The Department of Defense approved the funds for the huge facility — even though generals on the ground deemed it unnecessary, a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction shows.
This is a $36 million facility built at Camp Leatherneck, a military base in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
The 64,000-square-foot facility, named 64k, was designed to accommodate the United States military's troop surge in the region that would last from March until September 2011.
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
But the facility was never occupied, according to a report released Wednesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The inspector found "$36 million in U.S. taxpayer funds was spent on a building the U.S. never used."
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
The U.S. Army Central, a unit within the Army, requested the funds for the expansion of the already existing military base in January 2010, according to SIGAR's investigation.
Denying these funds, the Army warned, would be problematic because "the additional forces provided will not have a facility to provide command and control of ground forces and aircraft."
A month later, when the Department of the Army formally submitted the request to Congress, it stressed an "immediate operational need" for the building, SIGAR found.
But on May 19, while the request was under consideration in Congress, former Major General Richard Mills sent an informal letter to the deputy commanding general of the U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
Mills had reviewed Camp Leatherneck's budget at the time, and found that the $36 million building and five other proposed projects were "not necessary" because "the need was already met via other means."
Two similar memos requesting the cancellation of the facility were sent on June 22 and 26 by different generals, SIGAR found. Both memos said that need for the space was met through other projects.
Still, in July, the funds were approved. And in August, former Major General Peter M. Vangjel formally rejected the requests to cancel the construction of the 64k building, arguing that choosing not to follow through on a project that had already been approved and funded would not be "prudent," SIGAR found.
SIGAR, citing Army emails, said in its report that military officials knew all along that 64k was unnecessary, but continued to support its construction with plans to use the funds for other projects. Five days after Congress passed the law allocating them money for 64k, one general for U.S. Army Central wrote his desire to "ensure we time this award to support other operational requirements" and asked his colleague to "move it to the bottom of the pile."
SIGAR
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1JZkI8w
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