{"id":662524,"date":"2021-08-19T15:50:24","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T19:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=662524"},"modified":"2021-08-19T15:50:26","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T19:50:26","slug":"biden-and-milley-inflated-afghan-army-numbers-pentagon-report-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-and-milley-inflated-afghan-army-numbers-pentagon-report-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden And Milley Inflated Afghan Army Numbers, Pentagon Report Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-and-milley-inflated-afghan-army-numbers-pentagon-report-shows%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=662524&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1324740221-e1629402430365.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">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.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The report, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sigar.mil\/pdf\/quarterlyreports\/2021-07-30qr.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">released July 31<\/a>, 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. \u201ctrained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong.\u201d <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/19\/biden-military-advisers-leaders-intel-withdrawal-afghanistan-abc-stephanopoulos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: Biden Denies Military Leaders Warned Him Against Quick Withdrawal Date)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">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.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" readability=\"14.338235294118\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Everyone knew \u2014 everyone \u2014 that the Afghan military\/police forces combined did not number 300,000, yet Biden repeatedly tried to falsely claim the Afghan military alone numbered 300,000 \u2014 totally wrong \u2014 &amp; Milley tried to inflate the combined number to 325,000 to 350,000. Insane.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JerryDunleavy\/status\/1428113791242448913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 18, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Milley also got the numbers wrong in testimony before Congress on June 17, though he was far closer than Biden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, the government of Afghanistan is holding and they have approximately about 325,000 to 350,000 person security force \u2014 army and police force,\u201d he said at the time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?512498-1\/defense-department-fiscal-year-2022-budget-request\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the Washington Examiner<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While Milley correctly differentiated between the Afghan military and Afghan police, he inflated the total number by at least 25,000.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" readability=\"11.120943952802\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEW: Milley &amp; Biden misled about size of Afghan forces in past couple months. Milley said Afghans had \u201c325,000 to 350,000 person security force\u2014 army &amp; police\u201d &amp; Biden said there was \u201cAfghan military force of some 300,000.\u201d Demonstrably false.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dcexaminer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DCExaminer<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oP2FTni7KV\">https:\/\/t.co\/oP2FTni7KV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JerryDunleavy\/status\/1428073931123134479?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 18, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy between Biden, Milley and the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>Biden and other White House officials have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/18\/white-house-messaging-afghanistan-rapid-makeover\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">repeatedly insisted<\/a>&nbsp;that the Afghan military was well equipped and sizable enough to fight back against the Taliban effectively.<\/p>\n<p>Biden claimed prior to the U.S. withdrawal that Afghan forces could hold against, or even defeat, the Taliban. The government nevertheless fell in a matter of days, with Taliban forces taking over the capital of Kabul on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan have both argued that Afghan forces simply proved unwilling to mount meaningful resistance to the Taliban. Biden himself argued Monday that the ineffectiveness of the Afghan military was a prime reason the U.S. should cut its losses in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmerican troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cWe spent over a trillion dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}