Advantageous Scrap Sale
"We work closely with the Afghan National Security Forces to determine what equipment they need, if it is in good condition, and ensure they are capable of maintaining it."
"Iraq had a higher number of military and police personnel, and they had a more developed infrastructure at the end of operations to support the equipment."
Col. Jane Crichton, public affairs, U.S. forces in Afghanistan
"We oppose the destruction of any of the equipment and hardware that can be of use by the Afghan security forces."
Deputy presidential spokesman Fayeq Wahedi
In
this Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013 photo, Afghans load pieces of a destroyed
U.S military armored vehicle into their vehicle at a junk yard in
Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. The U.S. military is turning vehicles
and other equipment into scrap before selling to Afghan traders. (AP
Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
And even though Afghan President Hamid Karzai has "repeatedly" requested of U.S. officials that its military equipment not be destroyed or removed from Afghanistan when the American combat troops leave, the policy is that most of the equipment left behind is to be functionally destroyed, its scrap sold for whatever it can bring, and that alone has turned out to be millions, handed over to the U.S. from those willing to take possession of the scrap in any condition.
Fears that anything left behind could fall into Taliban hands and then used for the manufacture of bombs has motivated U.S. officials to their agenda of trashing all equipment not destined to be returned to the U.S. The United States spent an estimated $33-billion in equipment during the eleven years it was stationed in Afghanistan. It has gifted Afghanistan with $64-million-worth of intact equipment.
In this Saturday, Nov 2, 2013
photo, an Afghan scrap dealer checks to see if a head light bought as
junk from the US military is functional a a yard in Kandahar, southern
Afghanistan. — Photo by AP
Angry Afghans resent the policy of trashing everything. They point out that even furniture and appliances are being turned into trash, whereas if they were given it in usable condition it would improve their lives. "They use everything while they are here, and then they give it to us after breaking it", junk dealer Mohammed Qasim in Kandahar complained, gesturing at the frame of a gutted generator.
Mounds of metal, steel, industrial rubber and every conceivable type of re-usable material sit on a vast field; what's left of armoured vehicles, trucks, blast walls protecting troops from suicide bombers; including black treads from tanks, air conditioners, exercise machines, office machines; everything crushed and dumped into shipping containers piled one over the other in a vast junkyard.
It has taken a year for the U.S. to transform equipment and vehicles into 176 million kilograms of scrap, sold to Afghan junk dealers for $46.5-million. It represented items too used for repair, or simply not valuable enough to warrant the expense of freighting it back to the United States. An estimated 50,000 vehicles, many strengthened to mine-resistant qualifications will be shipped back to the U.S.
This
Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013 photo shows Afghan scrap collectors transport a
load of destroyed U.S. equipment from the departing military in
Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. As the final withdrawal of U.S. and NATO
troops approaches at the end of 2014, the U.S. military is getting rid
of equipment that is either too expensive to ship back to the United
States or if it is sold as working equipment could be used by
insurgents. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
Ethnic Pashtuns grumble, at a junkyard a kilometres from the Kandahar Air Base, at the scrap left for them, hugely preferring to take possession of working equipment. But, emphasized Mimi Schirmacher, spokeswoman for the Defence Logistics Agency in Virgina, seemingly innocuous equipment; a treadmill, a stationary bike, a household appliance, have timers or copper writing usable for roadside bombs.
Those improvised explosive devices that the Taliban has become so skilled at putting together and burying to surprise NATO troops with their destructive, maiming, killing power.
Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Controversy, Munitions, NATO, Taliban, United States
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