They will pay more than $1 billion over the next five years to take care of Afghan National Army vehicles, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in a new report.

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John F. Sopko’s investigators also discovered that payments to the contractor for repairs skyrocketed to $51,395 per vehicle last year from $1,889 in 2011. That’s because under the contract, the federal government was required to pay based on the total number of vehicles in the fleet, not the number that were repaired.

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“The shortcomings of DOD’s oversight of contractor performance were so significant in the case of this contract,” the watchdog wrote, “that, if not addressed in connection with future maintenance contracts, they could undermine any further efforts to develop the Afghan military’s fleet maintenance and supply chain management capabilities.”

Investigators also cited the contractor’s “failure … to meet its most basic contract requirements and program objectives” and the Defense Department’s inaction to correct the problems as a “waste of U.S. taxpayer funds,” but concluded that a new maintenance contract had to be put in place to help the Afghan military’s counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban.

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The Pentagon contracted in 2010 with AISS, a joint venture between a Dubai-based logistics company and a technical services and support services firm, for five years for a fixed price of $182 million. As part of the United States’ reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, the contract was designed to teach the Afghans to maintain their fleet themselves.

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But things soon went off track, largely because of poor oversight of the contractor. For part of the time, Taliban-related security concerns sidelined some U.S. staff from being on site.

But that doesn’t explain the failures, the inspector general said. For example, the U.S. military assumed that the Afghan army would be able to provide spare parts when needed, which turned out not to be the case. And the United States underestimated the Afghans’ level of training for high-level maintenance tasks — even though it had been clear for years that they were not equipped for the job.

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The Defense Department also lacked a rigorous set of expectations to measure the contractor’s performance.

AISS was cited 113 times for contract violations and was warned that it could lose the contract. But the Pentagon did not follow through on the threat, investigators said.

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The U.S. government also did not seek repayment from AISS for what the report called “inadequate or nonexistent” service.

These and other problems have left the Afghan military vulnerable and ill-prepared in its fight against the Taliban.

The report said Defense Department officials should consider the challenges the Afghans face in maintaining their fleet and do more to measure the contractor’s performance.