A handful of Pentagon employees lived like kings in Afghanistan and stuck us with the bill
Get ready for a scandal.
A bombshell report has been released by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the military’s top Afghanistan watchdog group, asking the Pentagon to explain how a small handful of officers managed to spend $150 million on private villas and outside security companies from 2009 to 2014.
Whistleblowing members of the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations told the auditors that “no more than 5 to 10” military personnel were housed in the lavish homes at any given time. The operation was formed to foster economic development as part of a greater effort to rebuild Afghanistan, but ended up spending about 20% of its budget on the villas and private security, the report found.
The lavish details of the villas are bound to ruffle feathers in Washington, much as they did last month when the watchdog exposed how the same task force managed to spend $43 million building a single gas station in the country.
From the report:
Triple Canopy [a private vendor] provided TFBSO personnel with queen size beds in certain rooms, a flat screen TV in each room that was 27 inches or larger, a DVD player in each room, a mini refrigerator in each room, and an “investor villa” that had “upgraded furniture” and “western-style hotel accommodations.” In terms of food, Triple Canopy was required to provide service that was “at least 3 stars,” with each meal containing at least two entrée choices and three side order choices, as well as three course meals for “Special Events.”
The officers who lived in the homes did so rather than staying on military bases, which is the usual protocol. “If TFBSO employees had instead lived at DOD facilities in Afghanistan, where housing, security, and food service are routinely provided at little or no extra charge to DOD organizations, it appears the taxpayers would have saved tens of millions of dollars,” the report found.