Pakistan supply routes open, but move gear slowly into Afghanistan

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/us-pakistan-usa-afghanistan-idUSBRE9271CF20130308



Pakistan supply routes open, but move gear slowly into Afghanistan
By Phil Stewart and David Alexander
WASHINGTON | Fri Mar 8, 2013 6:48pm EST

(Reuters) - It is the least expensive way to get food and fuel to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But eight months after Pakistan reopened its ground supply routes for the NATO war effort, hardly any new cargo has taken that path into the landlocked country.

Instead, supplies have been moving almost entirely along far more expensive routes, one of several factors that have prompted senior Pentagon officials to warn that Afghan war costs are higher than projected at a time of increasingly tight budgets.

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Reopening the routes was considered vital to the U.S. war effort. Beyond being cheaper, they are seen as the best way to remove military equipment from Afghanistan as the 11-year-old conflict draws to a close.

Last year, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta estimated the closure of Pakistan's supply routes cost U.S. taxpayers about $100 million more a month for the use of alternatives - either by air or through the NDN, a series of complicated pathways across Europe, Russia, and Central Asia.