Sources say, billions of dollars of U.S. equipment is being abandoned in Afghanistan while less then five percent of Kurdish fighters can afford helmets might be a “two birds with one stone” opportunity here.
According to Nolan Peterson of Blue Force Tracker, The U.S. military has two problems that one complementary solution can solve. 1. The Kurdish Peshmerga army is in desperate need of military equipment to fight back ISIS. 2. The U.S. military has so much excess equipment in Afghanistan that it is breaking down multi-million dollar airplanes and million dollar-plus armored personnel carriers into scrap metal.
ISIS fighters now control a piece of territory the size of California across Iraq and Syria and are threatening to seize total control of Anbar Province, the border of which is only 25 miles from Baghdad. They are also poised to take the Syrian town Kobani, raising concerns about a civilian massacre and potential spillover violence in bordering Turkey.
While the Kurds’ 150,000-soldier-strong Peshmerga army is roughly four to five times the size of ISIS, they are woefully underequipped and outgunned by ISIS fighters who, despite more than 6 months of U.S. and coalition airstrikes, are still on the offense.
Yet the Iraqi government continues to stonewall the transfer of weapons and equipment to the Kurds. And the U.S. hasn’t been much more helpful.
So far the U.S. has supplied the Kurds with some AK-47s, fewer than 100 mortars and a few hundred rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). This type of support is reminiscent of the U.S. supplying the Ukrainian army with meals ready-to-eat as they stared down a combined regular Russia army/rebel invasion—but I digress.
Despite their precarious logistical situation, the Kurds may be the last, best option to prevent using U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan
The U.S. military is turning its armored personnel carriers and airplanes into scrap metal and the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have misplaced hundreds of thousands of U.S. weapons.
Nolan also adds, while stationed in Afghanistan last December as a war correspondent, he walked by seemingly endless rows of abandoned Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, known as MRAPs, and other trucks and equipment destined for Afghanistan’s scrap yards.
At a cost of $1 million each, the ugly tan beasts known as MRAPS have saved countless lives and absorbed or deflected thousands of insurgent bomb blasts in teeming cities, desert flats and rutted mountain roadways. The lumbering vehicles are so beloved that soldiers have scrawled notes of thanks on their armor.
Much of the equipment destined for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) would be more useful for U.S. strategic interests in the hands of Kurds.
According to a July 2014 report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), 747,000 weapons given to the ANSF (including rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers) have gone missing and could end up in Taliban hands. The report added that Afghanistan’s military received 83,000 more AK-47s than they needed in 2013 alone.
As the U.S. seem to get closer to ground war in Iraq, the Kurds are our last option to stay out. We have to give them every advantage, even if that ruffles a few feathers in Baghdad, Ankara or Kabul.
Sources include: Blue Force Tracker / Los Angeles Times / SIGAR
