Republicans Inflate Cost of Taliban-Seized U.S. Military Equipment
By Robert Farley
The Taliban seized an arsenal of U.S.-made military equipment when it overran the Afghan army, but not nearly as much as numerous Republicans have claimed.
Several Republican members of Congress and former President Donald Trump have cited a grossly exaggerated figure of $85 billion worth of equipment they say has now fallen into the hands of the Taliban. But that figure — actually $82.9 billion — is the total amount spent on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund since the war began in 2001.
Only a portion of that is equipment. And military experts say much of the equipment has been used up or is otherwise inoperable; the military has moved or destroyed some of it as well.
For those reasons, and others, Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told us, “The figure is statistically rubbish.”
Nonetheless, numerous Republicans have cited it, including Trump, who has done so repeatedly.
“They’ve left $83 billion worth of equipment behind, including brand new Apache helicopters, thousands of Humvee vehicles with armor guard, equipment that nobody has ever even seen before, it was so sophisticated,” Trump said at a rally in Alabama on Aug. 22.
In a statement released on Aug. 30, Trump said, “In addition to the obvious, ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost. If it is not handed back, we should either go in with unequivocal Military force and get it, or at least bomb the hell out of it.”
At House Republican press conferences on Aug. 30 and Aug. 31, Rep. Jim Banks also repeatedly cited the figure.
“Never would I have believed then or up until this point where we are today that not just a little bit, not just some, but all of the $85 billion dollar’s worth of American equipment that we turned over to the Afghan police and the Afghan Army would fall in the hands of our enemy,” Bank said on Aug. 30. “That’s where we are at this point because of the negligence, the hasty and incompetent withdrawal led by this commander in chief, all of the $85 billion dollar’s worth of equipment has been left behind and fallen into the hands of the Taliban, without any plan, there was never a plan by this administration or the Pentagon to destroy or evacuate any of that equipment. … Leaving $85 billion of equipment. Vehicles, weapons and ammunition, night vision goggles, medical supplies, biometric devices and data of our allies. All of it falling into the hands of the Taliban.”
Other Republicans, including Reps. Lauren Boebert, Pat Fallon, Jason Smith and Lee Zeldin, have cited the inflated figure as well.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. even tweeted a message that broke out the cost per American.
“For perspective… $85,000,000,000 worth of military being left to Taliban Terrorists means that each and every man, woman, and child in American contributed about $265 to their terrorist cause assuming +/-320 mil citizens,” Trump Jr. stated.
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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Saturday, September 11th 2021 at 3:31PM
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