Supplying US forces in Afghanistan is profitable for some

Ben Gilbert's article was posted on August 29, 2010, at http://www.globalpost.com. He updates and provides details on how the US military in Afghanistan is compelled to pay top-prices for the movement of supplies to US forces and bases strewn around the country. Here are some excerpts from Gilbert's report.

In Afghanistan, supplying US military is big business
By Ben Gilbert
August 29, 2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Moving all the things 100,000 troops need to fight and survive in a hostile foreign land is never an easy task. In a landlocked, mountainous country the size of Texas, with few paved roads, it is even harder.

“I don’t think anyone has ever brought in this much equipment to a landlocked country that has only two major airports,” said Col. Gary Sheffer, acting commanding general of the U.S. Military’s Joint Sustainment Command in Afghanistan. “Without the road network, the railroad network, it’s a huge effort.”

....Sheffer and the 5,000 troops under his command are responsible for supplying all American forces in Afghanistan with everything from food and water to bullets and beds.

....Almost 100,000 U.S. troops are now in Afghanistan....

....The dusty central receiving and shipping point at Kandahar Airfield, one of several massive supply yards here, is filled with everything the troops might need: mobile kitchens, bulldozers, transport trucks and thousands of shipping containers stacked in twos and threes. They are filled with radios, tires and everything else imaginable.

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....The military uses planes and helicopters to move much of its “sensitive equipment,” like ammunition and combat vehicles.

....between 6,000 to 8,000 Afghan and Pakistani trucks move 80 percent of the U.S. military’s supplies around Afghanistan each day.

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Many of the supplies must be trucked through dangerous and hostile routes in Afghanistan and Pakistan....

Lt. Col. Beau Eidt, commander of the 4th battalion of the 401st Army Field Support regiment, said the drivers have to brave dangerous roads where they might encounter Taliban, bandits or warlords. Many such characters demand bribes for passage.

“There are a lot of entrepreneurial enterprises between here and the port of Karachi [in Pakistan where many supplies are initially located] that may or may not affect their pocket book on the way up here,” Eidt said. “That’s a nice way of saying that warlords are stripping them. And sometimes warlords wear uniforms.”

Private security companies also play this game. They often charge the U.S.-led NATO force here between $1,500 and $2,000 per truck to provide security to escort convoys.

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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/100825/afghan-war-US-military-supplies