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Watchdog: U.S. taxpayers spending $772M on aircraft Afghans “cannot operate or maintain”

Aug 6, 2013 9:08 am By Robert Spencer

Some senators are concerned because the Russian firm making the Mi-17 helicopters has ties to Assad. No one seems concerned about the larger question of why this materiel should be given to the Afghans in the first place. How long will the Karzai regime last after the U.S. troops are gone, or mostly gone? And even if it does last, when Karzai has invited the Taliban to take part in elections and has even threatened to join them himself, what is to prevent these aircraft from falling into their hands and then being used in jihad attacks against Americans and American allies?

“Watchdog: US spending $772M on aircraft Afghans ‘cannot operate or maintain,'” from FoxNews.com, August 5 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

The chief watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction warned in a recent audit that the Pentagon is moving forward with a $772 million purchase of aircraft that the Afghan army “cannot operate or maintain.”

The latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction cited the aircraft purchases among its top concerns. The IG’s office had earlier issued a report in June detailing how “the Afghans lack the capacity — in both personnel numbers and expertise — to operate and maintain” existing and planned fleets.

The findings are likely to contribute to the budget debate on Capitol Hill over the funding. The bulk of the purchase is a $554 million contract for 30 Mi-17 helicopters from Russian firm Rosoboronexport.

Senators already are trying to strip funding for those contracts, out of concern for the company’s ties to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Before Congress went on recess, a Senate budget panel signed off on a spending bill that guts funding for the Mi-17 choppers.

The IG audit cited a different set of concerns — that the Afghan unit responsible for the aircraft has just one quarter of the personnel it needs to be at “full strength,” that recruiting and training challenges inhibit growth; that the Afghan Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior have no agreement on the “command and control” of the unit; and that few of the pilots in the unit are fully qualified to fly with night vision goggles.

The report urged the U.S. military to suspend contracts until the Afghan ministries come to an agreement. It also called for a better plan to be developed for transferring the unit over to the Afghans.

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Filed Under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, dhimmitude


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