Hundreds of billions have been spent by the United States in Afghanistan. Here are 10 of the most vivid examples of “waste, fraud and abuse”

The following are 10 notable cases, devoid of identifying details, compiled by CNN over the years.

1) Kabul’s winter blanket

The Tarakhil power station was commissioned in 2007 as a back-up generator for the capital, in case the electricity supply to Uzbekistan is compromised.

A large modern structure, it ran on diesel turbines, supplied by a branded engineering giant. There was one problem: Afghanistan had little diesel and had to ship the fuel by truck, making the plant too expensive to operate.

The facility itself cost $ 335 million to build and its annual fuel cost is estimated at $ 245 million. The most recent evaluation of SIGAR indicated that at best it was being used at only 2.2% of its capacity because the Afghan government could not afford the fuel. USAID declined to comment.

2) A fleet of half a billion dollar cargo planes that flew for a year

The fledgling Afghan Air Force needed cargo planes. In 2008, the Pentagon selected the G222, an Italian-designed aircraft designed to take off and land on rugged runways. This first year, according to a speech by SIGAR chief John Sopko, citing a USAF officer, the planes were very busy.

But they would not be durable. The planes were only noticed by SIGAR when Sopko noticed them parked at Kabul airport and asked what they were doing there.

Six years after the launch of the supply, the 16 planes delivered to Afghanistan were sold for scrap for $ 40,257. Project cost: $ 549 million.

3) The $ 36 million Marine HQ in the desert, neither wanted nor used

Sopko said in a speech that this 64,000 square foot control center in Helmand epitomizes how when a project gets started it often can’t be stopped.

In 2010, the Marines were increasing the number of troops in Helmand, the deadliest part of Afghanistan. A command and control center at the main base at Camp Leatherneck was ordered as part of the effort, although Sopko recalled the base commander and two other naval generals said it was not. necessary because it would not be completed quickly enough.

Sopko said the idea of ​​returning funds allocated to Congress was “so obnoxious to the contract command, it was built anyway. The facility was never occupied, Camp Leatherneck was handed over to the Afghans, who abandoned him “.

It cost $ 36 million, was never used, and appears to have been later stripped by the Afghans, who also never seemed to use it.

Major Robert Lodewick, a spokesman for the DoD, said in a statement that the SIGAR report contained “factual errors”, objected to how it involved “embezzlement” on the part of some officers, and said the $ 36 million figure included ancillary costs such as roads to the headquarters.

4) $ 28 million on improper camouflage pattern

In 2007, new uniforms were ordered for the Afghan army. Afghan Defense Minister Wardak said he wanted a rare camouflage pattern, “Spec4ce Forest”, from Canadian company HyperStealth.

A total of 1.3 million sets have been ordered, priced at $ 43 to $ 80 each, compared to $ 25 to 30 initially estimated for replacement uniforms. The uniforms have never been tested or evaluated in the field, and there is only 2.1% forest cover in Afghanistan.

In testimony, Sopko said it costs taxpayers an additional $ 28 million to purchase the uniforms with a patented pattern, and SIGAR predicted in 2017 that a different pattern choice could have saved a potential of $ 72 million. dollars over the next decade.

DoD spokesman Lodewick said the report “overestimates” the cost and “wrongly discredits the value of the type of model selected,” adding that much of the fighting in Afghanistan has taken place in green areas. .

5) $ 1.5 million per day to fight opium production

In 2017, production was four times what it was in 2002. A State Department spokesperson noted that “the Taliban have been the main factor contributing to the persistence of the poppy in recent years” and ” that the Taliban have pledged to ban narcotics ”.

6) $ 249 million on an incomplete road

A vast ring road around Afghanistan was funded by multiple grants and donors, totaling billions over the course of the war. Towards the end of the project, a 233-kilometer section in the north, between the towns of Qeysar and Laman, distributed $ 249 million to contractors, but only 15% of the road under construction, a SIGAR audit reported.

Between March 2014 and September 2017, there was no construction on this section and what had been built deteriorated, the report concludes. USAID declined to comment.

7) an $ 85 million hotel that never opened

A large hotel and apartment complex has been ordered next to the US Embassy in Kabul, for which the US government has provided $ 85 million in loans.

In 2016, SIGAR concluded that “the $ 85 million in loans are gone, the buildings were never completed and are uninhabitable, and the United States Embassy is now required to provide security at the site to a additional cost to US taxpayers ”.

The audit concluded that the contractor had made unrealistic promises to guarantee the loans, and that the branch of the US government that oversaw the project never visited the site, nor did the company they hired by. thereafter to supervise the project. A State Department spokesperson said they did not manage the construction and it was “a private enterprise.”

8) The fund that spent more on itself than Afghanistan

The Pentagon created the Task Force for Trade and Stability Operations (TFBSO) extended from Iraq to Afghanistan in 2009, for operations in Afghanistan, Congress has set aside $ 823 million.

More than half of the money actually spent by TFBSO – $ 359 million out of $ 675 million – was “spent on indirect and support costs, not directly on projects in Afghanistan,” SIGAR concluded in an audit .

They examined 89 of the contracts entered into by TFBSO and found that “7 contracts worth $ 35.1 million were awarded to companies employing former TFBSO employees as senior managers.”

An audit also found that the fund spent around $ 6 million to support the cashmere industry, $ 43 million on a compressed natural gas station and $ 150 million on high-end villas for its staff.

DoD spokesman Lodewick said that SIGAR did not accuse anyone of fraud or embezzlement, disputed the “weaknesses and shortcomings” of the audit and said that “28 of TFBSO’s 35 projects have achieved or partially achieved their objectives “.

9) The offshore health establishment

A 2015 report on USAID funding for health facilities in Afghanistan said more than a third of the 510 projects they had received contact details for did not exist in those locations. Thirteen were “not located in Afghanistan, including one in the Mediterranean Sea”. Thirty “were located in a province different from that reported by USAID.”

And “189 did not show any physical structure within 400 feet of the reported coordinates. Just under half of those locations showed no physical structure within half a mile of the reported coordinates.” The audit indicated that USAID and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health could only provide “oversight of these facilities. [if they] know where they are. USAID declined to comment.

10) At least $ 19 billion lost due to “waste, fraud, abuse”

An October 2020 report presented a surprising total for the war. The then Congress had allocated 134 billion dollars since 2002 for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

SIGAR was able to examine $ 63 billion, or nearly half. They concluded that $ 19 billion of that amount – almost a third – was “lost through waste, fraud and abuse.”

DoD spokesman Lodewick said they and “several other US government departments and agencies have already said they have disputed some of these reports as inaccurate and misleading” and that their findings “seemed to ignore the difference. between reconstruction efforts which may have been willfully / negligently mismanaged and those efforts which, at the time of the report, had simply not met the strategic objectives. “