Team Biden still sending billions to Afghanistan

FPI / July 25, 2022

A government watchdog group said the Biden administration continues to send billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan and is also preventing an audit of their actions.

There are no assurances the funds are not going to the Taliban terrorists who took charge of Afghanistan when Team Biden surrendered in August of last year, Judicial Watch reported.

Judicial Watch found via the Freedom of Information act that "The U.S. has dropped a ghastly $146 billion on Afghanistan reconstruction in the last two decades and billions more continue to be spent, but the Biden administration is blocking federal auditors from conducting their congressionally mandated job of investigating where the money is going."

Judicial Watch continued: "For months the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has been trying to investigate the abrupt collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, if the State Department is complying with laws and regulations prohibiting the transfer of funds to the Taliban and ongoing humanitarian programs supporting the Afghan people. However, the State Department and its offshoot, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), refuse to cooperate as required by law."

The head of SIGAR, John Sopko, expressed outrage at the State Department’s efforts to obstruct his office’s investigation. In letters to congressional committees, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Sopko reveals that the State Department has blown off more than 20 requests for information from his office in the last eight months.

Judicial Watch noted: "Of greatest concern to the Afghanistan watchdog is the State Department’s refusal to provide basic information for an audit involving efforts to ensure that ongoing programs supporting the people of Afghanistan do not result in the illegal transfer of U.S. taxpayer funds to the Taliban or the Haqqani Network. “The fact that State and USAID would obstruct such oversight work, particularly after the Taliban’s seizure of governmental power in Afghanistan, is unprecedented,” Sopko writes."

Related: Taliban war booty exceeds military spending of Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, December 2, 2021

Sopko wrote: "Given the express prohibition against State and USAID officials preventing SIGAR from conducting its oversight work, it is also illegal," adding that by as the U.S. government continues adding to the billions of dollars that it has already spent in Afghanistan since 2002, U.S. taxpayers deserve objective information concerning where their money is going and to whom it is being given.

Upon surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban, Team Biden decided to leave nearly $85 billion worth of U.S. military equipment behind.

The list of U.S.-supplied and left behind equipment now controlled by Taliban includes:

-2,000 Armored Vehicles Including Humvees and MRAP’s
-75,989 Total Vehicles: FMTV, M35, Ford Rangers, Ford F350, Ford Vans, Toyota Pickups, Armored Security Vehicles etc
-45 UH-60 Blachhawk Helicopters
-50 MD530G Scout Attack Choppers
-ScanEagle Military Drones
-30 Military Version Cessnas
-4 C-130’s
-29 Brazilian made A-29 Super Tocano Ground Attack Aircraft
208+ Aircraft Total
-At least 600,000+ Small arms M16, M249 SAWs, M24 Sniper Systems, 50 Calibers, 1,394 M203 Grenade Launchers, M134 Mini Gun, 20mm Gatling Guns and Ammunition
-61,000 M203 Rounds
-20,040 Grenades
-Howitzers
-Mortars +1,000’s of Rounds
-162,000 pieces of Encrypted Military Communications Gear
-16,000+ Night Vision Goggles
-Newest Technology Night Vision Scopes
-Thermal Scopes and Thermal Mono Googles
-10,000 2.75 inch Air to Ground Rockets
-Reconnaissance Equipment (ISR)
-Laser Aiming Units
-Explosives Ordnance C-4, Semtex, Detonators, Shaped Charges, Thermite, Incendiaries, AP/API/APIT
-2,520 Bombs
-Administration Encrypted Cell Phones and Laptops all operational
-Pallets with Millions of Dollars in US Currency
-Millions of Rounds of Ammunition including but not limited to 20,150,600 rounds of 7.62mm, 9,000,000 rounds of 50.caliber
-Large Stockpile of Plate Carriers and Body Armor
-U.S. Military HIIDE, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment Biometrics
-Heavy Equipment Including Bull Dozers, Backhoes, Dump Trucks, Excavators

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