Pentagon has no idea how much military equipment it left in Afghanistan
By: Jared Keller (Task Purpose)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It's been more than a year since the U.S. military's chaotic withdrawal from Kabul, and the Defense Department actually has no clear idea how much U.S.-funded military equipment fell into the Taliban's hands in Afghanistan, according to a new report from a top government watchdog.
While a previous Pentagon inspector general report in August estimated that roughly $7.12 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was still in the inventory of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) when the central government in Kabul collapsed, a new assessment from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed last week that the Pentagon "has struggled for years with accurately accounting for the equipment it provided to the ANDSF."
The lack of accurate accounting stemmed from using the Core Inventory Management System (Core IMS) despite "limitations with the utility and accuracy of that system" reported by SIGAR since at least 2008. Indeed, a 2020 DoD IG audit revealed that Core IMS was never utilized at more than half of the Afghan-maintained weapons storage sites across the country simply because they lacked consistent access to electricity or the internet.
In addition, U.S. military officials concluded since at least 2014 that ANDSF personnel were "not entering information correctly into the system," and maintained inventory records using "hard copy documents, handwritten records, and some Microsoft Excel spreadsheets," according to the SIGAR report — the same system that created the conditions for 'ghost soldiers," or nonexistent personnel created solely to funnel money and equipment to (often-illicit) sources.
"As a result of the issues with the Core Inventory Management System and the regularly documented issues with DoD's ability to account for equipment provided to the Afghan government, it remains unclear whether the $7.1 billion figure reported to Congress is accurate," according to the SIGAR assessment.
Translation: the U.S. has no clear picture of how much military equipment it accidentally funneled into Taliban arsenals as the militant group swept across the country.
As Task & Purpose previously reported, that $7.12 billion amount originally reported to Congress represents roughly 38% of the $18.6 billion allocated for the procurement of military equipment for the ANDSF between 2005 and 2021, according to the August DoD IG report, a total that included military aircraft, aircraft munitions, small arms, and ground vehicles including Humvees, MRAPs, and other tactical vehicles.
To be fair, U.S. forces in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan did their part to render larger pieces of equipment unusable to incoming Taliban militants: their ad-hoc demilitarization efforts "included rendering inoperable 70 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected tactical vehicles and 80 aircraft" the SIGAR report states. "U.S. Air Force personnel assisted in the decommissioning effort, which included clogging fuel lines, removing or destroying high tech equipment, and physically damaging cockpits and avionics."
But the August DoD report made it clear that regardless of what larger military equipment the Taliban managed to tactically acquire (and continue to operate with severe logistical and maintenance shortfalls), the militants certainly increased their arsenal of small and heavy arms in a significant way.
"Since 2005, the DoD procured 427,300 weapons worth $612 million for the Afghan military and security forces, including 258,300 rifles, 6,300 sniper rifles, 64,300 pistols, 56,155 machine guns, 31,000 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 224 howitzers," according to the August DoD IG report. "OUSD(P) noted that 316,260 of these weapons, worth $511.8 million, were in the Afghan forces' stocks when the former government fell."
And while the lack of equipment accountability under the DoD may not be surprising — "since at least 2009, SIGAR and the DoD Office of Inspector General (DOD IG) have published reports noting accountability shortfalls and issues with DoD's processes for tracking equipment in Afghanistan," the report states — the cavalier attitude of U.S. officials at the time towards the sudden transfer of weapons certainly was.
"We are always worried about U.S. equipment that could fall into an adversaries' hands," then-Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said during the fall of Kabul when pressed on the issue. "What actions we might take to prevent that or to forestall it, I just simply won't speculate about today."
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So thanks to Joe Biden's clusterfuck order to retreat from Afghanistan the Taliban has gotten US military equipment.
To be fair Afghanistan has been a clusterfuck since Bush Jr allowed himself to be roped into nation building in Afghanistan.
If the US had gone it alone and went entirely search and destroy with limited military personnel outside of scout teams on the ground to help locate/verify targets and guide in missile attacks; we would have been far better off.
As the article states since the start the system they used to track equipment and weapons was pretty much worthless; and it was never changed or improved.
Biden gets the blame for the fucked up withdrawal. But he has to share blame with Bush Jr, Obama, and Trump for the entire mess.
I can only speak from my experience with accountability of equipment, and that all fell in line with the regulations governing that accountability. We had done numerous inventories to account for every piece.
The equipment landing in Taliban control is solely on Biden and his horrible decision to "cut and run" from Afghanistan.
I will defer to your military supply chain experience.
I only based my observations on what the article stated.
I still don't agree with our nation building in Afghanistan. Nor how long we were there.
I do agree with you that the fucked up withdrawal is completely on Biden. I would rather have seen every last pieced of equipment and weaponry blown up instead of falling into Taliban hands.
I agree. There is absolutely no reason for us to be there for that long. It only created more problems.
It would make going back a little easier. IF we go back, don't put anybody on the ground. Just run sortie after sortie and annihilate any US equipment on the ground. It would diminish their size and capabilities.
We don't seem to ever learn from past mistakes though.
If we go back we will probably try nation building again.
I see it happening in Iraq and Syria. We can't forget that train wreck.
Just one of many things is the last 2 years Biden can point to and say "I did that!". Thanks a heap Brandon!
There ain't an easy way out of a quagmire. That's why it's important to avoid getting into a quagmire.
What the report illustrates is the long, long problem of the disconnect between procurement and military readiness. Defense procurement is all about process and not about results. Procurement only worries about fulfilling contract specifications. And inventory accounting. Congress already knows how much money was authorized and spent. That's the only figure that matters, after all.
In the end, the accounting is really unimportant. The battlefield facts are that the planned withdrawal from the Afghanistan quagmire wasn't planned that well. The US military engaged in an unplanned retreat and not a planned withdrawal. Apparently the US military planning relied upon a claimed enemy providing security to allow the withdrawal. Who's the brilliant military tactician that came up with that plan?
Accounting for the number of pencils (or howitzers) abandoned in Afghanistan really isn't that important. That's the messy part of getting out of a quagmire. The real issue that needs scrutiny is the unplanned retreat from Afghanistan. Tactical planning failed miserably and that's a larger problem that needs to be addressed.
Don't be so hard on Biden, the way he did the pull out he made sure there would be no ongoing civil war by arming the Taliban, so if anyone who could befriend the Taliban could also go in and mine the country for it's minerals without the threat of war. Is there a country out there that would be interested?
I'll bet you a dollar to a donut Beijing is already mining them big time, especially the rare earth variety!
Sadly, the opposite of such a free-for-all happens at street level when Snuffy loses a medical bag and the CO wants to bill him $1500. And they can’t keep people?
Agree, the original mission was completed within the first year at a US loss of around 60 service members. We should have left then and told the warlords, if the terrorists camps come back, so will we.
I like your plan.
If nothing else we could have showered gifts, weapons, and equipment on the warlords to help them fight any returning Taliban/Al Qaeda. We did that anyways to keep the Warlords a part of the government. It would have been far cheaper than the nation building we did.
That was Rumsfeld's original plan. We had clear goals and a light footprint. We don't really no how to do nation building, there aren't any military drills or specialties for that mission. We succeeded in Japan and Germany because we were re-building nations, not creating them. The Japanese and German people wanted a rebuilt nation more that anything. You can't rescue a society and political system that is badly broken, during an ongoing insurgency that is supported by Pakistan with 12-month rotations.
The US Marines had 16 Abrams and 28 Bradleys in Southern Afghanistan in 2010-11. All that weren't damaged beyond repair returned to the US.
Although I fully understand the importance of retrieving our military equipment, I wonder if either Biden or Kirby have been ready or willing to speculate about the number of US citizens and green card holders who are STILL unable to leave Afghanistan and what they plan to do to rescue them? Or, are American lives simply collateral damage in Biden's botched withdrawal?
They first have to admit there are any US citizens; Special VISA holders; and green card holders left in Afghanistan. Brandon has "turned the page" already. Haven't heard anyone in his administration mention Afghanistan since.
You are 110% correct. I don't understand how a POTUS, who claimed he was a "uniter" and by the Constitution is supposed to represent ALL US citizens, legal immigrants (visa/green card) has constantly turned his back on so many and knowingly subjected them to Islamic terrorism. The only rational reason is that Biden hates Americans and the US Constitution.