Pentagon wasted $28 million on uniforms for Afghan soldiers, report says

[GMDino]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/21/pentagon-blew-28-million-uniforms-afghan-soldiers-report-says/413219001/

Quote:WASHINGTON — The Pentagon wasted as much as $28 million over the past decade buying uniforms for the Afghan army with a woodland camouflage pattern appropriate for a tiny fraction of that war-torn country, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.


The Afghan Defense Minister picked the pricey, privately owned “forest” color pattern over free camouflage schemes owned by the U.S. government, according to an advance copy of the report due out on Wednesday. The scathing, 17-page study notes that “forests cover only 2.1% of Afghanistan’s total land area.”

“My concern is what if the minister of defense liked purple, or liked pink?” John Sopko, the special inspector general, told USA TODAY in an interview. “Are we going to buy pink uniforms for soldiers and not ask questions? That’s insane. This is just simply stupid on its face. We wasted $28 million of taxpayers’ money in the name of fashion, because the defense minister thought that that pattern was pretty. So if he thought pink or chartreuse was it, would we have done that?”

John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. (Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)

 
For years, Sopko’s office has scalded the Pentagon for squandering tens of millions of dollars of the $66 billion Congress has appropriated to train, equip and house Afghan security forces. Wednesday’s installment on uniforms was particularly pungent, noting that special tailoring — zippers instead of buttons — boosted the cost of uniforms of already dubious value.

The report’s release comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis considers sending thousands more U.S. troops to bolster beleaguered Afghan forces in what has become America’s longest war. Afghan troops face a resurgent Taliban insurgency, an offshoot of the Islamic State (ISIS), and other terrorist groups.

The Pentagon has spent $93 million on the uniforms since 2007. Switching to a camouflage pattern owned by the U.S. military could save taxpayers as much as $71 million over the next decade, the inspector general found.

The Pentagon, in its written response, didn’t quibble with the findings. Instead, in a letter to Sopko, the military acknowledged the need for a cost-benefit analysis “to determine whether there is a more effective alternative, considering both operational environment and cost.”

No camouflage for bad decisions

Reaction to Sopko’s findings was swift and sharp.

“You’d think the Pentagon would have had a good handle on how to pick the right camouflage for uniforms,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican and senior member of the Budget and Finance committees, said in a statement. “Instead, the Defense Department gave up control of the purchase and spent an extra $28 million on the wrong pattern just because someone in Afghanistan liked it. It’s embarrassing and an affront to U.S. taxpayers. Those who wasted money on the wrong camouflage uniforms seem to have lost sight of their common sense.”  

The decision to buy the woodland-pattern uniform dates to 2007. For the previous five years, Afghan soldiers had been issued a “hodgepodge” of uniforms donated from several nations, according to the report. Early in 2007, the Afghan Defense Ministry decided it needed a “new and distinctive uniform” to set the Afghan army apart.


The United States is not winning in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress on Tuesday, saying he was crafting a new war strategy to brief lawmakers about by mid-July that is widely expected to call for thousands more U.S. troops Time


In February 2007, U.S. officials training the Afghan army cruised the internet for camouflage patterns. In an email, the officials “ran across” camouflage from a company called HyperStealth and showed them to Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak. He “liked what he saw,” the report says.

By May, Wardak had selected the “Forest” pattern, and U.S. officials made the decision to buy 1,364,602 uniforms and 88,010 extra pairs of pants “without conducting any formal testing to determine the pattern's effectiveness for use in Afghanistan,” according to the report.

The report, however, raises questions about the utility of forest camouflage in a country that “on the whole is dry, falling within the Desert or Desert Steppe climate classification,” according to the National Climatic Data Center. 

Read more:
[url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/09/pentagon-wants-more-troops-bombs-afghanistan-counter-taliban/101460802/][/url]

Pentagon wants more troops, bombs for Afghanistan to counter Taliban

Report cites wasted Pentagon money in Afghanistan
 

The Pentagon also could have recommended camouflage patterns the military owns but no longer uses. Those uniforms “may have been equally effective in the Afghan environment” and with fewer alterations, like zippers, could have saved as much as $28 million.

“We had camouflage patterns,” Sopko said. “Dozens of them. For free!”

The inspector general’s report concludes that neither the Pentagon nor the Afghan government knows if the uniform still being issued there is “appropriate to the Afghan environment, or whether it actually hinders their operations by providing a more clearly visible target to the enemy.”

Those soldiers may be the ultimate losers in the uniform debacle, Sopko said.

“I feel sorry for the poor Afghan soldiers,” Sopko said. “I mean they’re walking around with a target on their backs, ‘Shoot me.’ Because only 2% of the country is forest woodland, and that’s the outfit that the Afghan minister picked.”

Looks like we need to cut food stamps again....

[Au165]

Government purchasing in general is horrible and wasteful. My company does a lot of it and they either want to underpay and not get the solution they need or over pay and get far more than what they need for their issue.

[Belsnickel]

I am utterly shocked. Shocked I say. When I see things like this and then think of all of the underfunded (or outright unfunded) things that could make a positive impact on the people in our country it irritates me to think that our defense budget is so bloated that things happen like this and nothing is really done about it apart from lip service.

I may or may not be doing research on something that would benefit from government funded research, but hasn't received government funding for 20 years.

[Dill]

Digital Woodland--Cool!

[Dill]

(06-21-2017, 04:00 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I am utterly shocked. Shocked I say. When I see things like this and then think of all of the underfunded (or outright unfunded) things that could make a positive impact on the people in our country it irritates me to think that our defense budget is so bloated that things happen like this and nothing is really done about it apart from lip service.

I may or may not be doing research on something that would benefit from government funded research, but hasn't received government funding for 20 years.

Them's small potatoes, Bels.  I know you haven't forgotten that HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS went down the toilet in Iraq.

The fascinating irony about that waste is that so much of it was driven by the complaint that government is inefficient, hence the need for privatization, subcontracting, etc. (Remember, one tendency of neoliberalism is to turn back upon the government, regarding it as a new "market" to be acquired.)

I wonder what Afghan soldiers think of the new uniforms. I would not jump to the conclusion this expenditure was all waste based solely on US judgment of what is appropriate.

[Belsnickel]

(06-21-2017, 04:26 PM)Dill Wrote: Them's small potatoes, Bels.  I know you haven't forgotten that HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS went down the toilet in Iraq.

The fascinating irony about that waste is that so much of it was driven by the complaint that government is inefficient, hence the need for privatization, subcontracting, etc. (Remember, one tendency of neoliberalism is to turn back upon the government, regarding it as a new "market" to be acquired.)

I wonder what Afghan soldiers think of the new uniforms. I would not jump to the conclusion this expenditure was all waste based solely on US judgment of what is appropriate.

Oh, my shock was most definitely facetious. One of the issues with the movement to new public management thanks to neoliberalism is a breakdown in accountability.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

Two words: War Dogs

[NATI BENGALS]

I was there. We wrecked shop. 12 years later we are still didillying around. GTFO. We can teach them to fight. We cant teach them to have nuts.

Such a waste of lives, time, and money.

We need to give up on the nation building. We beat ass. Stick with that. When something comes up that threatens our national defense we should go neutralize the threat. After the quick ass whooping move on and let NATO sort it out.

[Dill]

(06-21-2017, 05:04 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Oh, my shock was most definitely facetious. One of the issues with the movement to new public management thanks to neoliberalism is a breakdown in accountability.

All the more profitable!!

And as the reports come in of "mismanagement," it becomes more fuel for privatization. 

The perfect (vicious) circle!

[ballsofsteel]

They could of used some of that money to buy more medals for the thousands of Generals to proudly wear.

[Dill]

(06-21-2017, 06:39 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I was there. We wrecked shop. 12 years later we are still didillying around. GTFO. We can teach them to fight. We cant teach them to have nuts.

Such a waste of lives, time, and money.

We need to give up on the nation building. We beat ass. Stick with that. When something comes up that threatens our national defense we should go neutralize the threat. After the quick ass whooping move on and let NATO sort it out.

Nati, I am worried what happens if we leave a broken state broken. Whooping ass is feel good for a few months. Then Al Qaeda or ISIS or whomever have their camps back up and running.

Afghanistan is not an example of failed nation building. Rummy had no interest in nation building and turned the country back over to warlords in '02--recreating the situation which produced the Taliban back in the '90s.

Then at a moment when the country needed military control in the East and South, W pulled out half that coverage for deployment in Iraq.  Welcome back Taliban. You too, Hekmatyar!

I think nation building had a decent chance of working in A-stan. E.g., if ISAF or whomever had built a decent highway  linking Herat, Kandahar, Kabul, Kunduz, Mazar i Sharif, and back to Herat, that would have garnered tremendous support from what the US considered important stake holders. Every tribe would have been behind it. Country and city would have immediately benefited.  We are NATO and it was up to us to sort it out.

[xxlt]

(06-21-2017, 03:27 PM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/21/pentagon-blew-28-million-uniforms-afghan-soldiers-report-says/413219001/



Looks like we need to cut food stamps again....

Once again, the OP misses the big picture. Business does everything better than government, except destroy lives. This contract transferred $28 million of businesses capital back to the rightful owners of that money, business. That is justice for all, baby. That is a big win. Suck it big government. Business wins, shareholders win, America wins. USA! USA!