“Ghost” soldiers were nonexistent troops or personnel manufactured by corrupt officials to pocket their salary.
The Taliban easily took over major cities before marching into Kabul in August, often without much of a fight.
Payenda also said that when soldiers were killed or deserted their commanders would keep their bank cards and withdraw their salaries.
Biden in a July 8 press conference said the Afghan military was as “well-equipped as any army in the world.”
Biden placed much of the blame on the Afghan military, though he’d expressed “trust” in it just weeks before.
The Afghan military was plagued by corruption and discipline issues for years, and the US government was warned about the problem.
The US made an effort to scrub “ghost” soldiers from its payroll, but issues with the Afghan military persisted. »