"No, the Taliban did not seize $83 billion of U.S. weapons."

Says WaPo Fact Checker Glenn Kessler, reacting to this statement by Donald Trump: "ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost." 

Trump rounds the number up from $83 billion, but we've all heard that number, so why does Kessler give Trump 3 Pinocchios for that? I note that Trump calls that the "cost," and it might be a little ambiguous. "Cost" means what we paid, perhaps for everything. It's not the current resale value of whatever physical objects we left behind.

Indeed, Kessler says that the number comes from the report to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and it refers to "all the money spent to train, equip and house the Afghan military and police" — spent over the entire 20 years of the war. We also spent another $36 billion on the Afghan government that melted into nothing. That's a statement of the cost. 

If you break out the cost of the equipment alone, it's something like $24 billion. Much of it was spent on vehicles — 76,000 of them — but that's over the entire period, so many of these are worn out (or destroyed). There were 211 aircraft, but only 167 are still usable (according to the Special Inspector).

But Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command, said that before leaving Kabul airport on Aug. 30, the military “demilitarized” 70 MRAPs, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft. “Those aircraft will never fly again,” he said. “They’ll never be able to be operated by anyone.” (Demilitarized is a term that means damaging in place, sometimes with explosives.) 

[Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said] “In rough terms... if the [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] could not sustain it without foreign contractors, the Taliban will have very serious problems in operating it. That covers most aircraft and many electronics and heavier weapons... The fact that Taliban fighters or cells of fighters get U.S. equipment does not mean it is pooled or shared. Factionalism and hoarding are the rule in Afghanistan, not the exception.”

All of that relates to what the equipment is worth to the Taliban, so it's not an assessment of "cost."  Kessler doesn't acknowledge that he slips from Trump's word, "cost," to the other concept, "value":

The value of these assets is unclear, but if the Taliban is unable to obtain spare parts, it may not be able to maintain them. But the value of the equipment is not more than $80 billion.... The equipment portion of that total is about $24 billion — certainly not small change — but the actual value of the equipment in the Taliban’s hands is probably much less than even that amount.

And then he gives 3 Pinocchios!

But the focus on Trump is a distraction. How much useful equipment did we leave behind? That matters. And so does all the money we spent on the entire war and on the equipment that might have been worth more than the cost of taking it with us as we rushed off. 

We should see all of the facts and judge them accurately, regardless of how Trump puts it. I understand wanting to stop Trump and others from exaggerating for political purposes, but that desire itself is political, and aggressive moves like switching from "cost" to "value" undermine trust in the would-be fact-checkers.