The Biden administration, under fire for a whole long list of actions in pulling service members out of Afghanistan, now apparently is trying to hide from U.S. voters how much military weaponry it turned over to the terrorists in Taliban when that group took over.
A report in Forbes said Biden administration officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training given to Afghan security forces who fled.
“The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles,” the report explained.
Also listed had been “208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles – including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers.”
There was no danger of the terrorists finding out what is there; they have the items in various staging locations throughout Afghanistan.
But, the report said, “The State Department admitted to removing the reports but justified the move as a way to protect Afghan allies.”
A spokesman said, “The safety of our Afghan contacts is of utmost importance to us. The State Department advised other federal agencies of to [sic] review their web properties for content that highlights cooperation/participation between an Afghan citizen and the USG or a USG partner and remove from public view if it poses a security risk.”
Warned the report, “It’s worth noting that the Biden administration already put these partners at risk when officials provided lists of Afghan nationals to the Taliban in a misguided attempt to clear them for evacuation. The Taliban, a known terrorist organization with a history of murdering Afghan citizens working alongside U.S. forces, should never have been trusted with those names.”
However, OpenTheBooks.com reposted an audit of military gear from 2017, and the site reposted an audit of $174 million in lost ScanEagle drones from 2020.
The report noted, “U.S. taxpayers paid for these audits and the U.S.-provided equipment, and citizens should be able to follow the money and hold the Biden administration accountable.”
It continued, “Again, to reiterate, these reports do not include recipient information, and the Taliban already likely controls the war chest in question.”
Via Wnd