US President Donald Trump has demanded that billions of dollars worth of defense technology be returned to Afghanistan after the US pulls out of the country in 2021. He furthermore pressed for the arrest of military officials who had participated in what he termed a fatal return.
” We left billion, tens of billions of dollars ‘ worth of equipment behind. Brand new vehicles”, Trump said during his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. ” You see them show it every year, on their little sidewalks. That’s all top-of-the-line things. I believe we ought to find a lot of that technology back.”
According to a 2022 department of defense report, the Taliban seized the majority of the US military equipment that was left in Afghanistan, which is worth more than$ 7 billion. While US soldiers removed or destroyed significant property during the discharge, aircraft, terrain vehicles, and other weapons were abandoned. According to the Pentagon, the majority of the technology is likely to fail without US repair.
Trump made the remarks as he responded to questions about whether to fire military personnel accountable for the removal. He was clear in his position despite saying he did not determine decisions to defense director Pete Hegseth. ” I’m not going to show this person what to do, but I may say that if I had his place, I’d fire every single one of them, Pete”, he said.
Hegseth confirmed that the department of defense is conducting a comprehensive investigation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and ideas to keep individuals guilty under his command. ” We’re taking a very unique view, certainly, than the previous management”, Hegseth said, pointing to Trump’s election of retired Air Force colonel common John Dan” Razin” Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ” And there will be complete accountability”.
Trump anticipates that the Pentagon’s assessment will result in the dismissal of the majority of the generals involved in the departure, which saw the deaths of British people and US friends, billions of dollars in military equipment, and the deaths of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate outside Hamid Karzai International Airport.
” I don’t notice a big development in that class”, Trump said of the officers involved. ” I think they’re going to be mostly gone. That was a terrible display”.
Previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired army colonel Mark Milley, stated that” the outcome in Afghanistan was the result of several choices from many years of war.” ” Like any complicated phenomena, there was no second causative factor that determined the outcome”.
US Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East, was concerned for the removal.
Trump even called on the Taliban to gain US military technology, claiming that Afghanistan has become “one of the biggest buyers of government equipment in the world”, profiting from abandoned US arms, armour, and equipment.
” I believe they ought to return our tools,” I believe. And I told Pete to examine that”, Trump said.
