Gotta love our Democratic Lawmakers

Republicans Inflate Cost of Taliban-Seized U.S. Military Equipment
... For those reasons, and others, Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told us, “The figure is statistically rubbish.”

How Much Is Inoperable?

For starters, most of the equipment provided to the Afghans was used in fighting over the last 20 years, and “we junked most of it,” Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told us in a phone interview. “War tends to use stuff up in a hurry.”

Nor should anyone assume the Taliban will have the expertise or wherewithal to operate all of the equipment.

“U.S. military equipment tends to require extensive support from technical specialists,” Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and military analyst at the Lexington Institute, told us via email. “In the absence of such specialists, much of it will run down due to wear and a lack of spare parts.”

“This applies in particular to aircraft, many of which will likely be grounded in short order,” Thompson said. “Vehicles will also tend to wear out fairly quickly because of inadequate maintenance. MRAPs [mine resistant ambush protected vehicles] will be especially hard to keep operating because they consume copious amounts of fuel which will likely be in scarce supply.”

... During a news briefing on Aug. 30, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of U.S. Central Command, said of the equipment at the airport in Kabul, “We brought some of it out, and we demilitarized some of it.” By demilitarized, he means disabled — and likely means key components were blown up. There were reports of explosions at the airport, which Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the joint staff deputy director for regional operations, described as “controlled detonations.”

McKenzie said American forces had “demilitarized” up to 70 MRAPs “that will never be used again by anyone” and 27 Humvees, “that will never be driven again.”

In addition, he said, there were 73 aircraft on the ramp at the Kabul airport.

“Those aircraft will never fly again when we left,” McKenzie said. “They’ll never be able to be operated by anyone. Most of them were non-mission capable, to begin with, but certainly they’ll never be able to be flown again.”