(ConservativeSense.com) – A new report has revealed that more than $7 billion worth of military equipment was left in Afghanistan, under Taliban control, when the US withdrew in 2021.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the equipment included aircraft, missiles, communication tools, and biometric devices. Moreover, this does not account for all of what was left behind. The report states, “The final tally of military equipment abandoned in Afghanistan can’t be confirmed, in part, because the electronic database used to track the material crashed in early 2021.” It also warns that weapons provided to Ukraine by the US also risk falling into the wrong hands.
The chaotic Biden withdrawal will be subject to a new House of Representatives investigation. The GOP investigators have sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting information on intelligence, internal agency documents, and all communications with the Taliban in the run-up to the tumultuous exit. Rep. Michael McCaul will lead the investigation as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He said the Biden administration has previously refused to cooperate on this matter and called the situation “absurd and disgraceful.”
The United States withdrew its forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 after 20 years of war. It followed an agreement with President Trump the previous year that the Taliban would commit to counter-terrorism measures. American troops entered Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks and pushed the radical Islamic group out of power. However, the Taliban became a powerful insurgent group that, by 2018, was active in two-thirds of the embattled country.
While supporting the departure, Donald Trump was highly critical of the nature and hastiness of the Biden withdrawal. He called it an embarrassment and added he would have gotten American people and equipment out before the armed forces were retracted.
More than 2,300 American troops died in Afghanistan and the US spent in excess of $5 trillion over the course of the two decades-long war.
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