The Defense Department recently estimated that the U.S. left $7.12 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan at the time of the Taliban takeover last year, according to a new State Department Inspector General report. State’s independent auditor disclosed the latest Pentagon assessment, which was made earlier this year, in a document released on Tuesday.
“The DoD estimated that $7.12 billion worth of U.S.-funded aircraft, vehicles, weapons, munitions, and other equipment were still in Afghan government inventories at the time of the Taliban takeover,” the State Department IG report said.
The Office of the Inspector General, however, also said that the Pentagon’s office of the undersecretary for policy — which made the estimate — stressed that some of that equipment was either rendered inoperable by withdrawing U.S. forces or would be difficult for the Taliban to use without U.S. contractor support.
While the U.S. removed “nearly all major equipment” used by American troops, State’s IG said, referring to the Pentagon’s assessment, there were some notable exceptions.
Certain equipment the U.S. gave to the Afghan military was still in the country when the Taliban took over. Per the State Department report, the Pentagon said this included $923 million of military aircraft and an additional $295 million worth of aircraft munitions. Some of the aircraft were thought to have been “demilitarized and rendered inoperable” ahead of the U.S. departure.
House GOP lawmakers are investigating the equipment left behind, in addition to numerous other aspects of the calamitous withdrawal process. House Foreign Affairs Committee GOP lead Michael McCaul released a sweeping report this week, stating, “The Taliban has kept much of this ‘windfall’ of U.S.-supplied materiel, parading that equipment in multiple ceremonies.”
The McCaul report, citing the $7.12 billion Pentagon-provided figure, gave a brief accounting of the equipment said to have been left in Afghanistan, based on Pentagon assessments:
More than 180,000 “air to ground munitions” remained in Taliban controlled Afghanistan, constituting some 18,000 precision and non-precision “gravity” bombs and 160,000 precision and non-precision aviation rockets.
More than 258,000 rifles, to include M-16/M-4 and AK-47 variants were left behind, in addition to 56,000 machine guns and 31,000 rocket propelled and handheld grenade launchers.
Heavier weapons likely now in Taliban’s hands include 1,845 D-30 60-82mm mortar systems along with over one million mortar rounds as well as 224 D-130 122mm howitzer artillery guns.
Other equipment still in Afghanistan included 17,400 night vision devices, 95 small drones, and other surveillance and communication gear.
Images have shown “Taliban fighters with captured U.S.-supplied weapons such as M4 carbines, machine guns, night-vision devices, body armor, Toyota trucks, and Humvees” in addition to “MRAPs, and even some aircraft such as UH-60 Blackhawks, Mi-17 helicopters, and ScanEagle unmanned aerial systems,” the watchdog said.