Whoops! Tens of Thousands of US Weapons Missing in Afghanistan

Supply convoys are being raided and confiscated in Pakistan. Weapons make it through though. Tracking them after that has its problems as well.

The Pentagon has failed to track an estimated 87,000 weapons given to Afghan security forces, one-third of the 242,000 shipped by the US government between December 2004 and June 2008, the Government Accountability Office said.

A 46-page report by the GAO, the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress, said there had been no monitoring of a further 135,000 weapons donated by NATO allies to the poorly paid and corruption-rife Afghan army and police.

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The chairman of the House subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs, John Tierney, gave an emotive summary of the problem.

"What if we had to tell families not only why we are in Afghanistan, but why their son or daughter died at the hands of an insurgent using a weapon purchased by US taxpayers?" the Democrat told the hearing.

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Aside from M-16 rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortars, the GAO report found inadequate oversight of 2,410 night-vision goggles issued to the Afghan National Army.