.$400 per gallon fuel in Afghanistan
According to a Pentagon report submitted to the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, a gallon of fuel costs taxpayers about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.
That statistic is one of the reasons cited by the Pentagon to explain why the deployment of each individual soldier in Afghanistan costs U.S. taxpayers $1 million per year. That means a surge of 45,000 troops would cost U.S. taxpayers an additional $45 billion per year.
In an interview with The Hill, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), the chairman of the House
Appropriations Defense panel said, “It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome. When I heard that figure from the Defense Department, we started looking into it.”
That statistic is likely to factor into the debate regarding the deployment of an additional 45,000 troops to Afghanistan.
A large part of the reason for that is logistics. Afghanistan is a landlocked country. Supplies such as fuel have to be shipped to Karachi, Pakistan before they are flown or trucked into Afghanistan. Due to a large insurgent presence along land routes in Afghanistan, the only way for fuel to safely reach U.S. troops in remote bases is for it to be contained in fuel bladders and flown in with helicopters. The helicopters that fly it in consume nearly as much fuel as they can carry on the round trip.
According to a Government Accountability Office report published earlier this year, 44 trucks and 220,000 gallons of fuel were lost due to attacks or other events while delivering fuel to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan in June 2008 alone. Meanwhile, the Marines in Afghanistan reportedly run through some 800,000 gallons of fuel a day.
The logistical cost of supplying our troops in Afghanistan is yet another reason for the new administration to reconsider not only the request for more troops to escalate the war, but also to reconsider the costs verses the benefits of occupying of Afghanistan. Is it really worth it?
Examiner
posted by madtom at 11:11 PM
3 Comments:
Where are the Greentards when you need them? Surely some egghead can come up with some way to turn poppies into diesel. Or coal into jet fuel (they've been doing that since before WWII). If there was ever a time and place to develop biofuels, this is it. Give the farmers an alternative crop to poppies and save us some money.
Hey, they could grow some of that switch grass..good idea /
It would be a great opportunity for the Greentards to show they really believe the globe is at stake. If they really believed that, a few flying bullets wouldn't stop them, would it? The UN could actually DO something other than fly to conferences to sample all the best food, liquor, and whores the world has to offer.
But the 400 dollars per gallon figure is pure bullshit. I see video of Afghanis driving their jalopys and you can bet your ass they don't have to pay 400 dollars per gallon. If logistics is the problem, offer the public 100 per gallon and see what happens. They'll set up a mule train with one gallon jugs from the nearest refinery to the point of sale. At 400 per gallon, a good donkey could earn a 50 grand per trip.
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