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Guard lost track of $600M in equipment

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- The Army National Guard has lost track of nearly $600 million worth of equipment sent to Iraq, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The equipment, including radios and trucks, were left overseas for other units to use when they arrived, because National Guard units have been chronically short of equipment for both the Afghan and Iraq wars, the report states.

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A total of 64,000 items worth $1.2 billion have been left overseas since 2001. The Army can not account for about half of it and has no plans or budget to replace them, which is required by Defense Department policy, according to the GAO report.

The equipment was drawn from the stores of National Guard units that were not deploying in support of either the Iraq or Afghan wars. Consequently, non-deployed units are missing two-thirds of their equipment, which hampers their ability to prepare for future missions and to conduct domestic operations, like disaster relief.

Nearly a third of all U.S. troops in Iraq are from the reserve component, most of them National Guard. Some 70,000 National Guard troops are now deployed on federal missions.

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Equipment and funding shortages are not all that plagues the National Guard. The service has been struggling with recruiting for a year. It ended the 2005 fiscal year 20 percent below its recruiting target, or short about 10,000 recruits.

Part of the problem is that the National Guard traditionally draws its numbers from the active duty - soldiers who want to retire but not give up their association with the military entirely. However, because of the Guard's heavy use in Iraq, active duty soldiers know if they join the National Guard they are likely headed to another combat tour. If they want to do that, they generally opt to remain on active duty with their established units and accrue time toward their retirement.

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