As Afghan War nears end, US prepares to spend billions on shipping weapons back home
Published time: September 24, 2013 17:07
Pentagon building in Washington, DC.(AFP Photo)
Going to war isn’t cheap, but neither is ending one. As the United States prepares to make its grand exit from Afghanistan at the end of next year, the Pentagon is planning on spending at least $3 billion just to send leftover equipment back to the US.
The astronomical shipping cost was confirmed in USA TODAY this
week by reporter Tom Vanden Brook, who wrote that roughly
1.5 million pieces of gear will have to go home before the
December 2014 deadline for US to exit Afghanistan.
By then, the US will have spent over 13 years overseas involved
in a lengthy operation that began following the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001 and remains active even two years after
al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was assassinated by American
troops in neighboring Pakistan. Around 60,000 US troops are still
stationed in Afghanistan.
At the beginning of 2013, Vanden Brook wrote, the military was
left wondering what to do with around $28 billion worth of gear
that wouldn’t be needed much longer overseas. Around $11 billion
worth of those items have since been shuffled away, and the US
has closed the majority of its 400 Afghan bases. As the exit date
nears day by day, however, the Pentagon is perusing its hefty
arsenal of arms and attempting to identify the quickest and most
cost-effective way to rid the region of the $17 billion or so
worth of warheads that will soon no longer be needed.
“We’re looking around and cleaning out the garage,” said
Maj. Gen. Edward Dorman, a top Army logistician, told the
newspaper.
If the Pentagon keeps the price-tag for shipping below $3
billion, though, some experts might be surprised. Earlier this
month, Reuters’ David Alexander reported that removing military
equipment from Afghanistan could cost the US Department of
Defense between $5 billion and $7 billion, depending on the way
the Pentagon plans its exit.
Officials speaking to both Reuters and USA Today said the DoD
would prefer shipping its supplies by first routing them through
Pakistan to the port of Karachi, then load up ships that could
sail back to Texas over the course of roughly 160 days each trip.
By comparison, using air freight could move sensitive equipment
from Afghanistan to the US in under a day, but would come at a
much larger price. As the US continues to launch drone strikes on
suspected militants in Pakistan, however, tensions remain high
between the two once-friendly allies, and could worsen to the
point of complicating any American exit from Afghanistan if the
assaults continue. After a strike last Thursday left six
suspected militants dead, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
issued a statement warning that the attack “set dangerous
precedents” regarding the country’s relationship with the US.
Currently, the Pentagon spends around $5.9 billion a month in
Afghanistan, Vanden Brook wrote. Unfortunately, the cost of
shipping could have liken been less severe had the DoD refrained
from reaching for its credit card as often as it did.
“We have a lot of stuff there. Inevitably, we overbought,”
Gordon Adams, a professor at American University and former
defense official, told USA Today.
“Is war wasteful? Yes,” Adams said. “Is ending war
wasteful? But bringing back something and pretending you’re going
to use it is even more wasteful. It doesn’t do anybody any good
if you just bring it back and park it.”
Adams added that the $3 billion estimate is “pretty cheap”
in his opinion, but the Pentagon will likely leave as much
overseas as possible if deals can be brokered to sell of weapons
in lieu of shipping them back to the States. USA Today reports
that about $7 billion in material may be left behind in
Afghanistan — either sold to allies, handed over to the Afghan
government or else smelted down and sold as scrap metal.
Copyright: RT
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