Nearly $420m worth of equipment lost in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Pajhwok): US Army equipment and supplies in Afghanistan worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost or are unaccounted for, a report has said.

 “Since 2010, 309 forward operating bases (in Afghanistan) have closed and only a fraction of lost items from previous (inventory loss investigations) have been located,” Defense Department Inspector General said in its latest report.

 “For example, between 2006 and 2010, there were 174,247 pieces of equipment listed as unaccounted for —valued at $429.5 million,” it said.

The summery said as of May 30, 2014, only 40,690 (23 percent) of the total pieces of equipment and id=”mce_marker”91.1 million (44 percent) of the total dollar amount had been recovered.

The report dated October 30  marked “For Official Use Only,” has not been officially released to the public. It is marked, “The Army Needs to Improve the Processes for Reporting Inventory Losses in Afghanistan.”

According to the report, the US Army did not report fiscal year 2013 inventory losses in Afghanistan in a timely manner.

“Specifically, the 401st Army Field Support Brigade (AFSB) did not report in a timely manner 15,600 pieces of missing equipment valued at approximately $419.5 million. This is one in a series of audits about the retrograde of equipment from Afghanistan,” the report said.

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