Criminal probe is launched over ‘forest’ uniforms

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. oversight official in Afghanistan said Tuesday he has launched a criminal probe into why the Pentagon may have wasted up to $28 million on pricey forest-camouflage uniforms for Afghan troops who operate in a largely desert environment.

“This procurement demonstrates what happens when people in the government don’t follow the rules,” John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), told a House Armed Services subcommittee Tuesday. “These problems are serious. They are so serious that we started a criminal investigation related to the procurement of the (Afghan National Army) uniforms.”

‘About … common sense’

According to the special IG, the military bought more expensive, proprietary “woodland patterns” for the Afghan National Army uniforms instead of using the Defense Department’s own patterns for free, even though only 2.1 percent of the country’s total land area is covered with forest.

“This is about reason and common sense,” Sopko told McClatchy after the hearing. “It’s not fair to the taxpayer and it’s not fair to the poor Afghan walking around with a target on his back that says ‘shoot me.’”

The withering 17-page report released by his office has become an outlet for military leaders, government watchdogs and lawmakers to vent about everything from government waste to accountability and larger issues in the ongoing, expensive 16-year war.

Although the Pentagon often pushes back on the special inspector general’s reports, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis took the unusual step of condemning the bureaucracy of his Defense Department for such “cavalier” spending.

No formal assessment

The IG’s report implied that the U.S. command acquired the designs for the dark green uniforms from a private contractor based on a whim from the Afghan defense ministry. Overall, the Pentagon spent about $94 million from 2008 to 2017 to buy 1.3 million uniforms and 88,010 extra pairs of pants in the proprietary camouflage for Afghan troops, according to the special inspector general. Some of the uniforms’ other features — including zippers instead of buttons, hook and loop fasteners and additional pockets — made them more difficult and expensive to produce.

There was never a formal assessment, and as a result “neither DOD nor the Afghan government knows whether the (Afghan National Army) uniform is appropriate to the Afghan environment, or whether it actually hinders their operations by providing a more clearly visible target to the enemy,” the review states.

Changing the uniforms used by Afghan troops “could save U.S. taxpayers between $68.61 million and $72.21 million over the next 10 years,” SIGAR says.