Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, California Democrat, said today he plans to hold a hearing into $300 million in federal contracts with a Florida firm that reportedly supplied faulty and old arms to Afghanistan's army and police forces.

A release from Mr. Waxman's office cited a story from today's New York Times claiming the company, AEY Inc., provided 40-year-old ammunition in decomposing packaging collected from stockpiles in the former Communist bloc.

According to The New York Times:

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan's army and police forces.

Mr. Waxman said he plans to bring in senior AEY executives and senior officials from the Defense Department and the State Department for the hearing on April 17.

— Carrie Sheffield, Web editor, The Washington Times