US forces left behind more than $7 billion in military equipment during their chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last August, the Pentagon reportedly revealed in a long-awaited accounting of the abandoned gear.
Washington gave Afghan government forces $18.6 billion worth of military equipment from 2005 to 2021, and $7.1 billion of that gear remained in the Central Asian country after the US withdrawal was completed on August 30, CNN cited the Pentagon as saying on Wednesday.
The congressionally mandated report reminded Americans of the losses incurred during the US withdrawal, which also included 13 troop deaths and the abandonment of thousands of American citizens and Afghan allies. Critics of President Joe Biden’s administration decried the Pentagon’s failure to keep US weapons from falling into Taliban hands. “Nobody ever thought such stupidity as this feeble-brained withdrawal was possible,” said former President Donald Trump, who called for sending in troops to retrieve the equipment or bombing the gear to destroy it.