WASHINGTON — In addition to bombing multiple Islamic State financial targets last week, officials announced they destroyed "hundreds of millions of dollars" of cash by investing it in the F-35 program.
The money, according to senior leaders at the Pentagon, was $500 million of the $1 billion originally budgeted to train thousands of fighters in Syria. The program, canceled by President Obama last October due to training only "four or five" fighters at roughly $9 million per fighter, is ironically a welcome reprieve for the beleaguered Joint Strike Fighter.
"We disposed of the money in a safe and completely discreet manner," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "We knew if we used it for ammunition and weapons for groups in Syria like we first reported it would just go right back to ISIS. But, we had to get rid of it somehow, and what better place than the financial and political quagmire that is the F-35."
"We certainly weren't going to return it to the Treasury."
