Pentagon to track down “ghost soldiers” in Afghanistan

Bobo sends us a link to the Army Times which reports that the Pentagon is finaly going to launch a program to track down “ghost soldiers” – Afghan troops who don’t exist, for some reason or another, yet still get paid by US tax payer dollars;

“(Our forces) now have no option but to rely on the Afghans to report on the number of troops and police in the field, yet audits indicate that record keeping by the Afghans is generally poor or nonexistent,” he said. “We continue to see repeated reports of ghost soldiers, ghost police as well as ghost teachers, ghost schools, ghost clinics throughout Afghanistan.”

Abizaid said she is hopeful the new personnel systems will solve many of those problems. U.S. officials have planned new biometric identification cards for all Afghan Ministry of Defense and National Army personnel. Plans are to start handing out those new IDs this summer.

But she also acknowledged the issue of ghost troops as “a significant problem” that threatens the long-term viability of the local forces.

I’m guessing that few Afghans have “direct deposit”, so it might be easier than they make it sound. I remember standing in line every pay day to collect my check from an officer. A couple of months of that might straighten it all out along with some public trials of officers. The problem, of course, is that they didn’t nip it in the bud when the practice was first discovered years ago and now it’s a way of life for many. Another option is to make them pay for their own defense and jerk the troops out of Afghanistan completely.

Category: Terror War