver, total dollars spent over your audit -- not you personally, but your audit, how many total dollars were spent? trillions? >> not a trillion, no, sir. we had about 300,000. >> you did a sample in order to detect the error rate on the bigger piece. >> yes, sir. >> what was the error rate

throughout the entire of your auditing? >> 90% of what was spent, sir. >> so 90% of what dla spent, they spent wrong. >> of the sample we collected. >> so did you expand your sample? >> no, sir. >> why not? >> because we had enough -- >> get the record straight here. they spent half a billion dollars? >> not on these parts, sir. >> why would you do a sample if you're not trying to extrapolate that? you're not going to look at all 5 million parts; is that what you said? how many parts in your universe, ma'am. >> 269. >> and you audited 65 of them? >> yes, sir. >> and of that, you're saying of the 269 parts you audited, 95% of the money spent was spent incorrectly? >> we weren't talking about the dollars spent. we looked at actually the product deficiency reports that

were reporting, and it all equals dollars and cents, i understand that, but i would have to go back to the record to see specifically what it is we're talking about. >> of the 269 parts, your conclusion would be that 95% of those parts were deficient. >> no, sir, we had a 95% confidence rate on our sampling, is what i'm saying. >> no, ma'am, that's not what you said. my question was what was the overall projected error rate within the overall universe, and you said it was 95%. i understand the 95% confidence, that your 65% is representative of the whole. what i'm asking, of the 65% that was wrong, that you found wrong, how much of that was in the full universe of 269 parts? of the 65 that you audited, how many of those had problems? >> sorry, how many of those had -- >> had audit deficiencies that rose to this conclusion that the

zip-ties were out of whack. >> we had many examples in our report and in our audit -- i'll have to take it for the record. i guess i don't understand. >> are you an auditor yourself? >> yes, i am. >> why would you use a cisco sample of a universe? what is the purpose of statistically sampling rather than looking at the whole universe? >> timeliness of the report so we can get the evidence out to the agency. >> isn't it to look at a small sample, if you don't have any errors in that small sample, you're 95% confident that the rest of the universe is okay? isn't that a better explanation of why you statistically sample something? and you statistically sample 65, you pick 65 on a statistically sound basis. we're going to look at these 65 so we don't have to look at all 269. we looked at 65, and the error rates or whatever you want to

call them in this 65 leads us to believe that the universe of 269 is either good or bad. what i'm trying to figure out is you found the error of this one part, no matter how significant it might be, but because it was statistically picked, it had a greater significance to the other conclusions. you looked at 65, you got at least one zip-tie that you had a problem with. what else did you find among the 65 that you then projected to the greater inventory. >> as i said, we found many of the 69 that had problems. >> i don't have a clue -- ma'am, i don't have a clue what "many" means. we have a discreet universe of items you looked at. for the record, will you please get back to us for a better explanation on what the value of the statistical sample was, because if you're not going to use it from a statistical sampling basis, why would you

pick the top 10 and look at those as opposed to zip-ties? you're only looking at zip-ties because -- all right. on the failure of the zip-ties, and i know i'm past my time. mr. lilli, did the zip-tie fail when it was snugged up against the -- when did it fail and what did that failure result from? we used the words "war fighters put at risk" -- those are pretty inflammatory words and words we ought to pay attention to. there was a helmet that got loose somewhere in the cockpit. you secured it with a zip-tie. >> actually, the failure was discovered as they were putting the zip-ties on the hose itself. so in the routine maintenance, i read the pqdr that was submitted, and in the routine maintenance -- >> the failure is noted before the helmet goes on the pilot's

hood and he takes off from the ground. >> in this particular pqdr, that's exactly right. >> if we can't use from a statistical standpoint, mr. wicecarver, if you can't project that zip-tie to a greater use than what appears to be the case, then i would have to agree with my colleague that we may have missed the boat. i would rather you look at the top ten, most expensive parts of your 269. i yield back. i'm sorry, i'm a little frustrated. yield back. >> the gentleman's time has expired. ms. mcsally? >> thank you, madam chairwoman. let me just follow up on the previous line of discussion. i was in the military for 26 years, and i often would call them lessons identified, not lessons learned, and when you say the military is the best at it, we have some significant shortcomings. we're good at having conferences and maybe writing things down, but because of some of the things that were identified even in here because of high turnover

and motivated people trying to bring their own bright ideas and a new assignment in, we are reinventing the wheel all the time in the military. when i read the testimony and we look into the details of these failures, it is just infuriating to me, honestly. my last assignment was at u.s. africa command, we tried to have a whole government of combat and command, we had foreign disaster with us on the staff. we would often see how we in the military, we want to just go in there and fix everything, whether it's a disaster or -- whether we knew what we were doing. our job is to cure and break things, and sometimes we find ourselves in these swaituations where we're doing things totally outside our core competencies. over all these years, we're still doing stupid things like this and a waste of taxpayer money at a time when our military right now, our

personnel, it's infuriating to see this much money was wasted in the department of defense for bright ideas that just absolutely failed. what i don't even understand, because i think about my time at africa command, it's not about lessons learned. it's about we're stovepiped on the front end. we don't have the same chain of command. we can have a love fest, but in reality, we don't have the same title and lines of funding, so i don't even get what the authorities were that allowed them to do this. can you just explain to me how the pentagon thought this was a good idea and under what authorities they had to do this as opposed to letting the lead federal agencies and those that are experts in these areas taking the lead? >> congresswoman, i experience and feel your anger in the absurdity of some of these things. if it wasn't the fact that we lost nearly 2300 lives in afghanistan, most of what we found could probably appear on comedy central.

i cannot believe some of the things i have uncovered, and i am outraged, too. i worked on the hill for 15 years for sam nunn, and i thought i saw some really boneheaded moves, but this -- >> this is the ultimate bonehead. >> -- this is the ultimate. i wish i could answer your question on the authority, because the authority is kind of mixed on the tfsbo. it started in iraq to not really do contracting, just to sort of fix things with the industry, and then it morphed into a contracting role. and initially the secretary of defense's general counsel's office raised concerns that this whole thing was illegal. >> what's the funding stream? is this oco money? >> i believe it was oco money. >> how are we using oco moneys to build villas and gas stations? >> we're trying to find it. there was a memo issued by the

office of secretary of defense -- and this is why i'm so frustrated and your colleague has hit the frustration point. this program didn't disappear in 1944. this isn't like something that harry truman ran. this program went out of existence less than a year ago, and i could not find a soul in the department of defense who could explain any of these questions. i call this a rare case of amnesia in the department of defense. i had to fight to get those records which congresswoman speier has asked me about. the amount of records i got from tfsbo is fewer than one of my staff has on her cell phone, the g gigabytes. so this has been the most investigation i have done and i've gotten so much pushback on this $1 billion program. we have looked at some major

parts of it, but i follow the lead of your colleague. there is many more billions of dollars wasted and at stake, so we did not want to focus on tfbso. there are many more problems out there. but every time we uncover a rock, something crawls out which you just can't understand. this is a mystery to me how this program got into action and why it survived. >> so if there were no authorities for spending this money, what accountability is happening? i mean, if somebody is illegally spending taxpayers' money, where is the accountability on that? >> it was added to, if i'm not mistaken, to the authorization act. it was authorized at one time. initially it came from oco, and i don't want to misspeak, i would have to ask my colleagues.

[ kwudiscussion off the record ] >> fy-11, i'm told, it was authorized in the nda. it's interesting, in fy-11, that's when the head of the organization basically says, we ought to shut the thing down, it can't operate. and that was ignored. >> right, and then they're spending more. i'm out of time, but how can we make sure here, and we can follow up for the record, that something like this never happens again, never, ever, ever happens again. everyone needs to stay in their lanes. fight the wars, military. we have to make sure this never happens again, so we'd love to follow up on that and i'm out of time. >> we'll try. >> thank you, madam chair. >> thank you. i want to talk a little about that amount of authority. there was a brian mckeown, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy who was invited to attend today, and due

to a family prearranged activity, he wasn't able to be here. i believe he appeared before the senate armed services committee. but he did submit his testimony, which i have read, and in there it talks about how in fiscal year 2014, congress made an amendment to a law authorizing for this program to continue. so i think congress has a role in this as well, so we need to, certainly, as members of congress, in the future have an important role in deciding whether we do something like this again or how we apply these lessons learned. that's one of the reasons we're having this hearing today is to go back and say, hey, did it work? is it wise? and should we ever do that again? i did also want to ask you, mr. s sopko, about the amount of money spent. because in mr. mckeown's testimony that i have read here, he said there was $800 billion.

they were obligated 600 billion that was dispersed. so i would assume the department of defense would say that they spent around $600 billion on this rather than the $1 billion that is being thrown around today in this hearing. so which is it? how much would you say is more accurate for how much was spent on the program? >>. [ inaudible ] >> 800 million was obligated, but only 600 million -- i say only. that's still a lot of money. >> 800 million was authorized and 759 million was obligated. >> how much was dispersed of that? was spent? >> we're actually doing the audit. we don't have that number. >> so that's just something for us to be aware of, but that is

still a tremendous amount of money. secondly, we haven't talked about the villas and i wanted to ask you about that. your testimony states that the tfbso spent $150 million to operate and reside out of the villas, and you brought a picture of those for us here today. did the tfbso use funding to build the villas, or did another government agency do the construction? >> the villas were not built by us, these are all rentals. we rented the villas from afghans. >> what time period does the $150 million cost cover? >> well, for almost as long as they were there. as soon as they came over from iraq, they pursued living on the economy like that. and until -- although the director brinkley said to bring them back in august of 2011. they continued in the villas until, i believe, the end of the

program, which would have been the end of 2014, if i'm not mistaken. >> it seems like i read, perhaps in mr. mckeown's testimony, three years? >> that would be about right. >> so $50 million a year, and that included security as well as -- you talk about a lot of the amenities that were in there which the 27-inch flat screen tv, queen-sized bed, menus for the catering of two entrees and others on the side. certainly not how our soldiers would be eating over there. i know it's not the same. how do you account for paul brinkley, the first director, saying the task force should move back into our military facilities and not continue living in the rentals, and yet that was ignored? >> we're trying to get to the bottom of that.

we don't have an answer. we have his memorandum, which he says, because of security reasons and also because of management problems, he wants to bring everybody back, and he orders them, i think, by august of 2011, every one of them will move back onto military bases. but we have no further information as to why that was ignored. that's, again, a problem we have with tfsbo. the records are so dismal, it's hard to figure out what they did and why they did it. >> okay. regarding the natural gas facility, the gas station, you just said a minute ago, you have to have a market, and there is no market. and i think those are very wise words. before you do any of these projects, there needs to be marketing analysis done, and it wasn't done. you look at the list of the projects that were done there, and average businessmen or women

here in -- well, the united states, or my state missouri would probably say, no, this isn't wise to invest here, we move forward. i want to mention since mr. mckeown isn't here, in his testimony he says, be sure afghanistan doesn't own a vehicle. i think the department of defense is bringing up that point. now, he does say in there, though, that you had a question to the department of defense about whether the station was still operating, and i says, any staff contacted the operator of the cng station by e-mail on november 15th of last year. the operator indicated the station was working normally, that 230 cars had been converted, and that every day approximately 160 cars obtained fuel from the station. do you think that is accurate. it's still open, it's operating, there are some cars here in

america that we paid for, that are using it? >> it would make sense they're using it. we gave them a free conversion kit, we converted their car for free, and using the compressed national gas is cheaper than using gasoline in afghanistan. the question is, is it sustainable? those are happy goats in afghanistan. but is this any of this sustainable wasn't to make a bunch of taxi programs in sherbergone. you have to go back to the expense. we do have some documents as to what the purpose was. the input, we know where they spent. they did produce cars, but the outcome was to create a market all over northern afghanistan.

that never occurred and the reason -- i just wanted to clarify, because earlier in this hearing. so you're just using that terminology based on -- 6789 for the record, we should do due diligence and clarify that. i know you and the department of defense has been disagreeing on that. the $43 million allotted for the gas station has been used. was that for the entire gas station alone or was it also including purchasing new

pipeline for installation. i would say in mr. mckeown's testimony that he submitted, he said the cost of the entire project was 5.1 million, and that is actually for the infrastructure. then he alleges that extrapolated the consulting costs over the entire country and projected all of those -- the $30 million overhead cost of that on to you, and i may be. >> i would like to know how you arrived at the 493 that the department of defense said it cost. >> i don't see mr. mckeown but i've testified with him before. the $43 million number is not

sgar's records. we found that in the records we uncovered and it was records provided by a contractor for tfsbo. he prepared an economic impact assessment. was paid $2 million by tfbso. in his report, when we interviewed him, he broke the numbers down by direct costs, indirect costs, subject matter, overhead costs. those were his numbers that he got from tfsbo? . secondly, when we interviewed

him, he said, and gave us records about a back and forth between his office and tfbs oo.s many times that assessment was reviewed and approved. the director actually changed other numbers relate to. but never changed that $43 million number. this is the best number we have. we acknowledge that the records kept by tfbso are abysmal. we actually interviewed a comptroller employee who mr. mckeown sent over to try to review the records, and he said he thought the number was wrong, but he couldn't come up with a better number, either.

because the records are in such poor shape. so we're stuck with this number, but ultimately, the taxpayer. whether it included that gas stati station. if you report a better number, we'll take it into consideration, but nobody has ever given a new number. >> i'm not interested in quibbling whether it was 10 million or 43 million. we know in pakistan they built it for $355. . the examples that mr. shopko make it clear that we should not

be in this business within dod. it's not part of their expertise. i do want to point out -- i think that brian mckeown tries his darndest i am skeptical that the department of defense of promoting economic development. he comes to the conclusion that we shouldn'ten doing that. and mr. sopko, as our inspector general has done an extraordinary jobs. to everyone's point that has made here, just pointing it out isn't good enough. we've got to clean it up.

my concern is we have evidence. it continues to operate on auto pilot. . also to others. i think in fair ps to ms. wi wirks, and in her report she talks about the defective co-pilot control wheels for the cc aircraft, the contractor was effecti effective. and identify the 23 remaining defective control wheels. . dla -- instruct the dla, dl.

and, the defective control. according to dla aviation, could not produce any evidence that it received restitution for 23 of the 27 in addition, customers purchased the remaining four of the remaining equipment. it wasn't just zip-ties. we were looking at more expensive equipment not being returned to the contractor and that restitution is not recovered. now, ms. weiss davshr.

they're now working in another area as well? did you kell us about that? >> yes, ma'am. we have some ongoing audits on price reasonableness, we have some on inventory. . those last two, we didn't work on the past, so we're doing one about the future. >> isn't there something about marine parts on the way? >> we're looking at dla, the same type audit. >> besides the zip ties, are there other examples of parts that were in the chain, the subpoena lie but we're continue to reside in the supply chain. >> yes, ma'am, we had about s

six -- there's several of them for the record. >> i yield back. >> thank you. mr. scott? >> thank you, madam chair. you testified on the zip-tie issue so there were no crews that won ties. the report i have in front of me raeds, causing flight. kaus loss of oxygen to report privacy. when you do any type of work on the replace it with a new one. if the new one didn't hold.

is that pretty much the way? >> yes, sir, that's the way that -- >> i think the problem is, one is, i think your troops should be commended for identifying the problem before putting it in flight. i should thank you for that. i know you've got a lot of family in the military, and if i'm not mistaken, spent some time yourself there. i'm glad to have you in the position you're in. that 36,000 of these are aviati aviation. i hope you just go get rid of them if they don't work, and you can go buy some more. you have to have the flexibility in i go you do that are worth more than a penny to get dollars and track them down.

. i know these people well. robin's air force district is in my. ive no doubt if a part needed a modera moderate. anything else that comes in, i will seek that out and find it myself. but i would like to know this, ma'am. as the identifies ten. you viewed that as 5 or 36 thousand. >> no, sir, what i said was they were left in the inventory. >> well, i'm going to yield the remainder of my time disposable parts that are worth a penny apiece shouldn't be part of

the -- what did you say? >> you should be able to buy them at lowe's. >> i prefer home depot home depot being a george company. i agree with you. the chance of doing anything should be with what they do. with that i yield my time. >> ladies and gentlemen, i think we had a pretty good discussion today. our job is oversight and investigate how the tax dollars are used. while we're advocating for more money to our success. we have the needs, we have the cuts. at the same time, we need to

make sure every every bag that's authorized to the defense. we need to make sure we're safe. i appreciate the lessons learned that we are learning, and i agree with my colleagues based on the gentleman -- mr. mckeown from the department of defense if i bring up those clouds. we were questioning whether department fans should take on there -- >> that money you haven't spent with ms. wicecarver. >> we want to. there's parts and service, and

it's. if it's something about zip. if they're major parts that could identify our war fighter, we need to make sure they're not only returned, make sure they're not put onto the. if there's a warranty, we need to turn it over again. got it needs to be followed through. so and i look to the reports that ms. speier said to

introduce.

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booktv has 48 hours of non-fiction books and authors every weekend. and here's some programs to watch for this weekend. this saturday at noon eastern, booktv is live at the folger shakespeare library to mark the anniversary of shakespeare's death. then at 10:00 afterwards with sue klebold. she discusses her son dylan klebold in the book "a mother's reckoning." >> if we look at a murder-suicide such as the

columbine tragedy, murder-suicide is a small subset of suicidality. perhaps 1% of suicides will result in the killing of someone else. so it's my job to understand suicide and try to prevent suicide so these things do not erupt into a terrible tragedy. >> at 1:00 p.m. on sunday, they will announce this year's winners of the pulitzer prize. joby warrick takes lie look at isis in his book "black flags." road to the white house continues saturday with senator bernie sanders. he'll be holding a campaign rally with senators in

wilmington, delaware while that state holds its primary next tuesday. you'll be able to watch that event saturday at 12:00 eastern on cspan. american history tv on c-span3. this weekend, saturday evening at 6:00 eastern on the civil war. he discusses his book "the myth of the lost cause," why the south fought the civil war and why the north won. he examines post-war arguments about their split from the union and their defeat. among the disputes, myths of the civil war, including how it started and why it ended. >> southerners feel compelled to explain why it was this devastation had occurred, and that, for example, 25% of southern white men between the ages of 20 and 45 were dead. not just casualties, they were dead as a result of the civil war. >> and then sunday morning at

10:00 on road to the white house rewind, the campaign of gary hart. we begin with the former colorado senator announcing his candidacy in denver. then when he explained claims of an affair with a woman named donna rice. and then hart's announcement to withdraw from the race. sunday evening at 6:00. curator tiny keriger. >> they would just beg the union to send anyone out, anyone, but her to negotiate contracts. however, she was at the forefront of that effort for a reason. and her name above, which is interesting, you know, because among many of the participants of the founder of this movement, when you hear about them, they always talk about sesa. and

>> and at 8:00 on the presidency. >> he tensed up and said, those sons of bitches, did any of them invite me to play golf at their country clubs? did any of them invite me to their clubs? it just goes on and on. >> his lip was quivering. that's one of the few times in all those three and a half plus years that i was so close to him that he was a well-contained disciplined man, very disciplined, and he knew how to keep this in. but he erupted when he was talking to don. he just said, not a god damn time. and he hated them for it. >> deputy assistant alexander butterfield and alan woodward focus on the former president's policies. for the weekend schedule go to cspan.org. coming up next, a hearing kpz water safety and

infrastructure affordability. local leaders and utility officials talk about the challenge of modernizing deteriorating water systems and a challenge by the federal government. this is about two hours. the meeting will come to order. i've been talking to someone down there. we have one from oklahoma. well, the epa has identified $384 billion in drinking water needs and 271 billion in wastewater needs over the next 20 years based on capital improvement plans developed by local utilities. according to the u.s. conference of mayors, which i really enjoyed visiting with u.s. countries, and i'm glad to have you here to represent them. that was about three weeks ago

or so. anyway, it's your meeting. it's nice to see some of the people that are still at the u.s. conference of mayors are there when i was a mayor. that was a long time ago. but according to the u.s. conference of mayors through 2013, local governments have invested over $2 trillion in sewer and water infrastructure and continue to spend $117 billion a year. these local expenditures represent over 98% -- 98% -- of the cost at providing services and investing in infrastructure. these costs are paid by you and by me and by our rate payers, and as a general rule, this is an appropriate thing to have users pay, but water and wastewater is funding by the taxpayers who receive these services, that's fine. unfortunately, however, we are no longer just paying for services, we are also paying for unfettered federal man dates as

mentioned, and as federal mandates pile up, the bills paid by homeowners are bigger and become unaffordable by many americans. federal mandates also force local communities to change their priorities in the water and sewer world. this pushes basic repair and replacement to the bottom of the list. when we force communities to chase mandates that may have very small incremental health and environmental benefits, we risk losing both basic public health protections and the economic foundations of our communities. there is a federal interest in maintaining these health protections and economic benefits, and there are a variety of ways we can help.