President Joe Biden and Gen. Mark Milley drastically overstated the size of the Afghan army in recent weeks, claiming it had more than 300,000 soldiers at its disposal when it in fact had less than 200,000, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report.
The report, released July 31, details that the Afghan army had 182,071 soldiers as of April, far lower than the numbers Biden and Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, put forward publicly. Biden said as recently as Monday that the U.S. “trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong.”
Biden was combining the Afghan military and police forces, the latter of which numbered 118,628. Combining the two would have resulted in a total of 300,699 security personnel in April, but the report stipulated that force numbers had decreased significantly between April and its July release.
Milley also got the numbers wrong in testimony before Congress on June 17, though he was far closer than Biden.
“Right now, the government of Afghanistan is holding and they have approximately about 325,000 to 350,000 person security force — army and police force,” he said at the time.
While Milley correctly differentiated between the Afghan military and Afghan police, he inflated the total number by at least 25,000.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy between Biden, Milley and the Pentagon.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.
