DoD Inspector General: $3.1 Billion Unaccounted for in Afghanistan

The DoD Inspector General (IG) revealed in a report last week that military authorities could not confirm whether the $3.1 billion in funding for the Afghan government fulfilled its intended purposes. According to the report, insufficient U.S. oversight and Afghan capability led to mismanagement and an overall lack of assurance as to exactly where DoD funds ended up.

For example, the DoD simply doesn’t know where some of the vehicles it supplied to the ANDSF ended up. The DoD IG found that “since 2005, CSTC-A officials obtained approximately 95,000 vehicles for the ANDSF; however, CSTC-A officials did not have an accurate inventory of the vehicles.” Some likely landed in Taliban hands, while others wound up back on base for repairs after being “reported as destroyed in battle.”

Vehicles also lacked a reliable workforce of mechanics to service them when they broke down. The IG noted that “officials did not provide sufficient training to the Afghan National Police to independently maintain its fleet of vehicles.” This shortfall led to DoD spending “approximately $21 million to replace engines and transmissions on vehicles” that Afghans could have otherwise fixed if properly trained to provide the needed maintenance for operational upkeep.

Shortfalls noted by the DoD IG show that Afghan forces are still heavily reliant on U.S. and partner participation and guidance despite U.S. and coalition efforts to build ANDSF capabilities so that the force can become self-reliant and take the fight to the enemy themselves. In one case the report notes that “CSTC-A officials performed the ministerial functions related to fuel management, [while] MoD officials did not develop the skills to perform these duties.” Even while directly assisting, “CSTC-A officials do not have reasonable assurance that the fuel purchased was used for its intended purposes.”

Issues consistently plaguing U.S. development of Afghan defense capacities

Two key problems persist across many U.S. efforts to build up Afghan government and military capabilities. First, U.S. and coalition partners can’t find proper or reliable training mechanisms to effectively teach Afghans the skills they need for self-reliance. Combat and policing training has been significantly misguided at times, and the Army is just now developing new training units tailored to the development of foreign forces, with the ANDSF serving as a worthy first test. In this vein, the DoD IG report notes poor training of ministerial skills to Afghans as a primary shortfall of CSTC-A’s fund management.

Second, even when U.S. and coalition forces find proper training resources and teachers, they’re faced with an Afghan population that still struggles with rampant illiteracy rates and limited computer skills. This makes for a small talent pool and a prolonged learning curve on new systems and skills. This problem is particularly exacerbated when U.S. efforts or funding hit the local operational level.

The recurrent difficulties described in the DoD IG’s report can also be found in numerous reports issued by SIGAR when tracking ANDSF force strength and development.

You can read the full DoD IG report here.

Phil Hegseth is a social and digital media specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributor to FDD’s Long War Journal.

This article appeared originally at FDD's Long War Journal.