These Afghan Army Uniforms Cost American Taxpayers $28 Million ‘in the Name of Fashion’

The Pentagon is under fire for spending nearly $28 million procuring camouflage uniforms for the Afghan army, gear suited for environments so rare they account for just 2 percent of Afghanistan’s countryside, according to a new watchdog report.

The Defense Department organization overseeing efforts to train and equip Afghan forces supervised selection and design of the new proprietary woodland camouflage pattern without proper testing and assessment, according to the report published Wednesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

For years, Afghan conventional forces and elite commandos have fielded the U.S. Army’s woodland pattern utility uniforms. In 2007, the Afghan Defense Ministry embarked on a quest to design new uniforms to counter efforts by the Taliban and militants battling government forces to counterfeit the clothing.

The new uniform was designed in similar fashion to the current uniform worn by the U.S. Army, called the Army Combat Uniform, but at a much higher cost, the inspector general determined.

According to the report, the HyperStealth’s Spec4ce Forest camouflage pattern was chosen by the then-Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak — because he liked what he saw while browsing a website. (Read more from “These Afghan Army Uniforms Cost American Taxpayers $28 Million ‘in the Name of Fashion'” HERE)

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