The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) ina report released on Thursday says the Defense Department has failed tokeep track of surveillance systems, controls for laser-guided bombs,night-vision devices and other equipment provided to the Afghan government.
The report says that since 2001, the US has made training and equipping theAfghan forces a priority of its reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
To support this priority, from fiscal year 2002 through 2017, the mostrecent year for which data are available), the US government transferred tothe Afghan government more than $28 billion worth of defense articles andservices, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night-vision devices,aircraft, and surveillance systems.
The report says the US Congress has mandated that the US government ensurethat countries receiving defense articles and services appropriately useand secure them through a program called end-use monitoring.
The goods transferred to the Afghan government are “some of the mostsensitive of all defense articles” and were supposed to be fullyinventoried by the US every year, to ensure they were being used for theirintended purpose and were not transferred to a third party without USgovernment consent, according to the report.
But only 40% of the sensitive articles given to the Afghans wereinventoried between May 2019 and April 2020, the report says, adding thatabout 5% of items that were supposed to have been tracked since October2016 have never been inventoried at all.
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Inadequate tracking means that “sensitive technology remains susceptible totheft or loss,” and the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan,which is responsible for monitoring the equipment, is less able to verifythat Afghan units “are using these articles in accordance with theirtransfer agreements,” the report said.
Two years ago, Afghan forces told the US monitors that 19 of 48 US-providednight-vision devices had fallen into enemy hands and 29 were listed asdestroyed, damaged or lost, the report mentioned.
Security constraints and travel limitations in Afghanistan make itdifficult to monitor the US-provided equipment and how it’s being used, thereport said.
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