How The U.S. Waste $17 Billion In Afghanistan

Chairs at a school built, but never occupied, were stripped for firewood. Credit: SIGAR/Flickr

ProPublica: Behold: How the US blew $17 billion in Afghanistan

In 2008, the Pentagon bought 20 refurbished cargo planes for the Afghan Air Force, but as one top US officer put it, “just about everything you can think of was wrong.” No spare parts, for example. The planes were also “a death trap,” according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. So $486 million was spent on worthless planes that no one could fly. We did recoup some of the investment. Sixteen of the planes were sold as scrap for the grand sum of $32,000. That’s 6 cents a pound.

You’d think someone would have been in trouble.

Wrong.

Nothing happened to anybody in charge of that spectacular screw up. No general even had to make an embarrassing appearance on Capitol Hill. Congress made not a peep.

Even worse, such jaw-dropping waste without a shred of accountability is not an anomaly. It has happened in Afghanistan again and again, and, you guessed it, again. Some of the more outlandish examples have briefly seized the attention of the news media, but really, the running tab for the waste has mounted out of sight of the taxpayers footing the bill.

Update: Six Years and $17 Billion Wasted in Afghanistan with Nothing to Show for It  -- Martin Matishak, Fiscal Times

WNU Editor: We in the West have certainly lost our way.