The US and Afghan governments share responsibility for the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and the subsequent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, an interim report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said on Wednesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th May, 2022) The US and Afghan governments share responsibility for the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and the subsequent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, an interim report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said on Wednesday.
"The US approach to reconstructing the ANDSF lacked the political will to dedicate the time and resources necessary to reconstruct an entire security sector in a war-torn and impoverished country," the report said. "After 20 years of training and development, the ANDSF never became a cohesive, substantive force capable of operating on its own. The US and Afghan governments share in the blame."
SIGAR was tasked with determining the factors that led to the ANDSF's collapse, assessing underlying factors that contributed to its lack of capabilities and accounting for US-provided ANDSF equipment where possible, according to the report. A final version of the report will be released in the fall of 2022, SIGAR said on Wednesday via Twitter.
The report found that the ANDSF was unable to operate as an effective, independent force despite 20-years and $90 billion worth of US support. The ANDSF encountered an array of challenges after the drawdown of US forces, from disorganization, to corruption, to lack of logistics capabilities, the report said.
The single most important factor in the ANDSF's collapse in August 2021 was the Trump and Biden administrations' decisions to withdraw US forces and military contractors from Afghanistan, while Afghan forces remained unable to sustain themselves, the report said.
The United States created long-term ANDSF dependencies by designing the force as an image of their US counterparts, according to the report. A reduction in US airstrikes and the fact that the Afghan Air Force was not projected to be self-sufficient until at least 2030 were also contributing factors, the report said.
The report also found that the US ability to track equipment and personnel has become "exponentially harder" after the collapse, with the Taliban now using US-provided equipment for its own training and operations.
The interim report did not provide recommendations. SIGAR will continue to work with the Defense Department to continue support for the evaluation while the final report is assembled, the interim report said.
