WASHINGTON - After six years and $16.5 billion, the Pentagon is falling short in its effort to train and equip Afghanistan's army and police forces to replace American and allied troops, according to a scathing new government report released yesterday.
Only two of the 105 Afghan army units are capable of performing their primary mission, the Government Accountability Office reported. It said the Afghan army and police are short of small-unit leaders and suffer from critical shortages of vehicles, weapons and radios.
The GAO, the investigations arm of Congress, said the Defense Department lacks a detailed strategy for dealing with these and other problems, one that sets benchmarks and deadlines for specific goals. Without such detailed plans, the GAO said, it is impossible to allocate funds for specific objectives and to plan to sustain the improvements
Last year, after prodding by the GAO to come up with a detailed training strategy, the Defense Department produced a five-page document which the GAO yesterday called inadequate. It said the plan "lacks sufficient detail for effective interagency planning and oversight."
The GAO pointed out that even though the Pentagon and State Department are partners in the police training program, the State Department did not participate in crafting the plan and has no plan of its own for coordinating its work with the military.
The Pentagon is responsible for organizing, training and equipping the army and police, while the State Department provides civilian contractors who teach criminal investigation, physical fitness and weapons and survival skills.
More than 40 other nations contribute to the training program, increasing the need for close planning and coordination, the GAO said.
The Defense Department, in a letter to the GAO, said it disagreed with the report's conclusions and insisted that its plans are adequate. The State Department gave no response.
Pentagon spokesmen did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment yesterday.
This week, Afghan forces have been sent into the fight north of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, where Taliban-led insurgents staged a prison break-out a week ago and launched a new offensive.
Details of the fighting are sketchy, but Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco, senior spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan, told Radio Free Afghanistan yesterday that "the Afghans are in the lead" and supported by coalition troops whose nationalities he did not specify.
