# The forest camouflage bought for an army in a country that is 2.1 percent forested

SIGAR estimated DoD spent up to 28 million dollars more than needed on Afghan army uniforms in a proprietary forest camouflage, out of roughly 94 million.

Author: J.A. Watte
Published: July 16, 2026
Source: https://jwatte.com/blog/afghan-forest-camouflage-uniforms/

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Between November 2008 and January 2017, the United States bought more than 1.3 million uniforms for the Afghan National Army in a proprietary woodland camouflage pattern. Afghanistan is about 2.1 percent forested. The pattern was chosen, according to a Defense Department email, after the country's defense minister browsed a Canadian company's website and "liked what he saw." No one tested whether a forest scheme actually worked in a country that meteorologists classify as desert.

The uniforms themselves were not the waste. The Afghan army genuinely needed standardized, distinctive kit. The waste, as a federal watchdog laid it out, was narrower and more specific: a proprietary licensing lock and an untested pattern choice that, by the watchdog's estimate, cost American taxpayers up to 28 million dollars more than a comparable non-proprietary uniform would have.

This is one of the cleaner cases in the oversight record, not because the numbers are dramatic but because they are not. There was no theft. The money bought real uniforms that real soldiers wore. The critique is about a procurement decision, and the decision is documented in the government's own paperwork.

## What the report actually found

The governing document is a June 2017 review from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, the independent watchdog Congress created to audit the reconstruction effort. The report number is SIGAR-17-48-SP, and its title states the finding on its face: "Afghan National Army: DOD May Have Spent Up To $28 Million More Than Needed To Procure Camouflage Uniforms That May Be Inappropriate For The Afghan Environment."

Note the hedges built into that title. "May have." "Up to." "May be inappropriate." SIGAR did not claim to have audited a dollar-for-dollar loss. It estimated an avoidable premium and flagged a pattern mismatch, and it was careful about the difference.

Here is the chain of decisions the report reconstructs.

In February 2007, personnel from the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, the U.S.-led body that stood up and equipped Afghan forces, found HyperStealth Biotechnology Corporation's website through internet searches. HyperStealth is a Canadian company founded in 1999 that designs camouflage patterns. A Defense Department email from February 25, 2007, recorded that they "ran across [HyperStealth's] web site and the Minister liked what he saw. He liked the woodland, urban, and temperate patterns." The minister was Afghan Minister of Defense Wardak. By May 2007, the Afghan Ministry of Defense had settled on HyperStealth's "Spec4ce Forest" scheme.

Because that pattern was proprietary, contractors could not simply print it. They had to pay licensing fees to HyperStealth or its authorized licensee. In January 2008, HyperStealth and ADS Tactical, also known as Atlantic Diving Supply, signed an exclusive license agreement for the Spec4ce Forest pattern in the U.S. market.

The pattern was locked into the specification without any formal testing or evaluation of whether it suited Afghanistan's terrain. SIGAR cited World Bank data, accessed in March 2017, putting forest coverage at 2.1 percent of the country's land area, and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which classifies Afghanistan as Desert or Desert Steppe.

## The mismatch and the free alternatives

The point of the 2.1 percent figure is not that Afghanistan has no forest. It has some. The point is that a woodland pattern was made the standard for a national army that operates overwhelmingly in desert and mountain terrain, and that no one checked whether it worked there before committing to it.

SIGAR emphasized that cheaper options were already on the shelf. The U.S. government held rights to multiple non-proprietary camouflage patterns not in use by U.S. forces that the Afghan army could have used at no licensing cost. The Army's Natick research center identified at least twelve such patterns. Natick also estimated that testing a pre-selected pattern for suitability would have cost as little as 156,400 dollars and taken about 22 weeks. That test was never run.

SIGAR further flagged a possible procurement-rules problem. Federal Acquisition Regulation 11.105 governs when an agency may write a brand-name or single-manufacturer requirement into a contract, and it generally requires documented justification. Locking the spec to one company's proprietary pattern without that justification is the kind of thing the rule exists to catch. SIGAR said it would look further at the contracting practices.

## The money, kept in three separate piles

This is where the story is most often mangled, so it is worth slowing down. There are three distinct dollar figures in the SIGAR report, and they measure three different things.

**One: what was actually spent on the uniforms.** DoD spent approximately 93.81 million dollars for 1,364,602 uniforms, where a uniform is defined as one shirt plus one pair of pants, along with 88,010 extra pairs of pants, over the November 2008 to January 2017 window. SIGAR rounds this to "approximately 94 million dollars." This is the total outlay, not the waste. The exact figure in the methodology is 93,807,019 dollars, split between roughly 50.95 million in local acquisition from 2008 to 2011 and roughly 42.85 million through pseudo-foreign-military-sales channels from 2015 to 2017.

**Two: the avoidable premium inside that total.** SIGAR estimated that the proprietary pattern and the costlier uniform design "potentially added between $26.65 million and $28.23 million" to what a comparable non-proprietary uniform would have cost. That is the "up to $28 million more than needed" from the title. It is a slice of the 93.81 million, not a separate 28 million on top of it, and it is not the total. SIGAR derived it by taking the full spend and dividing out a 40 to 43 percent premium, then subtracting. It is explicitly an estimate of avoidable cost, not an audited loss.

**Three: the projected future savings from switching.** Looking forward, SIGAR estimated that moving the Afghan army to a non-proprietary Battle Dress Uniform-style pattern could save U.S. taxpayers between 68.61 million and 72.21 million dollars over the following ten years, measured against a projected ten-year Afghan army uniform spend of about 240.1 million dollars. This projection assumed a 195,000-strong force and 26 percent annual attrition. It is a forward-looking figure, larger than the already-spent premium, and it is a different quantity entirely. (A footnote of precision: the cover letter on page 2 contains a typo listing the top end as 71.21 million, while the conclusion and methodology use 72.21 million. The 72.21 million figure is the corrected one.)

Keep those three straight and the story holds together. Conflate them and it falls apart. The 28 million is the estimated extra cost, not the total; the 72 million is a forecast of savings not yet realised, not money already lost.

## Where the 40 to 43 percent came from

The premium estimate rests on a price comparison. Per unit, the proprietary Afghan National Army uniform cost 79.14 dollars. Comparable non-proprietary uniforms worn by Afghan police-type forces cost far less: 56.65 dollars for one, a 39.7 percent gap; 55.47 dollars for another, 42.7 percent; 55.32 dollars for a third, 43.1 percent. That is the 40 to 43 percent range.

But SIGAR was candid that the gap reflects two things at once, not one. Part of it is the proprietary-pattern licensing fee. The other part is a design change: the Afghan army uniform switched from the simpler Battle Dress Uniform cut to the more complex and more expensive U.S. Army Combat Uniform design, with zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners, and extra pockets. SIGAR did not disclose the exact licensing-fee share because it was deemed procurement-sensitive. This distinction matters, because it is exactly where the pushback landed.

For scale, the report also noted that counting all proprietary Spec4ce items, meaning shirts, pants, field jackets, and caps, DoD spent more than 154.53 million dollars on 4,139,786 items between 2008 and 2016. The 40 to 43 percent premium analysis applies only to the 93.81 million uniforms line, because SIGAR could not obtain comparable non-proprietary specifications for the jackets and caps. The premium does not scale up to the 154 million figure.

## The honest critique

Read at face value, this is a small, avoidable procurement error compounded over nine years.

A national army's camouflage was selected on aesthetic preference, from a website, by someone browsing patterns, with no test of whether the chosen scheme suited the country's actual terrain. The choice locked the government into a proprietary license when it already owned, for free, more than a dozen patterns it could have used. A suitability test that might have surfaced the mismatch would have cost roughly 156,000 dollars, a rounding error against 93.81 million, and it was skipped. SIGAR's estimate is that this bought a 40 to 43 percent premium, worth up to 28 million dollars of avoidable cost, for an army operating mostly in desert and mountains. Left unchanged, SIGAR projected the same choice would forgo another 68.6 to 72.2 million in savings over the next decade.

There is also a process point underneath the money. Under pseudo-foreign-military-sales arrangements, SIGAR noted that Afghan input on the specification was "desirable but not required." The Afghan defense minister's preference explains how the pattern was picked, but it does not shift accountability. The procurement decision, and the responsibility for testing and for the proprietary lock, rested with the U.S. command, not with the Afghan minister who liked the look of it online.

## The honest defense

The counterweight is real and belongs in the record.

First, the underlying need was legitimate. From 2002 to 2007, the Afghan army wore what amounted to a hodgepodge of donated kit. It had adopted a U.S. Woodland Battle Dress Uniform so common across the region that enemy fighters could obtain the same clothing and infiltrate Afghan formations. A unique, hard-to-copy national uniform addressed a documented operational and identity problem. The waste SIGAR identified was the proprietary premium and the untested pattern, not the goal of a distinct uniform.

Second, DoD did not fight the finding. In written comments dated June 15, 2017, the Defense Department concurred with SIGAR's suggestion to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the Afghan army uniform specification, said it was working with DoD components and the Afghan Ministry of Defense on the assessment, and committed to following up on Federal Acquisition Regulation compliance. DoD did not dispute SIGAR's core figures.

Third, the vendor pushed back on the premise, and its argument is worth airing precisely because it turns on a distinction SIGAR itself conceded. HyperStealth, through its founder Guy Cramer, and commentators in the defense-apparel trade argued that the price gap reflected the more complex Army Combat Uniform construction and material specifications rather than the camouflage license, and that the pattern performed adequately. HyperStealth published a rebuttal white paper in December 2017, and the trade outlet Soldier Systems Daily ran a critique of the SIGAR report under the pointed title "$28 Million Well Spent." This is an advocacy position, not neutral analysis, and DoD did not adopt it. But SIGAR did acknowledge that the 40 to 43 percent premium blends the proprietary-pattern cost with the fancier-design cost, which is the exact seam the rebuttal pries at. On the narrow question of how much of the premium is licensing versus tailoring, the public record does not give a clean split, because SIGAR withheld the licensing share as procurement-sensitive.

Both verdicts sit side by side. An inspector general caught an avoidable premium and a terrain mismatch in a sole-source proprietary buy, and recommended a fix. The agency agreed to study it. The money bought usable uniforms for an army that needed them, and reasonable people dispute how much of the extra cost was the pattern versus the cut. That is oversight working roughly as designed, not a scandal of stolen funds.

## Fact-check notes and sources

- The governing source, its title, and its June 20, 2017 date: SIGAR special-projects review [SIGAR-17-48-SP](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf), Office of Special Projects. The report is mirrored on oversight.gov; report number, title, and date are verified in the PDF text.
- Total spend of approximately 93.81 million dollars on 1,364,602 uniforms plus 88,010 extra pairs of pants, November 2008 to January 2017 (the total, not the waste): [SIGAR-17-48-SP, pp. 7, 11](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- The avoidable premium estimated at between 26.65 million and 28.23 million dollars ("up to $28 million more than needed"), derived by dividing out a 40 to 43 percent markup, presented as SIGAR's estimate rather than an audited loss: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, pp. 7, 11, 13 to 14](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- The 40 to 43 percent premium and the per-unit prices (79.14 dollars for the Afghan army uniform versus 56.65, 55.47, and 55.32 dollars), and SIGAR's statement that the gap reflects both the proprietary license and the switch to the Army Combat Uniform design: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, Table 1 p. 12 and Appendix I p. 14](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- Forest coverage of 2.1 percent (World Bank, accessed March 2017) and NOAA's Desert or Desert Steppe classification: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, p. 8](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- The pattern as HyperStealth's "Spec4ce Forest," HyperStealth as a Canada-based firm founded in 1999, the ADS Tactical exclusive license of January 2008, and the February 25, 2007 email recording that Minister Wardak "liked what he saw": [SIGAR-17-48-SP, pp. 4, 6, 8](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- No formal testing was conducted, at least twelve non-proprietary patterns were already available at no licensing cost, and a suitability test would have cost as little as 156,400 dollars over 22 weeks; plus the FAR 11.105 concern: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, pp. 7 to 10](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- The projected ten-year savings of 68.61 million to 72.21 million dollars against a projected 240.1 million dollar spend, and the page 2 cover-letter typo of 71.21 million: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, pp. 2, 13, Appendix I pp. 14 to 15](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- The broader 154.53 million dollar figure for all proprietary Spec4ce items (uniforms, field jackets, caps), which the premium analysis does not cover: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, footnote 24, p. 11](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- DoD's June 15, 2017 written concurrence with the cost-benefit-analysis suggestion, without disputing the core figures: [SIGAR-17-48-SP, Agency Comments p. 13 and Appendix II](https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2020-02/SIGAR-17-48-SP.pdf).
- Reputable secondary confirmation of the 28 million dollar finding and the aesthetic-preference framing: [The Washington Post, June 21, 2017](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/21/afghan-militarys-uniform-choice-has-unnecessarily-cost-u-s-taxpayers-28-million-report-says/) and [NBC News, June 2017](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pentagon-accused-wasting-28m-inappropriate-afghan-soldier-uniforms-n775081).
- The vendor and industry rebuttal, presented as an advocacy counterpoint and not as fact: [Soldier Systems Daily, June 22, 2017](https://soldiersystems.net/2017/06/22/28-million-well-spent-a-critique-of-the-sigar-report-on-afghanistan-national-army-camouflage-uniforms/), plus HyperStealth's December 2017 white paper.

## Related reading

- [The 43 million dollar gas station in Afghanistan](/blog/afghan-43-million-gas-station/): another contested SIGAR figure where the accounting was never fully explained.
- [The G222 aircraft bought for 486 million and scrapped for 32,000 dollars](/blog/afghan-g222-aircraft-scrapped/): a starker example of a reconstruction purchase that could not be sustained.
- [The equipment left behind in Afghanistan](/blog/afghan-equipment-left-behind/): DoD's estimate of U.S.-funded gear that stayed after the 2021 collapse, and why the figure is uncertain.
- [The public-money programs index](/blog/public-money-programs-index/): the full oversight series tracing where public money goes, with the failures and the defenses side by side.

*This post is informational and journalistic, not legal or financial advice. It describes public programs and documented events; mentions of third parties are nominative fair use and no affiliation is implied.*

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