The Pentagon did not believe Afghan security forces “would be able to get rid of their dependence on American funding and American support on the battlefield,” was stated in a paper
U.S. commanders had doubted for the past few years the effectiveness of the security forces the U.S. instructors had been training all along to counter the insurgency in the country. The Washington Post publishes excerpts from The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War which are being prepared for the publication.
The Pentagon, it noted, despite public statements to the contrary, did not believe Afghan security forces could break their dependence on American funding and American support on the battlefield. “To think that we could build a military force so quickly and so well was insane,” the paper quoted one already former high-ranking US Defense Department official as saying.
Such fears, The Washington Post continued, were borne out this month when the radical Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation) seized control of the country and took complete control of Kabul. In doing so, according to the newspaper, the surrender of Afghan forces was precipitated by a series of secret deals that the Taliban made with many high-ranking officials of the republic’s government. In recent days and weeks, for example, the Taliban have used a combination of cash, threats and promises to persuade troops to lay down their arms.
Over 20 years, the U.S. has spent more than $85 billion on training, paying salaries and providing weapons to Afghan security forces. The newspaper notes, citing senior U.S. officials, the Pentagon became “a victim of the illusion that it can build from scratch a huge Afghan army and police force numbering 350,000 people, modeled on the centralized command structures” of the U.S. Department of Defense. Although it was clear from the start that Afghanistan would struggle to make the U.S.-designed system work, the paper noted, the Pentagon continued “to spend money on the problem and appoint new generals to find a solution.