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By Adam Kredo

Washington Free Beacon

U.S. officials are warning that wide-ranging deficiencies in an aging 55-mile gas pipeline in Afghanistan could suffer from a catastrophic failure if the United States does not take immediate steps to repair vulnerable areas.

Afghanistans Sheberghan-Mazar pipeline has suffered from years of corrosion, according to government oversight authorities.

Despite an estimated $14 million U.S. reconstruction effort along the pipeline, engineers still have not succeeded in fixing vulnerable areas, according to the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a government oversight body.

While the Pentagons Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) in the war torn country has invested millions to rebuild unsafe areas of the line, the project is not yet complete and TFBSO will soon cease its work in Afghanistan as the United States wraps up operations there, according to a warning letter sent by SIGAR to outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

SIGARs findings highlight larger concerns by many that Afghanistan will rapidly collapsepotentially into violenceas the United States withdraws and hands key responsibilities back to the central government.

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US-built pipeline in Afghanistan heading toward 'catastrophic failure'

Women Rising: Empowering the Women of Pakistan and Afghanistan
Harvard South Asia Institute Gender Seminar Wednesday, November 12, 2014, Harvard University Dan Grant, Deputy Assistant to the Administrator, Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs (Full...

By: HarvardSAI

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Merry Christmas from Afghanistan
Deployed Soldiers of 2nd platoon Angel Company 3-187th INF (101st Airborne) show their Christmas spirit. Song: " All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey. Disclaimer: All soldiers...

By: Dustin Tolbert

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Merry Christmas from Afghanistan - Video

Fort Drum soldiers return from Afghanistan, one proposes to his girlfriend
About 150 Fort Drum soldiers returned Saturday night following about 10 months in Afghanistan. The group represented the final one for the 10th Mountain Division headquarters, along with soldiers...

By: Watertown Daily Times

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Fort Drum soldiers return from Afghanistan, one proposes to his girlfriend - Video

"Time and again, I am running into people from USAID, State and the Pentagon who think they are in Kansas [not Afghanistan]," he said. "My auditors tell me things [about spending plans] and I say, 'you have to be making this up, this is Alice in Wonderland'."

The Nato military operation in Afghanistan, which started shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and which has been spearheaded by the US, will come to a melancholy close at the end of December with the Taliban insurgency still strong, although it does not hold any major cities.

Under current plans, about 10,000 US troops will remain in the country until 2016, although the administration is under growing pressure to extend their presence because of worries about a Taliban resurgence once the US departs.

Since 2001, the government has appropriated $765bn for the war in Afghanistan, the vast bulk for the defence department but also including some spending at the state department.

Read MoreSenate OKs defense policy bill

The money to finance both the Iraq and Afghan wars was borrowed and, according to Ryan Edwards at City University of New York, the US has already paid interest of $260bn on that war debt. Under FT calculations based on funds appropriated, $125bn of those interest costs have been allocated to the Afghan conflict.

On top of that there are medical costs already incurred for soldiers who have left the military. Linda Bilmes, a Harvard economist who has done extensive research on the war costs, estimates that medical spending on veterans from both Iraq and Afghanistan has so far reached $134bn.

However, she said it was impossible to assess how much of that spending was related only to Afghanistan because a third of soldiers served in both conflicts and because medical issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder were usually the cumulative result of a series of events rather than one incident.

More from the FT:'This is not over yet' Costly missteps mark US road to war Cost of the Afghanistan war

The Afghan conflict has led to other increases in public spending that are significant but difficult to isolate. As well as the separate war funding it has received since 2001, the Pentagon's "base" budget, which covers all its other costs, has also seen a dramatic increase, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq one of the main factors.

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Afghan war costs US $1 trillion