Army Lost Nearly $420M-Worth of Equipment in Afghanistan

By Lee Ferran

The U.S. Army lost nearly half of a billion dollars-worth of equipment in Afghanistan, a new report from the military’s watchdog says.

Late last week the Department of Defense’s Inspector General published the summary of an audit report it conducted for fiscal year 2013 and said that the 401st Army Field Support Brigade “did not report in a timely manner 15,600 pieces of missing equipment valued at approximately $419.5 million.”

The summary did not describe the kind of equipment that went missing, or when, and stated that part of the problem was that the 401st ”did not consider the inventory lost.” The summary did not expand on that and the full report was not posted online. ABC News has requested a copy through the Freedom of Information Act.

The IG’s summary says that there is an “increased risk that missing property will not be recovered… [and] no one was held financially responsible for the property losses or accountable for missed reporting deadlines.”

The IG said the Army “immediately acted” on the IG’s recommendations to resolve inventory reporting and processing problems. “We commend their efforts,” the IG summary says.

A spokesperson for the Army did not immediately return requests for comment for this report.