Declassified Report Reveals, Afghan Air Forces Wouldn’t Survive US Withdrawal        

US officials were warned that the US withdrawal would endanger the survival of the Afghan Air Force - File Photo

US officials were warned that the US withdrawal would endanger the survival of the Afghan Air Force – File Photo

Washington … News Time

A few months before US President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last year, the US watchdog had warned that the Afghan Air Force would collapse if the United States did not provide aid and training. According to the Associated Press, a report by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko came to light, which was submitted to the Department of Defense in January last year. The report stressed that US officials had been warned that the Afghan Air Force’s survival would be jeopardized after the US withdrawal because it did not have that much capability. The report specifically pointed out that the United States had failed to train Afghan support staff, leaving the Air Force unable to maintain its aircraft without US contractors.

During the 20-year war against the Taliban, US air support was key to the Afghan army. The Taliban easily took control of Afghanistan after the US withdrawal due to the absence of US air force and incompetence in the Afghan air force. The inspector general’s office told the Associated Press that SIGAR reports are seldom classified, but when that happens, the Pentagon releases a declassified version in less than two months. The IG’s office said it did not know why the Department of Defense took more than a year to release the specific report or why it did so five months after the Taliban took power. SIGAR has tracked and documented Washington’s spending and progress in Afghanistan since its inception in 2008, documenting successive reports of corruption within the Afghan military, failures and weaknesses of the Afghan and US leadership. Issued and also made recommendations for improvement of affairs.

During this long war, which lasted from 2001 to 2021, the United States spent more than $.145 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan and about $.1 trillion on its troops, as well as billions of dollars on Afghan troops. Biden announced in April that the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban would lead to the withdrawal of 7,500 NATO troops and the remaining 3,500 US troops, after which the Afghan defense forces began to decline rapidly. The Taliban quickly took over the country and did not even have to fight in many areas, as Afghan soldiers fled because of the Taliban’s fear of non-payment of salaries. When US-backed President Ashraf Ghani fled the capital, Kabul, the Taliban entered Kabul on August 15. By the end of August, the US had completed its evacuation. A few months before the incident, Afghan officials had warned that the air force was unable to fight for its survival without aid, and that military aircraft had been overused and underfunded. Ata Noor Mohammad, a US ally and a well-known fighter in northern Afghanistan, said most of the planes had returned to the ground, could not fly and most of them lacked ammunition.

The latest SIGAR report states that between 2010 and 2019, the United States spent $.8.5 billion on the “support and improvement” of the Afghan Air Force and its elite unit special mission wing, but the report warns. Both are unprepared, and hundreds of U.S. contractors maintaining the fleet have been warned not to be removed. According to the report, NATO and the United States changed their policy regarding the Air Force in 2019 and instead of building it, tried to ensure that it was able to compete for a long time, but Sopko thwarted their efforts. He said that the Afghan Air Force had not been able to get the required personnel to move on the path of independence. He said US and NATO military personnel, as well as US-aided contractors, had focused on training pilots but did not prioritize training for 86 percent of the Afghan Air Force personnel, including its support staff.

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