Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks served in Afghanistan for two years prior to being elected to Congress.
He says that the Taliban has access to more Black Hawk helicopters than 85 percent of the countries around the world.
In addition, he says they control:
- 75,000 military vehicles
- over 200 airplanes and helicopters
- over 600,000 small arms and light weapons
- a number of other items like night vision goggles, body armor and medical supplies
All courtesy of US taxpayers.
At a press conference earlier this week, Rep. Banks said:
"I want to read to you what is so painful for me and so many other Afghan veterans who served in that capacity, others who served as a part of the train, advise, and assist, equip effort in helping the Afghans. We now know that due to the negligence of this administration, the Taliban now has access to over $85 billion worth of American military equipment.
That includes 75,000 vehicles, over 200 airplanes and helicopters. Over 600,000 small arms and light weapons. The Taliban now has more Black Hawk helicopters than 85% of the countries in the world, but they don't just have weapons.
They also have night vision goggles, body armor, medical supplies, and unbelievably, unfathomable to me and so many others, is that the Taliban now has biometric devices which have the fingerprints, eye scans, and the biographical information of the Afghans who helped us over the last 20 years, and here's what we just learned again in the briefing that we just walked out of.
This administration still has no plan to get this military equipment or these supplies back. Instead, it’s all fallen into the hands of the Taliban. There's still no plan to account for what has happened to these weapons.
I can tell you with ranking member Rogers behind me that HASC Republicans will fight next week when we go through the national defense authorization markup to fight for a plan. If this administration, the Democrats aren’t going to do it, we will do it. We will demand a plan to account for all of this military equipment.
Here's what I'm concerned about even more than the Taliban acquiring these weapons. It’s that we know that Al Qaeda and ISIS-K still exist and are growing in Afghanistan, and eventually, they acquire these weapons and as I said before, if any American is harmed or killed and not safely evacuated or if any of this military equipment or weapons are used to harm or kill an American, the blood is directly on Joe Biden's hands.
What’s also painfully clear from the briefing that we just walked out of is that behind closed doors, the Biden team tells us one thing. They admit mistakes. They know this is a dangerous situation going on in Afghanistan, and President Biden tells us something different. He tells us that everything is okay. That it’s under control. So either Joe Biden is lying to us or he’s not in touch with the team that just briefed us in the room, and that’s a shame as well."